AlbumLove recommendations thread: June 2023
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!
The Beth's - Experts in a dying field - such a fun poppy punky album with great lyrics from a band from New Zealand. I found them when I was searching for Weezer style bands in other countries. I love em!
Bandcamp link
I love this one too! Catchy melodies, lovable harmonies, and thoughful writing, which is what they've done since the very start of their career.
The Beths are three for three on amazing studio albums and can do no wrong.
I'm always a bit nervous when I hear a new album from a band I love. But man this album killed it!
Listening to this right now, reminds me a lot of Rilo Kiley, a real shame they split up.
I love Rilo Kiley too. I have a weird love of indie bands with female singers. I don't really know why!! Metric, Charly Bliss, Hannah Georges, dear rouge, Dizzy and my fav Stars are some other great bands in the similar genre. Metric and Stars' new albums are awesome but I felt they were a bit too mainstream for this thread. The Beth's are super fun!! Let me know if you have others.
Not familiar with everyone on your list so I'll give them a listen. If you haven't already, check out Cannons and The Marias.
Just giving them a listen now. Pretty chill for sure and some good stuff! I like the Cannons a bit more. If you like this then you should also know of the Bird and the Bee, but I assume you already know them!
It’s fun music, but the lyrics are stunningly out of this world. It will be interesting to see where they’ll head to musically, if they ever evolve to another sound (not that it’s necessary, but they are too talented to be limited to one type of music.)
Liz's writing is what originally turned me on to them! It's just so good. Occasionally it approaches "overly wordy indie" but the majority of it is really creative and engaging. Expert in a Dying Field and Little Death are probably my favorites.
Thanks for the translations!
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Bob Dylan's Rough and Rowdy Ways from 2020 is, in my opinion, a masterpiece that deserves a seat with Bob's other great albums from years past. I have a special connection to this one since this is the album Bob Dylan was touring for when I finally got to see him play live. Rough and Rowdy Ways keeps finding its way back into my rotation, so I'd like to give it a shout here! It's a fairly subdued, introspective album that sees Bob pulling the mask down a lot more than usual; the result is a collection of highly personal reflections and earnest discussions about Robert Zimmerman the person and Bob Dylan the artist.
I'll drink to the truth and the things we said
I'll drink to the man that shares your bed
I paint landscapes, and I paint nudes
I contain multitudes
Right out of the gate, Bob Dylan tells us what this album is going to be: an unwinding of the many identities worn by the aged troubadour, punctuated in this song with a refrain borrowed from Walt Whitman. Does he contradict himself? Very well, then he contradicts himself.
I’m the enemy of treason - the enemy of strife
I’m the enemy of the unlived, meaningless life
I ain’t no false prophet - I just know what I know
I go where only the lonely can go
Bob adopts a delightfully brazen tone here as he wrestles with his own legacy as a creative giant. He declares that he's not some cheap idol; rather, he insists that his work was an excursion to plumb meaning from his experiences, a hero's journey come home to communicate something useful back to us.
I want to bring someone to life - is what I want to do
I want to create my own version of you
In this song, Bob Dylan casts himself as Doctor Frankenstein, a Modern Prometheus giving life to the characters in his songs. It's a clever reflection on his role as songwriter, "one strike of lightning" is all that he needs and, feeling the apocalyptic masses crowd around outside his lab, Dylan knows he will have to pay some price for robbing the gods of the gift of fire.
My heart’s like a river - a river that sings
It just takes me a while to realize things
I’ll see you at sunrise - I’ll see you at dawn
I’ll lay down beside you when everyone is gone
Loneliness, death, and spirituality sink deep into this love song, where Bob takes on the role of weary gondolier who has lost all the ones he's loved — except one.
The path that you’re walkin’ is too narrow to walk
Every step of the way, another stumblin’ block
The road that you’re on - same road that you know
But it’s not the same as it was a minute ago
Who is the apocalyptic Black Rider? When I first listened to the song, I thought it must obviously be Death. Certainly, Death is all over this tune, but there's something else going on here, too. The Black Rider is also described as an earthly traveler and tempter. Perhaps the Black Rider also represents moral failure and sin?
For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory
Go tell it on the Mountain, go tell the real story
Tell it in that straightforward puritanical tone
In the mystic hours, when a person’s alone
A rowdy rockin' beat drives Bob Dylan's tribute to legend Jimmy Reed, as Dylan explores the ecstatic connection between American blues and "that old-time religion". Dylan, like Reed, encounters creation in lonesome contemplation, and the act of songwriting again takes on a Promethean element.
I’m falling in love with Calliope
She doesn’t belong to anybody - why not give her to me
Dylan invokes the muse of epic poetry, pleading for another round of inspiration before he dies. In this song, the Greek themes simmering on the album (such as the last song's Dionysian declaration "I'll break open your grapes, I'll suck out the juice") take center stage. Calliope only gives if she wants to; she belongs to no poet, but Bob Dylan insists that he needs to have her. He throws in several references to Leonard Cohen's last album, reinforcing the idea that he's demanding inspiration for one more great work before he's gone.
I stood between heaven and earth
and I crossed the Rubicon
In this song, Bob Dylan addresses his feelings of mortality most directly; he's paid off his debts, gathered his proverbial army, and crossed the Rubicon a la Julius Caesar. For Dylan, death is both dusk and dawn, the end of his mundane existence and a Roman march towards his final judgment and sublimation into eternity.
Beyond the sea - beyond the shifting sand
Key West is the gateway key
To innocence and purity
Key West - Key West is the enchanted land
This song and the last one, Murder Most Foul, are best listened to as Pts. 1 and 2 of the same story. Where the final song tackles the American psyche post-JFK assassination, this one is a ballad to a simpler time. Starting with the McKinley assassination, which, brutal yet somewhat innocuous, opened the door for Theodore Roosevelt, national parks, and Rough Rider nostalgia; ending with Harry S Truman taking leave to heal in Key West in the midst of his presidency. Key West is an American Shambhala, the home of Ernest Hemingway, and represents a part of the American psyche that seems both long gone and desperately longed for.
What is the truth, and where did it go?
Ask Oswald and Ruby - they oughta know
Shut your mouth, says the wise old owl
Business is business, and it’s murder most foul
This song has a lot to say about American culture from the early 60s to now, but it does a good job of speaking for itself. Revolving around the traumatic event of JFK's assassination, Dylan goes down the line of pop culture movements and moments that swirled together in the psychosis and longing of American culture in the Vietnam War era — the era in which the artist found himself so tightly connected to this new, frightened American consciousness.
I haven't listened to it all yet, but I'm going to pick Duet by Chick Corea and Hiromi. These songs are recordings of live performances they did in 2007. There are some great videos on YouTube, which is how I started listening to them. (Some videos don't seem to match the tracks on the album so I'm guessing they were from a different night?)
So far I've been listening to:
Old Castle. The full title is "Old Castle, By the River, In the Middle of a Forest" and it's from one of Hiromi's earlier albums. Not sure what to call it, but it has a lot of repeated rhythms like Latin music and it's one of my favorites. (In the video she starts with a bit of "Very Early" at the beginning and after some back and forth, the theme starts two minutes in.)
Spain. The last song on the album, a jazz fusion standard and the song Corea is most famous for. But it was new to me so I listened to the original recording a few times to really get it. There is a complicated history behind it; the introduction is based on a melody from Concierto de Aranjuez by the Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo, which I believe is why it's called "Spain." (In this video they also play an extended introduction and get to the original intro around 2:10.)
Very Early. For the first song on the album, they play a jazz standard by Bill Evans. I recommend first listening to the original to learn the tune, since it's much easier to understand.
It was originally a 2 CD set, almost 2 hours of music, so I'm just going to take it slow and learn some jazz.
I have to check this out! I've listened to both of them individually quite a lot - Hiromi's Spectrum is one of my favorite solo piano jazz albums of the past couple decades, and Chick Corea's elektric band albums are some of my favorite fusion jazz, not to mention his incredible albums with Gary Burton.
Been playing a lot of Sleep Token's new album Take Me Back To Eden (YT Playlist). It's an incredible album and so far my album of the year. It will be difficult for any band or album to top it for me.
If you haven't heard Sleep Token before, they're technically a metal/rock group. They're an anonymous band
from the UK that wear masks. But they're not generally super heavy like metal bands who wear masks often are. Their music tends to bring in many elements from all different kinds of musical genres including R&B, electronic, pop, rock, rap, and more. IMO there's no band out there right now doing what they're doing and as a result they've blown up pretty big in the last few months.
Anyway, I highly recommend giving this one a listen even if you're usually not a fan of rock or metal music. I think it will surprise you in a good way.
I've been listening to that album a lot too and it's sooo well executed. so much interesting music in there, it's really inspiring. I've really enjoyed their previous album too and totally missed the new release. really happy when I stumbled across it :D
Somewhere back in my early teens I had an Xbox 360 and a friend had loaned me a CD, NERO's Welcome Reality. So I put all the music on my Xbox and while I was dying to zombies in the original Nacht der Untoten map in COD:WAW, I was gaining the appreciation of listening to entire albums.
I love Welcome Reality because it was my gateway into music enjoyment that I'm sure will stick with me for the rest of my life. And it's still a damn good album too, even with the astronomic rise in electronic music since then.
If you don't want to listen to the entire 1 hour album, UKF Mixes has a 13:11 long mix that's pretty good.
December the 1st, 2808.
Man, this brings back memories for me as well. This era was when I was really starting to get in to music other than what played on the radio for the first time, and I went DEEP into the youtube dubstep/house/electro boom that was happening at the time. That, and rap metal, which was also going strong. Some of the stuff I listened to at the time would make me roll my eyes pretty hard these days, but some of it really holds up, this album included for sure.
Another fantastic artist from that era that held up perfectly was Pendulum, I still listen to Hold Your Colour, Immersion, and In Silico on a regular basis to this day.
I really ought to get Pendulum and The Prodigy's discographies in my library one of these days. Another CD I was loaned during that time was this compilation album that had Invaders Must Die on it, what a song.
I haven't thought about Pendulum in a very long time. I'll definitely be heading down the rabbit hole tonight!
What I’m hearing is that
Tonight
On this small planet
On Earth
You’re going to rock civilization
AB-SO-LUTELY!
I have a special place in my heart for an album I'm pretty sure almost nobody else cares about.
I found it on spotify by random chance through their discovery feature, it has barely 2K plays, and there's just something about it that brings back intense feelings of nostalgia and wistfulness for me, probably because it liberally uses samples and video game sound effects (mostly halo 2/3) from right around the era I was growing up, but also just because the music itself has this super... ethereal quality to it, hard to put to words. It's electronic, sorta kinda breakbeat and sorta kinda it's own thing, but very internet-core. There's something so incredibly chill about it to me, it might be in my top 5 albums of all time despite having basically 0 notoriety.
The album is we all sleep - xainjaya
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/1sFt2wkw87I4wpFObX0Ai7
Bandcamp: https://xainjaya.bandcamp.com/album/we-all-sleep
As a side note, the artist who made it has kind of left this style behind and now does painfully bad mumble rap over his (still pretty amazing) synth tracks. I kind of want to write to him telling him to stop, but I figure that's pretty mean and entitled haha. But he really just doesn't have the voice for it...
Ah, a great start to June! We're having terrible weather where I live so I'll be leaning on a record with some serious summer vibes:
Babe Rainbow - The Babe Rainbow
Babe Rainbow is very easy listening. Their album Today is also a near 10/10 album, but their first full length debut album, The Babe Rainbow, reins supreme for me. Their sound is almost like if the Beatles had veered into Sargent Peppers Territory, dialed back the energy about 30%, and then had a dance party with Earth, Wind, and Fire. The light, loving psychedelic sound comes through with a hint of beach bum to mellow things out. The album itself has great pacing, starting out a little folksy, heading into the most iconic song of the album, before launching into the funky soul of the album.
To me, Babe Rainbow rounds out the surf-rock revival of the 2010s with other bands like the Allah-las, The Osees, the Wavves, or the Mystic Braves. That period encompassed my early 20s and I get a very warm feeling listening to this album from an era where I didn't have big decisions, I was eager and hopeful about the world, and things didn't seem so serious. It's nice to slip back into that feeling. I've heard heroine described a few times and the "contented" feeling people mention seems to fit. A mellow, content, happy, sleepy high. 10/10 album.
Dredg - Catch Without Arms - YT Playlist
One of my favorite albums. Every song is wonderful. No filler. The entire record has just a special atmosphere that is like a sunny day road trip self-reflection dream. Where everything is shining but also a bit wistful and sad at times. Hope, pain, growth... I want to sing along with every song- I feel them deep in my bones. It's very difficult to describe my love for this album properly. It's just got something few albums have for me
Some lyrics, from Bug Eyes:
Only those who accept / Will find that acceptance in return / We have been trimmed down like hedges /Told just to sit and wilt and spit at each other from a distance ---- It's been ten years strong / That's much too long / It's time to do something good for my health / Time to do something good for myself / I've wasted all of this time / I've wasted all of this time
Wow I remember seeing Dredg at my local rock venue back in the mid aughts, haven’t thought about them in years, and as it happens I’m on a road trip through my old stomping grounds right now, so very serendipitous that I found this today. Will definitely be adding this to the road-trip playlist!
My favorite album from the past year or so is Horse Lords - Comradely Objects (Bandcamp). Horse Lords is one of the most interesting rock bands I've ever encountered and I really wish more people knew about them.
They play microtonal music, meaning their instruments are modified to be able to play notes in between the normal 12 notes used by Western music. In particular, they use 'just intonation', meaning that notes are tuned so that their frequencies form exact whole-number ratios. The resulting sound is quite exotic and fascinating. Some people may get the impression that the instruments are out of tune, but I think it is pretty easy to acquire a taste for microtones with a little practice.
Horse Lords is also unique from a compositional standpoint, using lots of polyrhythms/polymeters and other techniques like hocketing, change ringing, and various ways of using repetition or interlocking patterns to create this sprawling, drone-like, organic music. It's challenging music that rewards careful listening, so it's not necessarily for everyone, but as a musician it is very inspiring.
The Flaming Lips - King's Mouth: Music and Songs (2019)
Warner Bros. Records | Neo-Psychedelia, Psychedelic Pop
What a beautiful little storybook lullaby album this is, and sonically it reminds me of The Soft Bulletin in many places! Gentle, pleasant narration reminding me of something I might hear on a Canterbury scene record, and charm as only Coyne can bring when he's being honest and vulnerable. Don't you understand what a wonderful thing a mouth is, for it is the instrument by which we express our love, both in word and song? Don't you know how marvelous our ears are, for through them we hear how much we are loved by others? How can a head hold so much wonder, so much marvelous love?
Listen!
I'm glad to hear another suggestion of theirs because they've been kind of all over the place. You definitely have to mention Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots as it is hands down their best beginning to end. I still love the Soft Bulletin and Zaireeka though.
The reason I didn't mention Yoshimi or Soft Bulletin is because this thread is about albums that we think need more love. In my experience, those albums are beloved and canonical, whereas King's Mouth is either disregarded or reviled.
For me, it is incredibly rare to find music in great numbers that simply works. Discovered through sheer luck via Qobuz's weekly recommendations, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever has quickly become one of my favorite bands. There is something incredibly catchy in their music, not to mention the almost nostalgic feeling reminding me of the decades past. Every song is catchier than the previous one, and starting my days with their music while preparing breakfast has become a consistent event in my everyday life.
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever - Sideways to New Italy (bandcamp)
I know very little about music theory, but even I can appreciate the complexities of the layers upon layers of guitars Rolling Blackouts C.F. uses. I have been looping their discography for a couple of months and I am still discovering something new in the familiar songs. If you enjoy the sound of jangly guitars and pure Australian brilliance, I cannot recommend this album (and the rest of their material as well) enough.
I keep coming back to Ben Folds - Songs for Silverman Bastard, You to Thank, Jesusland, all these songs haunt me with their lyrics while the beautiful harmonies and piano soothe me.
I have a deep love for Brian Eno - Another Green World. I admit it probably would not hit other people the way it hits me. More objectively, this album hints at Brian Eno's eventual move toward making nothing but ambient music.
Alvvays's new album Blue Rev is amazing and worth a listen if you like a good rock album.
Maybe it's not for everyone, but I really like Dry Cleaning. That mixture of a strange monologue spoken by a beautiful voice, overlaying sparkling post-plunk guitar work is just fantastic. If you haven't heard it before, take a listen to their album New Long Leg - if you like that, you'll probably like their new album, too.
Sometimes when I'm taking a walk, and I want to really enjoy the sights, I like to listen to something by Alex Smalley, the musician behind Pausal. The one I keep coming back to is Cavade Morlem. I can't find the album anywhere, but here is a taste of it. This is ambient work, with a long, flowing sound of mixed string instruments, vocals, and synth. Somehow it makes the world seem bigger and richer.
If you want to get weird and listen to electronic music that takes your mind to strange new places, you cannot go wrong with Ott's Mir. I consider this to be kind of psychedelic music, and the sampling of Alan Watts at the beginning probably helps push that notion.
I could go on and on .. I love music a lot. I'll just stop here.
I found The Maria's on Spotify and really fell in love with them. Their first full album is great, but their their two EPs Superclean Vols. 1 and 2 have a really jazzy, smoke-filled speakeasy lounge ambiance to them. The songs are in both English and Spanish, but her breathy voice is soothing either way, and the accompanying instruments really round out their sound.
Loveholic - Florist. Spotify
It's way slower and a completely different beast than the K-Pop top charts. It's soft acoustic rock (I think), versus the fast punchy workout-style K-Pop most may be familiar with. I like both, FWIW.
Pretty much all of Loveholic's songs sound like an upbeat yet slightly melancholy rainy day. Track 3 is literally titled "Rainy Day." I used to live in a rainier city and listening to Loveholic brings back memories of way back when, and friends from those times.
We Are Magonia - Apocalypse
I've been playing a lot of Diablo IV and the soundtrack at times (while good) is not cutting it from an epic-ness perspective, especially when I'm grinding dungeons. I feel like We Are Magonia really fits the mood of the game. I linked Apocalypse specifically given that it's 5 year anniversary is some time around now.
Between The Buried And Me is a band I've been wanting to "get" for ages now after having them recommended to me by multiple people whom I usually share a lot of musical taste with.
They make really dense prog metal that I always found kinda interesting, but ultimately too chaotic most of the time.
Automata II (YT playlist) finally clicked for me. Really hits that sweet spot between cool riffs and rythmic complexity for me at the moment.
Special mention: The Proverbial Bellow is probably my favourite track on the album, but I would highly recommend listening to the whole thing.
DRAIN - "LIVING PROOF" I spent a fair share of my youth playing in hardcore bands in and around Allentown PA (LVHC, baby!), so I've always had that bug. This is the first hc band in a while that feels fresh, and more importantly, fun. Very excited to see them play with Drug Church this week. BONUS: they do a cover of Descendants "Good, Good Things" on this album, and it wails.