The Residents! I was just getting into them. I believe this was the very first Residents album I ever heard, because how could it not be? If you haven't heard it, it's a a bizarre onslaught of 60s pop tunes all mashed together into one insane amalgam of pop culture inversion. Still one of my favorite Residents albums, and one of the most singular albums I've ever heard. The CD version comes with a bonus track: a cover of "Satisfaction" that is rendered almost unlistenable. I think that was the artistic intent behind it; to take one of the catchiest, most popular songs ever written, and render it as a nightmare. I think if you were to encapsulate rock and roll, save it for future/alien generations, look no further than "Satisfaction". Take the Stones version, the Residents version, the Devo version and the Britney Spears version. There you go. That's music.
One of the more avant-garde from that most avant-garde of groups. For a long time this was my favorite Residents album (it's now Not Available, which I mention because it will not be appearing here. I bought it in a record store.) It's still probably top ten. This period was my initial exposure to the band, but I get on Residents kicks every few years or so. I had one earlier this year, so these albums are more fresh in my mind than they might have been. It's weird, weird stuff. You can't dance to it. And while it's undeniably interesting, with a few exceptions, it's not exactly the kind of thing I want to throw on and listen to all that much.
Allan Holdsworth - Metal Fatigue (purchased November 7th)
Allan Holdsworth is a jazz guitarist, and I bought this album to be a snob. I can admit it. I'm also taken aback that I paid $37.96 for this... He's very skilled, but really a guitarist's guitarist, and while I would like to be a guitarist, I'm not really, yet, and certainly wasn't ten years ago. I never enjoyed this as much as I pretended to. It was just obscure jazz to make me feel like a big man. For jazz guitar, give me John McLaughlin any day.
(Purchased November 11th)
An interesting aspect of this exercise is stuff I bought at the same time. This one makes perfect sense, but there are some weird combinations coming. I owned both of these albums before and had lost them somewhere. Loaned them out, sold them for drug money, whatever it was. I wanted to restock my Manson collection. Look, I love Marilyn Manson and always will. He meant a lot to me when I was in my mid teens, and I will defend him to this day. I really don't care what anything thinks, I think he's great. Portrait is fantastic. Nothing else sounds like early Manson, right after he had dropped the Spooky Kids part of the band name. To this day I can mentally press play and listen to that entire album.
Holy Wood is another great album, that, interestingly, was pretty shit upon when it came out. Basically, Antichrist Superstar was huge, and Mechanical Animals failed to live up to it commercially. Nobody really liked how he totally turned glam. So then came Holy Wood which basically sounded a lot like Antichrist Superstar, and he came up with this convoluted explanation about how the albums were supposed to go that way all along, it was a reverse triptych of concept albums, but I think most people didn't buy it. And maybe he did just make it up as he went along. With hindsight, though, most have recognized that Holy Wood, on its own merits, is one of his strongest albums. I think it might even be his best, musically, although it was never have as much personal significance to me as his earlier albums.
Speaks for itself, I guess. I used the image from the cover as a message board avatar for a while. This is actually a really interesting comic book. Although I called it porn in the introduction, I don't really consider erotic comics as strictly porn, per se. I never masturbated to this, it was just a compelling comic. I find sex interesting. The art is striking, and the story is... strange. For one, although it's supposed to be lesbian erotica, and is, ostensibly, created by two women (who share the names of the two main characters), it's more phallocentric than a lot of gay porn. Make of that what you will. Also, despite the fact that they snuck "college" into the title, I guess to play it safe, the story is absolutely set at a Catholic high school. Since most of it is dreams (both day and the other kind) of the protagonist, who, as noted, has the same name as the author, this is probably just someone making a comic out of her sexual fantasies, like R. Crumb used to do. I find that interesting.
I spilled coffee on this, and ended up replacing it with a fresh one. I still have both copies.
(purchased November 17th)
Made this purchase the day before my twenty-second birthday. This probably tells you all you need to know about me at that age, that this is what I spent my birthday money on.
Diamanda Galas, Throbbing Gristle and Foetus... what can I say? If you like that kind of music, you're with me, if not, what do you care? I will say that Nail is tied with Hole for my favorite JG Thirlwell as Foetus album. It's absolutely fantastic and I still listen to it regularly. I don't listen to Throbbing Gristle much anymore and when I do, it's usually not this album, but I still don't have a bad word to say about them conceptually. They're just more interesting as people and artists than musicians. Harder than hardcore, though. Litanies of Satan is one of Diamanda's most challenging albums (though not her most challenging, that would be Schrei X, which, believe it or not, was the first one I ever heard. I don't know how I persevered but I'm glad I did). I don't spin Litanies much, but as an artistic statement it's one of her best.
That Residents album is a collection of Elvis Presley covers. It's a middle ground Residents album for me, perhaps because I was a middle ground Elvis Presley fan. This album received a completely unnecessary and strange (so par for the course for the Residents) remix release, and I actually like that version better. It was remixed by someone called Paralyzer, who I think may be German but don't quote me. The remixed version of "Viva Las Vegas" remains one of my favorite Residents tracks.
Now as for those two Spice Girls solo albums, I was and am a die hard Spice Girls fan, and much like Marilyn Manson, I don't give a shit what anyone thinks. I was a completist, and that included all their solo records. Funnily enough, these two are my favorite (Mel C) and least favorite (Victoria) respectively. Although I dreamed of being Geri Halliwell, Mel C had my favorite voice of the girls, and I like this solo album about as much as the canon Spice Albums, and better than the one without Geri. The Victoria album is probably, no exaggeration, the worst album I've ever bought. It's bad. The cover looks so awesome, though. Still one of my favorite covers to this day.
Wayne County and the Electric Chairs - Rock n Roll Cleopatra, My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult - I See Good Spirits and I See Bad Spirits, Nina Hagen - Nunsexmonkrock, Teenage Jesus & the Jerks - Everything
(Purchased November 24th)
Now this looks like a party! Wayne County, who became Jayne County, is a transexual, which I found to be pretty fuckin' punk. He was no Geri Halliwell, but I admired him a lot, and his music is actually really good. He was still Wayne at this point, so I used the male pronoun. I haven't listened to Wayne County in a long time, but I still have good feelings about him. Thrill Kill Kult are gods. Nina Hagen is a scary punk witch. And Teenage Jesus & the Jerks, besides having maybe my favorite band name of all time, were just damned impressive, although atonal and difficult to listen to. But it's no wave, what do you want? It's crazy that Lydia Lunch was only sixteen and could produce something like this.
(Purchased November 26th)
Hell yeah. One of the best combos I've seen. This is my favorite Diamanda album. It's the soundtrack of hell. The whole thing is creepy recitations of old testament prophecy in Latin, except for "Sono L' Antichristo" - I am the Antichrist. I paid $46.93 for this album and I have to say it was worth every cent. Although I sold all my CDs and went totally digital some time ago, I hung onto this one. Incredible cover.
And, for something completely different, the Xtina album is also an all time favorite. She has one of the most incredible singing voices I've ever heard. I'm in awe of her, and I can probably count on less than one hand female singer who impress me more than her (perhaps fittingly, Diamanda Galas is one of them). This will always be my favorite of her albums. People hated this when it came out, thought she was losing her mind. Looking back, it's getting more credit for the masterpiece it is. She was an adult, could do what she wanted, and owed no one an explanation. "Beautiful" and "Soar" are capable of moving me to tears, and "Fighter" and "Dirrty" (which by the way, pretty memorable video) are favorites too.
(Purchased December 6)
Fuckin' rock solid collection of electronic albums here. I'm almost impressed at my own taste. Yellow Magic Orchestra, I think, I first listened to because someone told me they sounded like the music from Sonic the Hedgehog. That's true. In fact, the Sonic programmers acknowledged their inspiration from YMO. They are absolute gods of electronic music, perhaps second only to Kraftwerk themselves. This was my first of their albums, still one of my favorites. They were also one of the first Japanese groups I got into, and I'm now a huge fan of Japanese music, so I guess that was an important step.
That Bertrand Burgalat album is so great, super chill French techno, the kind of thing you should be listening to while driving down a coastal highway at sunset in a convertible. I honestly never did find out much about Bertrand Burgalat, and never listened to anything of his besides that one album, much as I loved it. It may be time to change that.
Kraftwerk. The Beatles of electronic. Nothing really needs to be said, except that, although Autobahn is more well known Computer World is actually my favorite album of theirs.
You may not expect it, but I used to listen to a lot of rap. I don't really anymore, not nearly as much as I did, no particular reason, but I still love a lot of the stuff I used to listen to and will sometimes listen to nothing but rap for a couple weeks. Just get in the mood sometimes. This was kind of a legendary album before it came out. The record label shelved it because of the cover, then Subroc died in a car crash and K.M.D. was no more. It's a good album, but I haven't listened to it in years. KMD also featured Subroc's brother who would go on to become MF Doom, one of the most interesting hip hop artists in the world, for my money, which is why I got this. I was digging into MF Doom's roots. He's one of the rap artists I will still listen to semi-regularly, along with west coast gangsta shit. Gotta stay true to my roots.
And that was 2004. I'll probably do the following years in sections, since this was only three months out of the year, and if it gets boring, I'll edit it, but this was an interesting exercise. Coming soon: 2005, which will feature more than just music!
