After listening to Mezzanine 10 times in one day, I decided I needed another album. Naturally, I turned to Blue Lines by Massive Attack. I like the album, but I was not feeling the, "Oh yeah, this is the one," sensation. I thought about it for a minute and realized that Blue Lines is a little more R&B-ish than Mezzanine. Where I would draw a comparison between Mezzanine and late 90's Radiohead, I would feel more comfortable lumping Blue Lines in with a sort of trip hop, alt-R&B style. That got me thinking about how Frank Ocean is releasing a new album (hopefully) sometime before the end of this month. So...
channel ORANGE is kickass. May I just begin with punchline, here. I suppose this is the best thing that can really be said about it: The album is 56 minutes long (62 if you have a version with "Golden Girl," which I do not) and I swear that it is not a minute over 35. And I am not kidding even a little bit; there is no part of me that believes that this album is almost an hour long. I think to myself, "'Pyramids' is about 10 minutes long and the other 16 songs--many of which are 30 second skits--probably add up to about 25, so that puts the whole record at 35 minutes." This album feels about as long as Chutes Too Narrow by The Shins. Much like Frankie Ocean's childhood summertime romance of which he appears to be singing about, the time sure does fly.
The six obvious wonders from this album are "Thinkin Bout You,"Sweet Life," "Super Rich Kids," "Pyramids," "Lost," and "Bad Religion," but channel ORANGE is so perfectly constructed that even the skits are not just time-consumers. As you could probably tell from my last paragraph, I think the budget on time is exceptionally, almost impossibly, economical. This album, in all it's smooth, neo-soulish glamour, is surely one of my favourite R&B records of modern times.
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Mezzanine by Massive Attack
Since this is going to be my first post, I suppose I should explain how this is going to go.
I am going to write about whatever album I am currently obsessing about. Every once in a while, I might do a FLASHBACK sort of deal where I talk about an album that I have previously obsessed over (give me a second, Kid A...), but for now I am gonna do this. To be honest, this whole blog ordeal is going to be more for my own documentary purposes since I do not anticipate that there will be any sort of regular readers out there.
About a week ago, I wanted to listen to a really dark album. That is just what I was vibing at the time. So guess what album I picked. If you guessed Mezzanine, you would be wrong. I chose Pornography by The Cure. Great album. I listened to it once and decided that it wasn't quite what I was looking for so I listened to Mezzanine again. Now, I have always liked Mezzanine, so I knew it was a relatively safe bet to go for. This time, however, I was more enamored with it than I usually am.
Though I would posit that there is not a bad track on the album--even the ambient "(Exchange)" I find hypnotic--there are certainly a few that stand out above the rest. "Angel," "Risingson," "Teardrop," "Inertia Creeps," "Dissolved Girl," "Man Next Door," "Black Milk," and "Group Four." Shit, that is almost the whole album. OK, if I am being extraordinarily picky, you can chop the last three off, but really those ones belong there.
I guess Brent DiCrescenzo of Pitchfork Media originally described this album as 'light-absorbing,' an adjective I will stand by. It does have a certain metallic, almost titanium-like sheen to it that makes it feel almost like a sonic black hole. The song structures are more dense than what you may normally expect from a trip hop record or even a Massive Attack record, for that matter. After having listened to this one, Blue Lines, Protection, and Heligoland, I feel comfortable saying that I think this is their best work.
I am going to write about whatever album I am currently obsessing about. Every once in a while, I might do a FLASHBACK sort of deal where I talk about an album that I have previously obsessed over (give me a second, Kid A...), but for now I am gonna do this. To be honest, this whole blog ordeal is going to be more for my own documentary purposes since I do not anticipate that there will be any sort of regular readers out there.
About a week ago, I wanted to listen to a really dark album. That is just what I was vibing at the time. So guess what album I picked. If you guessed Mezzanine, you would be wrong. I chose Pornography by The Cure. Great album. I listened to it once and decided that it wasn't quite what I was looking for so I listened to Mezzanine again. Now, I have always liked Mezzanine, so I knew it was a relatively safe bet to go for. This time, however, I was more enamored with it than I usually am.
Though I would posit that there is not a bad track on the album--even the ambient "(Exchange)" I find hypnotic--there are certainly a few that stand out above the rest. "Angel," "Risingson," "Teardrop," "Inertia Creeps," "Dissolved Girl," "Man Next Door," "Black Milk," and "Group Four." Shit, that is almost the whole album. OK, if I am being extraordinarily picky, you can chop the last three off, but really those ones belong there.
I guess Brent DiCrescenzo of Pitchfork Media originally described this album as 'light-absorbing,' an adjective I will stand by. It does have a certain metallic, almost titanium-like sheen to it that makes it feel almost like a sonic black hole. The song structures are more dense than what you may normally expect from a trip hop record or even a Massive Attack record, for that matter. After having listened to this one, Blue Lines, Protection, and Heligoland, I feel comfortable saying that I think this is their best work.
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