An Album a Day: Week 2

My little experiment has managed to keep going for a second week. You can refer back to that first post for an explanation, but you’re probably not here for that.

Without further ado, here’s what I listened to this week…

8/366: Hail to the Thief

On day 8, I selected Hail to the Thief by Radiohead, an album that I picked up on release and only listened to a couple of times, never really connecting with it. The CD sat on my shelf for a long time, my “am I not smart enough to like Radiohead” shame. Coming back to it now after all this time was interesting – basically it seems that I like Radiohead albums before this one, and after this one, but with a few execeptions this one just doesn’t do it for me. It’s musically solid, but I think the lyrics are kind of weak, and I don’t love how Thom Yorke sings them here. (I suspect my feelings about Thom Yorke’s vocals are like how most normal people feel about Geddy Lee.) That said, “The Gloaming” seems particularly timely:

Genie, let out of the bottle
It is now the witching hour
Genie, let out of the bottle
It is now the witching hour

…

To the shadows blue and red, shadows blue and red
Your alarm bells, your alarm bells
Shadows blue and red, shadows blue and red
Your alarm bells, your alarm bells

They should be ringing
They should be ringing
They should be ringing
They should be ringing

Wikipedia has a heap of additional context in case you want to know more.

9/366: I Robot

For day 9 I picked something I was sure to enjoy, I Robot by The Alan Parsons Project, which I savored with some rye whiskey and salted caramel chocolate. A lovely treat to unwind with at the end of the day! It’s a well-constructed late-70s art rock journey, with no small hint of disco influence (particularly thick on “The Voice”). It also features some cool instrumental tracks – the title track sounds a bit like Vangelis at the disco, the atmospheric “Nucleus” presages Enigma, “Total Eclipse” harks back to the psychadelic journey through the monolith at the end of 2001, and it culminates with closing track “Genesis Ch.1 V.32”, both an ending and an implied beginning.

10/366: Judgement

Day 10 was Judgement by VNV Nation, a strong album from one of my favorite bands. It’s bookended by two lovely instrumentals, “Prelude” and “As it Fades”, the latter of which never fails to provoke goosebumps for me. In between are two halves, the first “outrospective” and the second introspective. “The Farthest Star”, “Testament”, “Descent”, and “Nemesis” explore humanity’s darker impulses in a world unraveling, our collective unwillingness to make meaningful change to avert looming catastrophe, and the disappointment and anger on display resonate with me more than ever. The album’s second thematic half is more personal and uplifting – a calm, relevatory moment of connectedness in “Secluded Spaces”, “Illusion”’s plea against self-destruction, and the “you’re stronger than you think” message of “Carry You”. That just leaves “Momentum” unaccounted for – it’s a groovy mid-album techno tune to bring energy levels back up in between the bleakness of “Descent” and the fury of “Nemesis”. This isn’t my favorite VNV album, but it’s really, really good, and I find that it has increased urgency in 2024. Also, holy crap, this is almost 20 years old?! How did that happen?!?

There’s a little bit of extra info on Wikipedia.

11/366: Koda

For day 11 I listened to Köda by In the Nursery. According to Wikipedia, this can be classified as “neoclassical dark wave” or “martial industrial”. It’s a mostly instrumental album that marks their full-on arrival into producing “cinematic” music with classical instrument sounds assembled using the tools of the industrial scene. The feeling I get from this album is that each track is the closing title of some film that doesn’t exist. (The band would later go on to record new scores for silent films.) It’s a bit rough around the edges, and can be a bit “video gamey”, and I definitely like all of their subsequent work much better, but it’s definitely interesting and worth checking out to understand their evolution. Highlights for me include “Te Deum”, “Burnished Days”, “The Seventeeth Parallel”, and by an easy mile, “Compulsion” (collected from 12" single onto the CD release).

12/366: The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway

Day 12 was The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway by Genesis, an album that’s been sitting in my queue of “you should really listen to this at some point” things for a while. It’s the last album with Peter Gabriel, and I knew going in that it was a concept album with a storyline, so I wanted to give it the focus I felt it deserved. And, uh, holy cow, the story is pretty fucking weird. I may have to give it another shot at some point with lyrics in hand as it’s quite dense (and the Apple Music version seems to be lacking lyrics for several tracks). Musically, it’s brilliant, and it flows quite well. I’d almost be interested to hear it without any vocals at all! Wikipedia has a ton of context in case you want to go down the rabbit hole here.

13/366: M83

Day 13 was M83 by M83, the debut album from the French band of the same name. I’ve enjoyed M83 a lot but never gone super deep on them, and hadn’t listened to this one before at all. I enjoyed this one a lot – it’s primarily instrumental, with dialog from some TV and movie samples, and sits at an interesting intersection of ambient, electronic, and shoegaze. I don’t know that I would revisit individual tracks here, but I’d definitely put on the whole thing for a complete listen again. The Wikipedia article contains some fun trivia (if you consider trivia fun).

14/366: Navigators

On day 14 I listened to Navigators by Turbo Knight, a synthwave album clearly inspired by Frank Herbert’s Dune series. (Oddly, opening track “The Prophecy” samples the “tears in rain” speech from Blade Runner, but while it’s from a different sci-fi property, I can’t fault it.) This album is what Dune would sound like if it was bathed in neon, the ornithopters looked like Lamborghinis, spiced with a melange of cool synths and scorching 80s guitar solos. To be honest, I’m totally here for it. The sleeper has awakened!

15-21: ???

You’ll just have to wait and see! I hope to make it through at least day 26. I’m enjoying this but I do have other hobbies that are calling to me, and getting my thoughts down takes a little longer than I’d anticipated.