The Most Horribly Overrated Albums... Ever

[vigil]

BZA...is broadcast a club, venue, festival, cd, or what?
i think it was around that time that i saw spaceman passing cd's to his guitarist to spin at a club in san francisco...the setlist sounds familiar...when he played jimmy scott, i asked him "who's singing?" and when i heard a man's name i thought he heard wrong...i asked him like 3 times, i just didn't get it cuz i thought it was a woman singing...anyway, at the end of the night, he flagged me down and handed me the cd...i was blown away!!! homeboy sang so beautiful, and full of opium, i mean soul...i play the cd often, as a matter of fact, i wonder if he expected it back! well, cheers to jason cuz i kept it...also, he played a piece, sounded like a mad clarinet playing and repeating like 3 notes over and over...somebody told me it was "springheel jack" or something...i still don't know how to find it...can you help me?
paz.

[ursa]

he called you an asshole?
thats classic...
i will give him props for sticking to the music more than most.
nothin bugs me more than music reviews that tell me nothin about the music,what it sounds like,tempos or any specifics regarding what one should expect.
but i still think he always sounded like a bitter old coot dismissing everything because he didnt come up with it...
im probably wrong in that assumption,but thats the vibe i always got.
i always thought ritchie unterberger(?) was a fair,unbiassed and passionate journalist

[The Sprawl]

SPRAWL - I enjoyed reading your post. The power of Gorecki is that you never need to know anything about the music at all....but something about it is ABSOLUTELY heart rending.

'Symphony no. 3 - Sorrowful Songs' - no shit. If you really want to hear music that will level you...that's the one. The NAXOS version listed above with Zofia Kilanowicz on soprano is generally available... usually budget.

If you are reading this and haven't heard it, get it at all costs - I mean it.

All I will say is that it leaves something like 'Broken heart' sounding like a minor quibble...

Like you say , "Monumental".

===============================================

The Symphony No. 3 CD was the first Gorecki I ever heard - a relative was playing it, and I think it was the first track, Sostenuto Tranquillo Ma Cantabile. You can barely hear it for the first few minutes but it swells and swells until it becomes this force of nature, and the singer's voice turns at the exact point when the orchestra is reaching its peak...If that doesn't raise the hairs on your neck I don't know what will.

It's just extraordinary music - as though all the death, all the time spent stagnating under Communism, all the people with absolutely fucking horrible stories to tell, have unloaded on this one voice and asked her to sing it all away. There's so much power in those first three songs they almost blew my windows out. I played it to my mother once, who left Czechoslovakia, and her family, just as Communism was taking over, and she told me to turn it off. She couldn't listen to it.

You're right, in comparison it makes Broken Heart sound like an argument about putting the toilet seat down.

[runaway]

(note to self: must find some Gorecki...)

[BzaInSpace]

BZA...is broadcast a club, venue, festival, cd, or what?
i think it was around that time that i saw spaceman passing cd's to his guitarist to spin at a club in san francisco...the setlist sounds familiar...when he played jimmy scott, i asked him "who's singing?" and when i heard a man's name i thought he heard wrong...i asked him like 3 times, i just didn't get it cuz i thought it was a woman singing...anyway, at the end of the night, he flagged me down and handed me the cd...i was blown away!!! homeboy sang so beautiful, and full of opium, i mean soul...i play the cd often, as a matter of fact, i wonder if he expected it back! well, cheers to jason cuz i kept it...also, he played a piece, sounded like a mad clarinet playing and repeating like 3 notes over and over...somebody told me it was "springheel jack" or something...i still don't know how to find it...can you help me?
paz.

Alright Paz, those tunes were played on (UKs) Radio 1 'Breezeblock' show with Mary Anne Hobbes - she also had Spiritualized playing live in 1998 doing the immortal 'I am what I am'.

I think she digs JP and his record selection, he's appeared three times now, and the set above was repeated a couple of times - it won the accolade of 'best session' or something.

For those who heard them, myself included...let's just say they were educational.

Jimmy Scott - was the album you got 'The Source'? That's a stone cold classic.

Jimmy's singing also appeared in 'Twin Peaks' - his is a tragic story in many ways, the reason his voice is the way it is was due to a medical condition (no puberty...). Ray Charles helped him on the way up, but record company bullshit froze him out - for years.

I remember reading he played somewhere in London last year - Madonna was raving about it at the time.

Spring Heel Jack - check out almost anything they have done - especially the last couple of albums. You may or may not know that Spaceman appears all over 'Amassed' (Thirsty Ear) with jazz improv musicians of note - he also is on 'Live' (Blue Series) - I love that record.

[Back to Radio 1 - i remember SHJ playing live for the breezeblock a few years back - with a 'mystery guest on space guitar'...]

I haven't seen a lot of feedback on SHJ on these boards - I hope the drum n' bass/jazz tags aren't putting a lot of people off, those guys are amazing producers IMO...and while the music is not immediately accessable, it is a trip in itself.

They also make a lot of bands/musicians who operate in the left-field, improv electro-acoustic stylee seem like fucking half hearted amateurs.

No names. They know who they are.

Thanks...BzaInSoul

[twentysixdollars]

Gorecki (pronounced "Gretzky") is marvelous, I'll admit, one of the century's finest composers in terms of sheer emotional heft. Of the neoclassicists he is the finest and no. 3 is devastating. Ditto the more or less contemporaneous "pieces in the Olden Style".

i will give him props for sticking to the music more than most.

I would occasionally fault him for excessive attention to lyrics, but he never went to the ridiculous extremes of some RS writers of the time (dig the vintage review of Van's Wavelength, 1978. Not a great record, but I'll be damned if that review gives you even the slightest clue what it sounds like.)

but i still think he always sounded like a bitter old coot dismissing everything because he didnt come up with it...

I always found him playful and indulgent, and that's part of what led me to seek him out.

i always thought ritchie unterberger(?) was a fair,unbiassed and passionate journalist

Now there's an asshole. Certainly the most pompous, self-righteous music writer I've ever met. His books are all good ones though, as much as it pains me to admit.

[vigil]

thanks $26...more info than i expected...but does the repeating psycho clarinet sound familiar?...i guess i'll have to just find and listen to as much spring heel jack as i can...what's been done can be done again even better..if your luck...okay, nonsense trigger is on...well, well, well, come down easy

thanks a bunch kid!


paz.

by the way, "paz" means peace in spanish, not my name in the game

smell you later!

[BzaInSpace]

PAZ - you cheeky bastard!

I am not 26$.

(i am not a number.... i am a free man)

Go and get 'Masses', 'Amassed' and 'Busy Curious Thirsty'...you'll probably find the track on there. Fucked up clarinets...plenty.

PAZ

[ursa]

hey,thanks for the personel insights man!
thats a shame that ritchie is the pompus asshole and bob is not the sourpuss i thought he would be,just goes to show i guess

[sunny]

when he played jimmy scott, i asked him "who's singing?" and when i heard a man's name i thought he heard wrong...i asked him like 3 times, i just didn't get it cuz i thought it was a woman singing...anyway, at the end of the night, he flagged me down and handed me the cd...i was blown away!!! homeboy sang so beautiful, and full of opium, i mean soul...i play the cd often, as a matter of fact, i wonder if he expected it back! well, cheers to jason cuz i kept it...
paz.

Cool!
Jason gave me a Dirtbombs CD in a similar situation.

I love Jimmy Scotts voice!!! First time I heard him was at the Nick Cave Meltdown Festival. Mr Scott was supporting someone (can't remember who, could have been Nick Cave) and all my friends walked out when he came on. I stayed glued to my seat having one of the most emotional and memorable moments of my life.

[Starfish]

i bought Gorecki's Symphony No3 today on the recommendations of this board (and hearing a clip on the Breezeblock session) and it's fucking awesome.

4.99 from Virgin

incidentally, I got the new Death In Vegas album "Satan's Circus" handed to me today and (so far) it seems like a return to form after the lazy
guest-vocalist-for-kudos spell they went through. A bit like Kraftwerk, Tubeway Army and Trojan dub (as I say, so far). There's also a live CD with it from their Brixton gig last year.
They're touring...
Dublin Ambassador Oct 12
Glasgae Arches Oct 13
Liverpool Academy Oct 14
London Fabric Oct 15
Nottingham The Bomb Oct 16

[BzaInSpace]

Agreed Starfish.

It's kinda minimal isn't it?

And there dosen't seem to be ANY vocals!

'Hardcore' - I bet this sounds good loud as hell in a dingy club...

[sly saxon]

"...so Harry says, "Pretentious?! Moi?" Haaaaaahaahaaahahaha."

[runaway]

Back to Overrated Albums (even though $26 has informed us that it's theoretically impossible to "overrate" an album or some such nonsense...):

Everything U2 released after Boy.


I dare you to defy me on that one!

[BzaInSpace]

OK then.

Everything U2 released.

[man]

i think boy's a brilliant album (heard the electric co. lately? out of control?), and pop and zooropa are probably underrated. that said, i don't think they're very good at that. unforgettable fire is good too, likely neither under nor overrated? the rest.. uh...

[a beautiful noise]

never really a fan at all of them, though i am dying to hear the song 'party girl' again. used to play that with a band back in high school.


xxxshonnnxxx

[BzaInSpace]

Yes. It's all SHITE.

Bono - saviour of the universe.

Nice to see him at The (New) Labour Party conference...comparing B & B to Lennon & McCartney - for fuck's sake.

[Like Lennon jumping into bed with mad, warmongering 'religous' bastards]

WHY are the most popular bands in the world usually the WORST?

U2 should never release another note of music ever again, but I imagine they'll still be making albums when the cockroaches have taken over.

FUCK OFF. FOREVER

[runaway]

Boy is good, but then again so is Crocodiles.

I will never forgive Brian Eno for his involvement in that pathetic dog and pony show!

[vigil]

sorry BZA

"it doesn't matter" (the way the chemical brothers do it)

paz.

what's a "cheeky" bastard? my brains thinking of unpleasant images