Now Playing....

[LOL The Irony]

All Nippon Airways - Departure Good Luck

Yuji Ohno - Theme From Lupin III 89 Version

 

[Cambus731]

Marillion Script for a Jester's Tear

 

[Bevan Price]

Chuck Prophet - "Monkey In The Middle"

and "The Left Hand and The Right Hand"

 

[Jamesrob637]

All Nippon Airways - Departure Good Luck

Yuji Ohno - Theme From Lupin III 89 Version

Old ANA boarding music was frankly superb.

 

[Bevan Price]

Grateful Dead - "Bertha" (Live)

and "St. Stephen" (Live)

Tom Fogerty - "Train To Nowhere"

and "Lodi" (Live)

Tom was the brother of John Fogerty in Creedence Clearwater Revival. He was killed by a "corrupted blood" transfusion.

And just to show that music talent runs in some families, here are Shane & Tyler Fogerty (sons of John) in :
Hearty Har "Can't Keep Waiting"

 

[Cambus731]

Marillion Misplaced Childhood

 

[nlogax]

Tears for Fears - Ready to Start

 

[Cambus731]

Sophie B Hawkins Whaler

 

[LOL The Irony]

Yuji Ohno - Funky Junky Trip

 

[Cambus731]

Sophie B Hawkins Timbre

 

[52290]

John Ireland Piano Concerto
John Lenehan (Piano), Royal Liverpool Philharmonic conducted by John Wilson.
Headphones on, feet up.

 

[Bevan Price]

Proto Kaw - "Words Of Honor" (Live)

and "On The Eve Of The Great Decline"

(Proto Kaw were an early line-up of Kansas who got together again, led by Kerry Livgren in the early 2000s.)

 

[Cowley]

Babybird - The F Word.
(Just give it a go if you fancy a chuckle for a few minutes... )

 

[Bevan Price]

Chris Cacavas - "Smolder"

and "Truth"

 

[Cambus731]

Marillion Radiation

 

[Bevan Price]

Green On Red - "Time Ain't Nothing"

and "Keep On Moving"

and "No Man's Land"

 

[Cambus731]

Marillion Seasons End

 

[backontrack]

Gorillaz released a new album yesterday, Strange Timez.

It's decent: a step up from their last effort, although Demon Days is still obviously the pinnacle. The guitars are back, which is a very welcome development.

The new album features collaborations with Beck, Elton John, Kano, Robert Smith and Peter Hook. Standout cuts include Momentary Bliss, Friday 13th and Aries. The songs are easy to like, but feel somewhat flat; the Song Machine project this album is part of clearly isn't as innovative or ambitious as Damon Albarn thinks it is. His lyrics have continued their trend towards focusing on interpersonal relationships, which is all well and good but makes a lot of these songs slightly samey in terms of lyrical content.

The visual side of Gorillaz still doesn't match up with the music. Jamie Hewlett certainly does not stint when it comes to the artwork - he clearly enjoys drawing the fictional bandmates, especially a now grown-up Noodle - but the overall vision behind the first two albums has seemingly been discarded outright - and with it has gone a large part of what made Gorillaz special, vibrant and appealing.

The characters used to be well-rounded, cerebral mechanisms for communicating social commentary and their creators' thoughts; now they're just cartoon characters, or window dressing. The interviews they do are banal and glib; overall, it feels as though Gorillaz no longer care about the idea of a band who just-happened-to-be-cartoons, and are just outright treating them like a separate entity. They've dropped the suspension of disbelief. It feels inevitable - a kind of dumbing-down - and yet it's still disappointing.

Overall, Strange Timez is probably on a par with, or slightly weaker than, Plastic Beach. It's got some good tracks, but nothing with the zing of Feel Good Inc., the bite of Kids with Guns, or the pathos of El Mañana or the self-titled album closer. Perhaps the really impressive thing is that they're still going, 15 years after their brief mainstream breakthrough.

 

[Cowley]

Gorillaz released a new album yesterday, Strange Timez.

It's decent: a step up from their last effort, although Demon Days is still obviously the pinnacle. The guitars are back, which is a very welcome development.

The new album features collaborations with Beck, Elton John, Kano, Robert Smith and Peter Hook. Standout cuts include Momentary Bliss, Friday 13th and Aries. The songs are easy to like, but feel somewhat flat; the Song Machine project this album is part of clearly isn't as innovative or ambitious as Damon Albarn thinks it is. His lyrics have continued their trend towards focusing on interpersonal relationships, which is all well and good but makes a lot of these songs slightly samey in terms of lyrical content.

The visual side of Gorillaz still doesn't match up with the music. Jamie Hewlett certainly does not stint when it comes to the artwork - he clearly enjoys drawing the fictional bandmates, especially a now grown-up Noodle - but the overall vision behind the first two albums has seemingly been discarded outright - and with it has gone a large part of what made Gorillaz special, vibrant and appealing.

The characters used to be well-rounded, cerebral mechanisms for communicating social commentary and their creators' thoughts; now they're just cartoon characters, or window dressing. The interviews they do are banal and glib; overall, it feels as though Gorillaz no longer care about the idea of a band who just-happened-to-be-cartoons, and are just outright treating them like a separate entity. They've dropped the suspension of disbelief. It feels inevitable - a kind of dumbing-down - and yet it's still disappointing.

Overall, Strange Timez is probably on a par with, or slightly weaker than, Plastic Beach. It's got some good tracks, but nothing with the zing of Feel Good Inc., the bite of Kids with Guns, or the pathos of El Mañana or the self-titled album closer. Perhaps the really impressive thing is that they're still going, 15 years after their brief mainstream breakthrough.

Interesting. I’ll give that a listen at some point.

 

[backontrack]

Interesting. I’ll give that a listen at some point.

Nice It's not bad by any means. There's a lot of songs - 17 on the deluxe edition. I'd say it's their most 'listenable' album.

If you're new to Gorillaz, then I'd recommend listening to Demon Days, their second album. You might want to commit to giving it a couple of full listens - it's madcap and genre-varied, spanning dub, hip-hop, alt rock, piano pop...but with more orchestral elements. It's aged like wine in terms of its lyrical content.

It's an album I could gush about for hours. A masterpiece, I think. I could write an essay about it.

 

[Cowley]

Nice It's not bad by any means. There's a lot of songs - 17 on the deluxe edition. I'd say it's their most 'listenable' album.

If you're new to Gorillaz, then I'd recommend listening to Demon Days, their second album. You might want to commit to giving it a couple of full listens - it's madcap and genre-varied, spanning dub, hip-hop, alt rock, piano pop...but with more orchestral elements. It's aged like wine in terms of its lyrical content.

It's an album I could gush about for hours. A masterpiece, I think. I could write an essay about it.

It is a great album. Probably time to have a bit of this then:

 

[backontrack]

It is a great album. Probably time to have a bit of this then:

Yes, iconic tune! I adore this one. Such a unique track. "You've got to press it on you..."

Time for me to go and dance around my bedroom like I'm a 15 year-old Japanese girl.

 

[Cowley]

Yes, iconic tune! I adore this one. Such a unique track. "You've got to press it on you..."

Time for me to go and dance around my bedroom like I'm a 15 year-old Japanese girl.

Me too!
Erm...

 

[backontrack]

Me too!
Erm...

It's lockdown, nobody will mind.

 

[SS4]

Army of the Night - Amaranthe

I prefer it just a little bit to the powerwolf version

 

[nlogax]

Will give the new Gorillaz stuff a listen. Demon Days and Plastic Beach were stand-out albums for me..very happy associated memories.

Going back to Peter Hook, this morning I be mostly listening to New Order.

 

[43096]

Going back to Peter Hook, this morning I be mostly listening to New Order.

Top tuuuuuuune! Not heard that in years.

 

[LOL The Irony]

Muse - Feeling Good

 

[Cambus731]

David Bowie The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

 

[Cowley]

Fleetwood Mac - Dreams:

Red Hot Chilli Peppers - Aeroplane: