Album 998 - Tong Sungs

I've never knowingly listen to anything described (on Wikipedia, admittedly) as "Freak Folk". It sounds like a bunch of folk musicians should come to a village fete wearing Scream masks. I'm not sure it's as dramatic as that though.

The Animal Collective are an experimental rock group and this album (Tong Sungs) from 2004 certainly does sound experimental.
We both thought the techniques they've used are interesting, with layers of vocals and different sounds, it's initially difficult to listen to but once I got over the unfamiliar sounds and textures it settled into a sort of soothing strangeness.
Until the end, when it got a bit too weird again and made my brain tired.

Rating: 4/10

Standout song: College

Will we buy it: No

Album 999 - this Cake isn't a lie

I always meant to listen to Cake, they were one of those bands hovering on the edge of the music I knew and listened to. Never did. But their 1996 album Fashion Nugget was number 999 so I finally got around to it.

I think the album has that slight deliberate weird maybe not quite in tune thing that Pavement do so well. Also they sound like Beck, with a nice alternative 90s style.

What really made us take notice were their two unexpected cover songs - I Will Survive and Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps. I love good, slightly sarcastic sounding covers by artists you'd never expect to do a good job on the song.

Rating: 6/10

Standout song: The covers I mentioned

Will we buy it: Yep

Starting at the end: Album number 1000

And so we begin, with the best of intentions to avoid skipping any songs or albums (This lasts ages. Honest.) with the exception of Greatest Hits compilations or live albums which Spencer and I have decided don't count. We subscribe to Napster and Spotify so finding and streaming even the more obscure artists should be simple.

Each album will get marks out of 10 and this is not at all objective. It's decided based on what we both like, our mood that day and our varying ability to tolerate whining/screaming/whinging/rapping/jazz/country singers/angst and yodelling. (Note to self: Should you ever release an album, call it Angst & Yodelling)
If there's a song that stands out to us, I'll mention it. We're also deciding if we like the albums enough to buy them.

 Album 1000 on the list is Big Star - Radio City.

A quick internet search tells me that Big Star influenced many as a band with cult status. I haven't heard of them before but considering this album was released in 1974 it sounds remarkably fresh.
I think it sounds like modern retro indie band stuff rather than genuine old stuff.



Nothing that epic in itself but a timeless quality.

Notable lyric: "we're going to get on up/and drink till we drop." Cool.

Rating: 5/10

Standout song: I'm In Love With A Girl

Will we buy it: Maybe

Chemo Motivated Musical Extravaganza

Ok. Here's a project that might mean my blog gets used more than once a year.
Long story short:

1. Spencer and I were engaged
2. This was awesome
3. Spencer had back pain
4. This sucked a bit
   
5. Spencer went for MRI scan and found out he had cancer
6. This sucked like nothing else
   
7. We got married
8. This was awesome like nothing else
   
9. Spencer started chemotherapy and I'm taking care of him (and working as much as I can around this).

Due to the chemo side effects, Spencer has struggled to find things he can manage to do, as he notes here:

I have 64.92 days remaining until my last dose of Chemotherapy, and officially I'm just about to finish week 5/15. What I've discovered during the last few weeks is that fatigue, for me at least, is by far the worse thing about chemo and has generally meant most days are spent on the sofa listening to music and not being able to handle much else (including moving for anything which at it's worse requires 15mins of psyching up beforehand). The constant fuzzy headed feeling makes concentrating on books or any work, or laptop in general also quite a task and there is only so much TV one can watch.

Spencer decided an entertaining way to help pass the time could be to listen to as much different music as possible, given it's the one thing he can generally manage even on fairly bad days. Plus it's a minimal effort thing we can do together, and togetherness is what marriage is all about. (right? I'm new at this - no one shatter my illusions!)

Being the King of Internet Research About Gadgets and Things, Spencer determined the best place to start was besteveralbums.com with only a small amount of help from me. The site lists the top 1000 albums of all time determined by their aggregate positions in over 2,500 different greatest album charts. Neither of us necessarily agree on the chart, but who ever agrees with these things?

It's a musical journey which should broaden our horizons, or possibly make us realise we are terribly narrow minded when it comes to music.