Purple Rain, Prince

It's Finally-Got-Around-to-It-Friday! Wherein I discover a classic that everyone else already knows about.

Purple Rain, Prince, 1984, :43

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Yeah, I know, it's the greatest album of all time, it's Prince, I'm an uncultured Philistine, etc. etc.  But this just isn't my thing.  I mean, the chorus of "When Doves Cry" is sublime; but the extended synth coda and yowling at the end is irritating.  And nearly nine minutes of "Purple Rain?"  Too much.  He's a musical phenomenon, Prince is, but this is all just so... Eighties.  Favorite tracks: "Let's Go Crazy," "Take Me With You."

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....And now, having done this every day since July 29, I'm going to take a break from the album a day.  That album-per-year theme really took it out of me.  Also, Covid, responsibilities, end of democracy, and so forth.

Time Bomb High School, Reigning Sound

Time Bomb High School, Reigning Sound, 2002, :37

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Terrific garage punk by a band I've never heard of.  They open with a garage-rock cover of "Stormy Weather" and make it sound like their own, and you know this is something special.  They're rebuilding the British Invasion for the modern era, all superb energy, ragged Jagger-like vocals, and crackling guitars.  Favorite tracks: "Stormy Weather," "Brown Paper Sack" (another cover), "Time Bomb High School."

Hang, Foxygen

It’s What-the-Hell-is-This-Wednesday! Wherein I listen to something I know absolutely nothing about. 

Hang, Foxygen, 2017, :32 

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ 

Grandiose baroque pop with '70s glam rock and Philly soul influences worn on its sleeve in giant glittery rhinestones. Luckily, although the songs themselves are chamber-pop epics full of pomp and theatrics, the album itself is not overlong. Too much of this would get old to me; in "Mrs Adams" and the chorus of "Rise Up," the singer is belting his best Mick Jagger.  And there's also some Bowie in there.  A blender of soul and Bowie and T.Rex is fun, sure, but a little goes a long way.  I prefer the Real Heroes for this kind of material, but they're long-gone.  Favorite tracks: "Upon a Hill," "Avalon."

In Sickness & In Flames, the Front Bottoms

It’s T’Newsday! Wherein I listen to an album less than six months old.

In Sickness & In Flames, the Front Bottoms, August 21 2020, :52
 

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Folk-punk, or rather folk-emo band. Sounds like nothing so much as an acoustic Say Anything. And a little like Defiance, Ohio. I like the angry strumming and shouted choruses and the earnest heart-on-their-sleeve vocals. The lyrics are rather trite but they fit the material, somehow. Not profound, but strongly felt, let's say; not everything needs to be poetic. If I have a cavil about this album it's that it seems overloaded. At a generous 52 minutes over 12 songs, many of them 4 or 5 minutes, and every song an epic, with several ending with these ten- or fifteen-second long muttered spoken word codas… and it just gets to be a bit much.  As I say, though, that's a minor grouse.  Favorite tracks: "Fairbanks, Alaska," "Love At First Sight," "Camouflage."