AlbumLove recommendations thread: June 2022
Choose one album
that you love
that you think deserves more love
Tell us what it is, and why.
Additional Details
What is this?
It's a new post series I'm trying out! Each month people can use the AlbumLove thread to post an album they love and explore those posted by others.
I'm planning to put up a new AlbumLove thread on the first of each month for a few months to see how these go as a trial run. If people like it we can keep it going — if they don’t it’ll fizzle out and I’ll stop.
Why AlbumLove?
In this day and age, algorithmic recommendations for music are easy to come by, and it's trivial to seek out new music that interests you by searching online. AlbumLove offers an opportunity to sift through music loved by others, including those who might have divergent tastes from you. Think of this as an opportunity to listen outside of your comfort zone, with music that you know someone else adores, from a small pool of thoughtful hand-selected options.
What do I post?
Any album that you love and that you feel deserves more appreciation. There are no restrictions on genre, year, or anything else, and nothing is “too popular” or “too niche”. If you think it needs more love — for whatever reason — then it’s welcome in AlbumLove.
Name the artist and the album, and then, most importantly, share what you love about the album. It could be the music itself, but it could also be your associations with it -- maybe the album reminds you of someone you love, or you saw the band live and got a new appreciation for the studio songs.
Also, commenting on others' recommendations is encouraged! If you love something that someone else shared, let them know!
Do I have to listen to what everyone else posts?
Nope. You don't have to listen to anything if you don't want to. This is about creating a menu of options that people can explore as they wish.
Can I post more than one album in a month?
Nope. Limit one! This helps us be more selective about what we choose, as well as preventing the threads from getting flooded with too many contributions to keep track of.
Why albums and not songs/artists?
I like albums. :)
Seriously though, I feel like it's a very different thing to like an album as a whole versus a few songs or just an artist's general vibe. I like the idea of quantizing music for appreciation in the same way we might do with books or movies.
What about EPs?
Fair game!
Head Space - The Mellowells
This is an album that a friend showed me many years ago, and I haven’t stopped enjoying it. Grass Eater is one of my favorite songs. I even used to have the CD in my car, back when I had a car with a CD player.
BT - This Binary Universe
This is a contender for the greatest electronic album of all time. BT's career and oeuvre are a chain of monumental highs and cringeworthy lows, but TBU is him at his all-time best. It's a complex, experimental instrumental album that rewards close listens. It was released with a companion DVD that includes a full surround mix along with some pretty cool videos for each track. They're on YouTube but only at 480p so I didn't bother linking them.
I'll co-sign on this one. It traces a broad arc that's splendid from start to finish.
There's also a lot of great background information about the album which enhances it (for example: the opening track was written in a programming language). If anyone listens to it and enjoys it, I highly recommend learning more about the album's composition.
That's a sound I haven't heard in an album before. I must have been living under some sort of rock. I've never actually known of any artists who made a sound like this as its own art, but it's something I've always found as part of a major commercial thing, like Tomorrowland in Disneyland, or in a movie (BT apparently did the Disney Shanghai Tomorrowland music). I guess my point is it sounds cinematic. I'll check out the DVD/video just to see what's going on.
My album for this month is Thick as a Brick by Jethro Tull. It's probably my favorite album of all time because of nostalgia, but also just its music. I think it's an album everybody should listen to at least once, and I won't ever say that about an album.
My dad is a huge fan of Jethro Tull and introduced me to them when I was a kid. This was my favorite album of the ones he had, and it is, to me, a perfect album in every way. The music, instrumentation, the way it progresses, even the intermission between sides A and B. I also remember one night I couldn't sleep (I was a very tense kid), and he put this album on for me with some headphones, I drifted off probably halfway through. It's this perfect mix of a perfect album with a lot of positive nostalgia for me, I guess, that makes me love it so much, but I'm also willing to recommend this to anybody, whether or not they've listened to any progressive rock before.
I'm going to do a double, two albums which tread a similar path. A Grand Don't Come For Free by The Streets and Everybody Down by Kae Tempest.
Both are rap/spoken word artists going full concept album. Each album tells a complete story when listened to from start to finish - A Grand is about the protagonist losing a thousand pounds (UK slang, £1000 = "a grand") and trying to get it back, and discovering various things about the people in his life along the way. Everybody Down follows the tale of Becky, a young woman whose life strays into dangerously criminal territory and her attempts to get away from that and find peace and safety.
Despite being released almost exactly ten years apart, the two albums share a lot in tone - they're both "street level" stories about younger people trying to find their way in a difficult and sometimes dangerous adult world. Skinner (The Streets) and Tempest's vocal styles differ - Skinner tends to be quite laid back, Tempest more intense - but they're both excellent writers and craft clever lyrics about engaging and well-drawn characters. Tempest comes from the world of poetry (although they're a much better musician than poet imo) where Skinner has a more traditional hip-hop background - but they're both excellent storytellers and I think that's why these albums are so strong. Both albums are well worth a listen, but do listen to them in order and from start to finish otherwise you'll miss a lot.
As an aside, A Grand don't Come for Free includes the track I personally believe captures the feeling of coming up on ecstasy in music like no other, Blinded by the Lights. He captures that blurry, rushing haze perfectly.
This thread has become my monthly equivalent of Wordle. I love listening to all the suggestions and sharing some of my favorites. So on to my June recommendation.
Whitney - Light Upon the Lake
Man, where to start on this album. It's a real masterpiece. Right before the pandemic, I actually spent an afternoon with a friend listing 10/10 albums (literally only albums that are perfect from start to finish, not one filler amongst the tracks). This album was the first one we could agree on. As I went to play the album on Spotify I was shocked to find out it was from 2016. This album feels like it's been in my life much longer than that, and I always assumed I had stumbled upon it years after it's release. I reminds me of my mid-twenties: easy, fun, carefree. The music deals with some deeper themes but always keeps an optimistic feel to it. Enough personal context, onto the music.
Whitney themselves have such an interesting sound. Soulful, bluesy, light, almost etherial. It feels kind of like the saying "perfect isn't when there is more to add, but when no more can be taken away". Also, the high (maybe falsetto) tenor of the singer is incredibly unique. Time for the tracks.
No woman is the perfect, gentle intro. Light piano, welcoming horns, and mellow vocals make way for a richer and richer music as the song continues. I think the listener stats on Spotify do a good job identifying my favorites from the album: No Woman, Golden Days, and On My Own are all amazing. What I'm surprised to see is No Matter Where We Go with so few listens. It's decidedly my favorite track from the album. The tracks do a great job feeding from one to another, giving the album a cohesive feeling. Even the lesser listened tracks are gold. The title track Light on the Lake, has an amazing melody. Like so much of the album, it's light and hypnotizing. Red Moon and Follow seem like outlier on the album, but they feel like just enough of a shake-up to keep album feeling fresh and varied. I really can't fault the album.
❤️❤️❤️
When the NYT makes me a seven figure offer for this in a few months, I’ll split it with you. 🤣
But seriously, that means a lot. I’m glad you’re loving them!
The Music of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
I really love the music of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (the 2018 Netflix series) by Sunna Wehrmeijer. Though one of its strengths is how it represents the conflicts and arcs within the show, I think most of the songs work well even without that context. But if you plan on watching She-Ra at some point, I would recommend watching it before listening to the songs, because I'd consider some of them to be spoilers—they integrate really well with the themes and story of show, and some of them work best if heard the first time in the context of the show. (The songs are titled by the name of the episode they first appeared in and are in chronological order, if you're watching it and want to avoid spoilers.)
My favorite songs in the album are Promise, Beast Island, and Fractures specifically because of how powerful they are at conveying the conflicts in the show.
SOPHIE - OIL OF EVERY PEARL'S UN-INSIDES
SOPHIE gave us the hyperpop genre and then was unexpectedly taken from us back in January 2021.
This album is a feature of what SOPHIE was so good at doing: talking the familiarity of pop music and pushing it in unexpected and interesting directions. The range on the album is shown right in the first two tracks, with opener "It's Okay to Cry" being a delicate, sentimental stroll that sets a light tone for the album that's immediately counteracted by the aggressive, heavy-handed "Ponyboy" and "Faceshopping".
The production is spectacular throughout, with interesting and often unexpected touches.
The standout track for me is "Immaterial". It's a bright, bouncy earworm that I loved initially for its catchy melody and its cheeky modern nod to Madonna's much older pop classic "Material Girl". On the release of this album, SOPHIE also came out as trans, and "Immaterial" speaks directly to that identity, capturing a bright and triumphant freedom of self. Furthermore, it comes right after "Pretending" -- a dark, murky, and harrowing soundscape. The contrast between the two songs -- as well as their messages -- couldn't be clearer.
After SOPHIE's unexpected death, I feel like the song became a thematic statement for SOPHIE's work. The song's consideration of the immaterial gained a new dimension for me beyond gender, as I felt the song also became a comment on our presence and impact, independent of life or death.
The sorrowful news of SOPHIE's passing doesn't change the song's uncompromising joy, and it instead gains a transcendent quality. "Immaterial" doesn't just feel like a statement on trans identity but also a capturing of SOPHIE's indomitable spirit that remains with us and that cannot be taken away.