Album Of The Day Thread

[wordsfromlee]

It's not a trip to Hay-On-Wye with out going to Tom's Records and flicking through his trove of jazz and world music.

I picked up this 70's Ethiopian jazz-funk album today.

 

[The Gaffer]

Best mashup/mixtape ever I think. It takes some doing to have so many legendary tracks from other people on there, and spin it with such personality and abrasion that it still comes off like a Prodigy/Howlett product. Then again you can swing that the opposite way and this is pretty much a smorgasbord of where all their sounds and samples came from/were influenced by: 

 

[SuperBacon]

Massive Attack - Blue Lines

A flawless album. 

[Carbomb]

Suzanne Vega - Solitude Standing

 

 

Absolutely adore this album; always pulls me right back to the nicer memories of my childhood. A little ironic, given what Luka's about.

[I Bent My Wookie]

So I've jumped on the hype train for The Last Dinner Party. It's something that absolutely should not appeal at all to me but I bloody love it. 

I can't even begin to explain why I love their sound so much, it's not anthemic in a sense but it is something that just builds layers on layers throughout.

It felt better to put it in here than the rock thread, because while there's elements to it, the whole album release feels like an event or a movie within itself, that it stands alone as a singular entity. 

https://open.spotify.com/album/1ycq58KRtWt3wFtbuIkvLn

Edited February 3, 2024 by I Bent My Wookie

[wordsfromlee]

Theres something about The Last Dinner Party really doesn't sit right with me. They claim they're not nepo babies or industry plants, and the band reached their heights through word-of-mouth etc but yet they managed to sign to Qprime (a gigantic management company), a major label record deal and support The Rolling Stones at Hyde Park, all before ever recording or releasing a single song.

I get that it's probably just that they ticked all the right boxes and were in the exact right place at the exact right time, but it all seems a bit too perfect.

[SuperBacon]

33 minutes ago, wordsfromlee said:

Theres something about The Last Dinner Party really doesn't sit right with me. They claim they're not nepo babies or industry plants, and the band reached their heights through word-of-mouth etc but yet they managed to sign to Qprime (a gigantic management company), a major label record deal and support The Rolling Stones at Hyde Park, all before ever recording or releasing a single song.

I get that it's probably just that they ticked all the right boxes and were in the exact right place at the exact right time, but it all seems a bit too perfect.

Saw this directed at them last week by some "culture" writer on Twitter, and whilst the music is not for me (14yo likes it though) I read this and thought the accusations, which were quite baseless, were really unfair as its clear they've gigged hard and relentlessly.

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/may/05/the-guide-the-last-dinner-party-music

Of course a slot on a festival with the Stones and IIRC Lana Del Rey helps and is mental without an album, but I remember in 2001 The Strokes being bumped up to main stage at Reading off one 3 track EP, and they definitely weren't, erm, industry plants ?

I don't particularly care whether a band is an industry plant or whatever, I'm too old to care anymore, but it doesn't seem impossible that they got signed to a massive deal and placed in those positions based off their potential. 

A  musician son of a family friend is currently being thrown absolutely mental deals and gigs his way, and he's never released anything and I can promise you he is not a plant. It happens.

Also we are forgetting the most important thing here and clearly why they've blown up, and that's this endorsement. 

After their music was played on an episode of the BBC's Football Focus, Garth Crooks cited the band as potential future stars, stating in his weekly Team of the Week column that "these fine young women are making really exciting pop music. Lovely Stuff".

 

[wordsfromlee]

I just find it mad that their tenth ever gig was the Shepherds Bush Empire and they only had 8 songs. I find is strange that they could draw enough people for a venue that big with the only way anyone could have ever heard them was if they had gone to one of the previous nine gigs they'd done as they'd never released a single song. Half the people at the gig must have been there purely based on the hype and buzz.

Imagine supporting the Rolling Stones on your 13th ever gig as a band.

[SuperBacon]

No you're right it is mad, but to use The Strokes again, I was desperate to see them at Reading in 2001 and if I recall, I'd probably only heard 3 songs on The Modern Age EP, and they were everywhere. The album came out a month later I think. 

Similar to when I saw Slipknot in 99 at The Astoria, I know the album was out, but I don't think I'd actually heard more than 2 or 3 songs but the hype meant I had to be there.

I suppose it happens. Right place, right time mostly. 

[wordsfromlee]

12 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

Similar to when I saw Slipknot in 99 at The Astoria, I know the album was out, but I don't think I'd actually heard more than 2 or 3 songs but the hype meant I had to be there.

Weird you mention that as this popped up on my YouTube algorithm earlier this week

 

[Keith Houchen]

The Strokes were all rich kids of very well connected parents weren’t they? The singers dad founded the top model agency in the US and the guitarists dad was a prolific songwriter for decades, so it’s no wonder why the press hyped them up so much. That first EP was brilliant though and deserved all the exposure. 
 

But yeah, I’ve been sus about TLDP for ages. They clearly had people working for them. 
 

I can’t remember who it was aimed at but my favourite nepo baby attack was against someone, possibly yer man from The Coral, who only got famous because his dad owned one of the largest used car companies in the north west. 

[Ulf ist Gut]

55 minutes ago, wordsfromlee said:

I just find it mad that their tenth ever gig was the Shepherds Bush Empire and they only had 8 songs. I find is strange that they could draw enough people for a venue that big with the only way anyone could have ever heard them was if they had gone to one of the previous nine gigs they'd done as they'd never released a single song. Half the people at the gig must have been there purely based on the hype and buzz.

Imagine supporting the Rolling Stones on your 13th ever gig as a band.

I get what you mean - while it's not necessarily a new thing as SuperBacon points out, it seems to be something that's happening more and more nowadays where a band really blows up with minimal actual music or gig experience under their belts. I guess social media culture helps this cycle where people want to jump on something ASAP to say they were there from the beginning like people have done since with being at early Sex Pistols gigs or Spike Island for the Stone Roses or being all over...Dancefloor when the Arctic Monkeys released it but on steroids with people being less fussed about the quality of the music and more about collecting boasts/cred/whatever buzzword the kids are using nowadays.

I don't mind what i've heard of The Last Dinner Party as a whole - Nothing Matters was a decent single, the next one was a bit cack in comparison and then the rest has been middling to fair. It's a nice change from all the post-punk knock offs currently floating about. 

[SuperBacon]

51 minutes ago, wordsfromlee said:

Weird you mention that as this popped up on my YouTube algorithm earlier this week

 

Whack it on a tape!

[Keith Houchen]

Our Native Daughters - Songs Of Our Native Daughters. Not just a bunch of songs, but more a history book about slavery and colonialism told from the perspective of black women, by black women. 
 

The music is minstrel / folk so there’s loads of banjo. An absolutely brilliant album which, despite being a fan of Allison Russell, and The Carolina Chocolate Drops, I’ve only recently got into this. 

[Sergio Mendacious]

D.C. La Rue's career was stopped dead by the death of disco, but this is a (strange) cracker.