Sunday, December 28, 2014

Year End List: Top 10 Albums I Discovered/ Rediscovered This Year



So I always see top 10 lists of people's favorite albums of the year, but I thought I'd change that up a bit (in addition to doing a list like that later), and talk about some albums that didn't come out this year, but that I just heard for the first time this year, or rediscovered in my library and that was played a whole lot this year. I'll do it in alphabetical order this time, but I will try to play favorites on the top 10 albums list of the year coming later.

The Allman Brothers Band- Eat A Peach (1972)
I recently got this album on vinyl for the first time, and rediscovered how amazing the Allman Brothers Band was. It was interesting for me to hear the fade outs on 'Mountain Jam' for the first time, having been used to the CD version. If you're down for some jamtastic southern rock, look no further than this record or their other live record At Fillmore East. The instrumental work and how together the band is on some of these jams is astounding and extremely memorable.






Miles Davis- Sketches of Spain (1960)
I really got into Miles Davis this year, but the record I kept going back to was this one, which I also purchased on vinyl a few months ago. It's really interesting how Miles Davis was just able to bend Spanish classical music to his will and mix it so easily into his sound. The orchestration by Gil Evans is amzing as always, and this record has some of Miles' most passionate horn playing on record. I was thinking about putting some of Miles' 10 inch LPs from the Record Store Day Black Friday box set here, but I haven't listened to them nearly as much as this.







Michael Gira- The Body Lovers/ The Body Haters (2005)

Michael Gira can always manage to leave me completely unsettled, even on an instrumental album. Only on the second track of this double album, I knew I'd be listening to this for a long time. It is the darkest ambient there can possibly be. The crying woman laid over some sparse instrumentation was one of the creepiest things I'll ever hear, and yet for some reason I kept coming back. Michael Gira is infinitely fascinating, and the fact that none of his projects sound the same really gives one the opportunity to hear the full scope of the disturbing content he has to offer.







King Crimson- In The Court of the Crimson King (1969)
I rediscovered this album in a big way this year. I was always a fan of '21st Century Schizoid Man', in which the unison passage still amaze me, but I really got into the song 'I Talk To The Wind' this year. Something about its atmosphere, vocal blending and melody was very comforting, and I found it very difficult to get out of my head. The entire record is pure gold, and there are few who will argue with that, but sometimes you can listen to something one thousand times, but then that thousand and first time will show you great new things about a great record.







Manic Street Preachers- The Holy Bible (1994)

"The Holy Bible" in capital letters in black print with "Manic Street Preachers" in capital letters below, smaller, at the top of the image in front of a white background. In the middle of the image is a rectangular triptych painting of an obese woman in her underwear – the first image capturing her from the right side, the next image from front on and the last capturing her from the left side. Below this, at the bottom of the page in front of a white background are the track titles listed from one to thirteen.
Richey Edwards was an amazing lyricist, and this album was his crowning achievement. The Manics never really made it over here in the states, and that is a shame, because their oeuvre is vast and extremely interesting. I was actually first turned on to them this year, and this album is by far my favorite from them, mostly due to the extremely dark subject matter that Edwards touches on here. The band went Britpop after this, most likely due to the disappearance of Edwards before the completion of their next record. I am really interested to know what their next record would have sounded like had Edwards not disappeared. "Nine Inch Nails meets Pantera meets Scremadelica" sounds pretty interesting to me.



Pat Martino- Joyous Lake (1976)

In a book I read earlier in the year, it listed Pat Martino as one of music's most underrated guitarists. It also outlined his brain tumor and his subsequent surgery to remove it, after which he forgot how to play and relearned how to play guitar. This sounded very interesting to me, so I checked out a few of his records and I was floored. I was able to pick up this record and Starbright, and both records are great. I prefer his  jazzfusion stuff to some of his earlier material, which is more rooted in bop. The book is not wrong. Martino was and is (he's still recording and touring) an amazing and unique guitarist, whose work is as complex as it is brilliant.




Maximum the Hormone- Bu-ikikaesu (2007)

I've never really been a metalhead, but I can definitely vibe with this. Maximum the Hormone is a Japanese alternative metal band that mixes a lot of flavors into its sound, including metalcore, rap, funk, and J pop. This changes in sound happen so seamlessly, and you'd think that blending genres this divers would be a daunting task, but they make it seem so easy. I honestly have no idea what they're singing about, but maybe that's part of its charm for me. If you're a fan of metal, Japanese music, or are interested in some really genre bending music, this is definitely worth a listen.





Armand Schaubroeck Steals- A Lot of People Would Like to See Armand Schaubroeck... Dead (1972)



Before moving to Pittsburgh, I took one last look through my father's record collection and found this gem. The pet project of a nearby town's record store owner, this album (a triple album debut), is the weirdest thing I think anyone will ever hear. Imagine if Lou Reed, Iggy Pop,and Frank Zappa were thrown in a blender and the result sang blues rock or did spoken word vignettes about prison. This whole album is one long story arc of the main character's incarceration in maximum security prison, based on Armand Schaubroeck's own stay in Elmira for a long string of robberies in his youth. I honestly hope the material was only lightly based on those experiences, for his own sake (you'll get it if you listen, or even look at his paintings in the gatefold). This began my quest to track down everyone of his records, and he just released a single this Record Store Day for his upcoming album, his first since 1978. Really excited to see how his warped mind follows up his other records.


Sigur Rós- Von (1997)


I have some massive gaps in my musical knowledge and freely admit it. The first experience I had with this Icelandic post rock outfit happened this year, and began oddly enough from some dialogue about their Hopelandic imaginary language in an old episode of Portlandia. Needless to say, I checked them out, as I was intrigued, and loved what I heard. The band had not developed Hopelandic by this point, but I think I like this record the most. It has some creepy atmospheres, along with some beautiful textures and soundscapes, along with some great falsetto singing and melodies. This is another one of those records where I have no idea what is being said, but I really don't need to know. The beauty speaks for itself.



The Smashing Pumpkins- Siamese Dream [Deluxe Edition] (2011)


It took my a while to get my hands on the remaster of the album, but it is one of my favorite albums, so I knew it was only a matter of time (the remaster of Mellon Collie will probably be on this list years from now once I can afford its hefty price tag). There's not much I can say about this album that has not already been said. It is one of the best albums of the '90s, and its guitar sound, lyrical content, and mood have been a massive influence on my life. I really got into the songs 'Quiet' and 'Soma' this year, and the many bonus tracks that come with the reissue are actually worth listening to, unlike the tracks that are attached to a lot of reissues these days. If you have not heard this album in any form yet, that needs to change.

So, those are some albums I got into this year. I'll be posting my top ten favorite albums of the year, as well as a list of my anticipated albums later in the week.

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