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| Gertrude (left) and Irma (right) announce Best Album award, yesterday. |
At the end of every year here on th' IoF©, we ax the Elderly Lesbians to choose their favorite album releases! It's been a swell year for music, so they'll have a bunch to talk about! Gertrude [left - Ed.] and Irma [right - Ed.] spoke yesterday from the Sisters Of Discipline Home For Sapphic Seniors ("Putting the sex into sexagenarian!™").
Gertrude (reading with difficulty from card before dropping it): Well, Irm, what a ... a great ... ear? Year. For music it's - oh heavens.
Irma: Year? What year?
Gertrude: This year, I guess. Last year.
Irma: I like that one girl. You know - her. Fat. One name.
Gertrude: Madonna?
Irma: Yeah. No. The other one.
Gertrude: Did Madonna make an album this year?
Irma: (fanning away fart) Who knows? What's her name now.
Gertrude: I would've given Madonna one. I would. Up the ass.
Irma: Begins with an L. No ... an A.
Gertrude: Enya?
Irma: Body-surf that bitch.
(long silence)
Gertrude: Did we get lunch yet?
Irma: Wanna eat out? (both collapse into incontinent giggles)
If youse bums can remember any of this years' albums you deem merit-worthy, list in comment!
Mainstream Me votes for:
ReplyDeleteBarn - Neil Young. Never thought I'd love another Neil album again after [YOUR CHOICE HERE], all those years ago. And it's hard to say why this one works where all the other don't, but it does.
Me Playin' Me Tunes On Me Piano - Brian Wilson. He plays from memory - no charts - and overdubs subtly, and the production is stunning. It's not the sitting-inside-the-piano digital clarity everybody was expecting (and most wanted, to read the reviews), but what it would sound like with Brian in your living room. Reflective, happy/sad, and the Pied Piper theme sounds like Debussy.
Both these albums, very different, are the sound of old men coming to terms with life, to some kind of resolution through music. And they're both beautiful.
Got to agree about Barn - Neil Young, only listened a couple of times but the album really works. I think the shorter song lengths helps.
DeleteI'll get back to you with an album list later, after my morning walk.
The lack of straggle is a real plus. When was the last time you heard a Neil song that ended too soon? Just a little bit? It's one of the aspects that makes you hit the play again button. The songs have variety, too - it's not all the usual burro plod. Love the album.
DeleteBarn was the greatest blink and you'll miss it yet....says Agatha Magness Von Hornblower. I apparently, as usual, missed the link.
ReplyDeleteIf you still don't have it, 5GW - https://workupload.com/file/pcVbNhsTdtp
DeleteI'll go for Susanna Hoofs' latest platter, Bright Lights. A sublime collection of cover versions.
ReplyDeleteOk, I'm jet-lagged, and have been doing "Edibles" (5mg Raspberry Sativa gummies) with my eldest daughter, so I know, I'm forgetting one or two.
ReplyDeleteBe that as it may...
Best New Music:
Archie Shepp and Jason Moran - Let My People Go
Bill Charlap Trio - Street of Dreams
Esperanza Spalding - Songwrights Apothecary Lab
Kurt Elling – SuperBlue
Chick Corea Akoustic Band – LIVE
The Black Keys - Delta Kream
Best "Newly Discovered", and my favorite of 2021:
John Coltrane - A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle
Best New, But Old:
Charles Mingus – Mingus At Carnegie Hall Deluxe Edition
Bob Dylan - The Bootleg Series Vol. 16: Springtime in New York (1980-1985)
Grateful Dead – Dave's Picks, Volume 38 (Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Uniondale, NY • 9/8/73)
Babs phones in her vote from Tar World Resort n' Spa, La Brea, where she's on the entertainment bill for the Elks Club Christmas Convention.
DeleteNew album: Cleaners From Venus (Martin Newell) - "Penny Novelettes".
ReplyDeleteNew Old album: John Mayall - "The First Generation" - massive 35 CD box of 60s albums and live shows.
Ok, here's a few
ReplyDeleteDesertion trio - Numbers Maker
Fu Manchu - A Look Back Dogtown & Z-boys
John Dwyer - Witch Egg
Possum - Lunar Gardens
Body MeTTA - The Work is Slow
Aquaserge - The Possibility of a New Work for Aquaserge
Kuunatic - Gate of Kluna
For archival releases -
King Tubby's Hometown Hi-Fi Dubplate Specials 1975-1979
Ennio Morricone - Itinerary of a Genius
Duke Ellington - Spotlight on Duke Ellington
Thank you for these recommendations. Grooving to the Desertion Trio now!
DeleteHot damn that Body Meπa album is SO good.
DeleteGlad you like! Thanks for the comment. Desertion Trio (listed first) my favorite of the year.
Deletewhat a cruel question for music lovers.
ReplyDeleteTaking my cue from Babs I will expand my choices into stuff that is new to me.
ReplyDelete1. New Releases this year:
Err, it'll have to be Barn, which It looks like is the only new album I've liked. I'll also shoehorn in Elvis Costello Look Now, although I see it was actually released in 2018, oops, but I heard it first in 2021. Have always been a big EC fan since the 1977 Stiffs Live Stiffs tour, but had not kept up with him in recent years. This cd is excellent and I must keep him in mind again.
2. Stuff bought over the years at car boot sales and charity shops but only got round to this year:
Rory Gallagher 1st
Rory Gallagher Deuce
Planxty 1st
Plainsong Emelia Aerhart
3. Stuff never got round to exploring over the years but thanks to the wonders of Foam Island and elsewhere I now get a chance:
Bobbie Gentry
Mike Nesmith
The Go-Betweens
Amazing Rythmn Aces
Byrds
Steely Dan Can't Buy A Thrill - yes, I'm warming to it, I guess some of the more "understated" tracks just need a few more listens for me to "get" them.
Dunno re the best, but this tragically seems one of the
ReplyDeleteworst!
Off Topic - If anyone is interested the first 18 episodes of the Monkees TV series is available at Old Melodies Blog (available for 6 more days).
ReplyDeleteThanks Bambi, that'll be good viewing over Christmas. On a related note, here's an interesting short film from 1974 of Bert Jansch and Mike Nesmith during the recording of LA Turnaround, not sure if all you lot have seen it before.....
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYM6FofqDbg
Nice Bert Jansch and Mike Nesmith footage, thanks Noblemon.
DeleteThank'ee! New to me. Bert's LA recordings are somewhere on th' IoF©.
Deletewatched ''Head'' for Mike last evening
DeleteBest New Music
ReplyDeleteOsees - The Chapel, SF 10.2.19 (2021) - a live album recorded in 2019
Rose City Band - Earth Trip (2021) - not quite as good as their previous release Summerlong - anyone who likes Neil Young should like Rose City Band
Best Old Music Reissue
Be-Bop Deluxe - Live! in the Air Age from 1977
Favourite Oldie
Dzyan - Mandala, from 1972 - sometimes I listen to this and think it's the best thing ever, on other days I can't get into it at all.
The Unthanks - Mount the air from 2014ish ok it's not really an oldie but it helped through the last 2 years.
Mac Gayden - Skyboat from 1976.
And also numerous albums, some that I really like that the 4or5 guys have recommended or made linkable. I've still got a dozen or so I'm yet to hear. Thanks Y'all.
That's the mega Be Bop Deluxe set, yes?
DeleteFabulous, isn't it?
Also the Drastic Plastic box was very good.
What an amazing band - and Bill Nelson is still going strong.
Yes, I bought the elpee back in 1977, and I always loved that original. The massive expanded version is more than I need, so I've made a version with the missing songs spliced in.
DeleteI've always struggled to like Drastic Plastic, however The Red Noise album is an underrated classic imho.
Aargh, you've just sent me vack to my vinyls (as I never call them) to find that yes I did buy Sunburst Finish from a charity shop about 10 years ago and I aint ever played it. Another one for the winged carrot methinks.
Delete"sent me vack to my vinyls" - Noblemon, are you practicing for a Christmas Panto as Dracula?
DeleteAnyway sharpen up your stylus and play that Sunburst Finish, it's a fine elpee. I haven't found any decent vinyl in the charity shops round here for ages.
No the days of picking up decent lps for £1 seem long gone. The last one I bought in a rash moment two months ago was Dave Greenslade Pentateuch of the Cosmology and I paid £14 -not sure why I bothered its not really my thing, although Greenslade (the band) definitely were my thing. Anyway the cash went to charity I suppose so mustn't grumble.
DeleteHa, I had Pentateuch of the Cosmology, thought it had to be good what with the lovely illustrations. But musically it was lame. Sold it.
DeleteKing Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard L.W.
ReplyDeleteGodspeed You! Black Emperor G d's Pee at State's End!
Gov't Mule Heavy Load Blues
FiresignTheatre Live at the Mushroom
Moonalice Time has come today
Too Many and not any to mention.
ReplyDeletejohn
How about just the one, then, John!
DeleteI have a few
ReplyDeleteHedvig Mollestad - Tempest Revisited - good & loud
John Taylor - Angel Of The Presence (Deluxe Edition) good & clever
Portico Quartet - Monument likewise
Dion - Stomping Ground predictable but good
NRBQ - Dragnet just the job
Damon Albarn - The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows not sure about this but interesting
Pokey Lafarge - In The Blossom of Their Shade much more rocky than previous but tuneful
Kacey Musgraves - star-crossed surprisingly good
The Flatlanders - Treasure of Love just what you'd expect and none the worse for that
Greentea Peng - MAN MADE Lomdon today, good n odd
Richard Thompson - Serpents Tears & Live from London - always worth an earful
Vijay Iyer, Linda May Han Oh, Tyshawn Sorey - Uneasy - loud and clever
Anyone want any?
You could drop Kacey Musgraves into omy lap ... please!
DeleteSix songs I love from albums released this year:
ReplyDeleteValerie June "Call Me A Fool" - https://youtu.be/j-R7hN6bZZ8
Flock Of Dimes "Walking" - https://youtu.be/ZSxsM8ZJiYQ
Pete Donnelly "Palpitations" -
https://petedonnellymusic.bandcamp.com/track/palpitations-2
Pardoner "Bunny's Taxi" - https://youtu.be/aKOc36ZVaNc
TV Priest "Slideshow" - https://youtu.be/-Mo4AmqkRrI
Tropical Fuck Storm "G.A.F.F." - https://youtu.be/akqQCtM2QLc
To be honest, this year's Tropical Fuck Storm album wasn't as good as the last two Tropical Fuck Storm albums, but I think we can all agree that they set the bar pretty high for themselves.
I like to think that you won't find a comment like "To be honest, this year's Tropical Fuck Storm album wasn't as good as the last two Tropical Fuck Storm albums, but I think we can all agree that they set the bar pretty high for themselves" anywhere but here, but I'm probably wrong. A comment worthy of chiseling into the IoF©'s Marble Slab O' Comments, alongside cowculator's reversible cowboys mindfuckery.
DeleteLeave us not forget Five Guns West and his "endlessly fucking emus" in the pantheon of "comments what got F-bombs in them".
DeleteYour kind words are like a balm to soothe the psychic wound of my disappointment in this year's Tropical Fuck Storm album.
I'm not sure endlessly fucking emus is good for your - or their - health. Certain body parts might be a little sore.
DeleteBut whaddaiknowaboutit I'll let FGW enlighten us on this very particular and peculiar subject...
Are the emus in on the whole thing? Or is it a #MeAnEmuToo situation?
et tu, emu?
DeleteOutstanding
ReplyDelete