|   If I had to do it all over again .... | Davey
Mar 3, 2003 9:55 AM | | sounds kinda like another Dylan post ... but not this time :-)
I was just cruising some of my favorite music review sites because I don't have much I need to get done this morning, and Monday morning is when most of them update their sites with new reviews, although a few (Stylus, Pitchfork, Splendid) have daily reviews. Anyway, I stopped by Stylus Magazine and wasn't really interested in any of the recent reviews but noticed the top feature this week is the stranded on a desert island thing and this week it's an essay about one of my all-time faves, Talk Talk <i>Spirit of Eden</i>. I've talked a few times in the past about how much I like this album but the point of this post is that it hasn't always been one of my all-time faves since I just discovered it about three years ago, after buying a Mark Hollis solo album and falling in love with the sound. <i>Spirit of Eden</i> originally came out in 1988 and I completely missed it back then, for one reason or another. Guess I wasn't paying much attention and it didn't get radio play and probably didn't get much written about it in the mainstream press and who knows what ... I can't even remember what I was doing in 1988 anymore :-) But, <i>if I had to do it all over again</i>, I would pick this album to catch the first time around. Ten extra years with <i>Spirit of Eden</i>. That would be pretty fine. Maybe wouldn't have seriously alterred the course of my music appreciation, but would probably have got me where I am a few years earlier ... and I like where I am musically right now, probably more so than at any other time in my life.
Yeah, I could probably come up with a few big albums that I wish I had heard when I was just a teenager that might have had more impact, but that just might have made too big of a change and could lead to me missing a ton of other stuff I love. One of the perils of time travel, ya know :-)
Any big ones you missed through the years that might have changed your life a little if you had found them way back then?
NP: Spirit of Eden, for the second time this morning
http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/article030303page01of01.html |
| re: If I had to do it all over again .... | Masonjar
Mar 3, 2003 10:19 AM | | Joy Division - Closer.. I was about 10 years late with this one.. I think I found it in early 1989.. the thing is, I don't think it would have made much of an impact on me as a 10 year old :-)
Along the lines of Talk Talk, I didn't discover Bark Psychosis' album HEX (1994) until early 2001. Would have made a wonderful companion to the Rain Tree Crow cd I did discover back upon it's release.
I'm sure there are many others.. however, most of my favorites I found I discovered at the right time.. when I was open to hearing that particular kind of music. I was so obsessed with metal that I wasn't open to R.E.M. in 1983, but by 1986, only a few years later, I had grown up enough that I was ready to hear something different. It's pretty much like that with everything I listen to..
-jar |
| Good ones :-) | Davey
Mar 3, 2003 10:37 AM | | I didn't realize Bark Psychosis was that new to you at the time. You must've sent me the CD-R soon after your discovery because I included a track on my <a href=http://www.access4cheap.com/~davey/dbicomps.htm#Rock_Is_Dead_1><b>Rock Is Dead</b></a> comp soon after that. Not sure if it was you or Dusty or both that first talked about it but glad you did :-)
Closer is a good one. Can't remember when I first bought the album as i had heard most of it before but is was a few years late. Probably wouldn't have changed much as I was exploring a lot of bands in the late 70s/early 80s.
I did just have a 1988 music flashback though. I remembered a surprise birthday party my girlfriend threw and one of the gifts I received was the U2 Rattle and Hum CD. Must have ben someone that didn't really know me that weell because I think by that time I was kinda sour on U2. Heheh, think I might have only played it once or twice since. Maybe I'll give it a quick listen later today .... |
| You might be an alien | DustyChalk
Mar 3, 2003 10:29 AM | | I didn't miss it the first time around, and look where it got me.
Unholy crap, there are three more pages to this article? I'm going to have to read it later... |
| The link is actually for the one page version ... | Davey
Mar 3, 2003 11:12 AM | | so if that's how you got there, that's all there is.
I think you must have stepped in a lot of alien crap back in those days to get where you are. It's pretty doubtful that only one alien sounding album could have launched you on such an inhuman path :-) |
| One man's alien crap... | DustyChalk
Mar 3, 2003 12:59 PM | | ...is another man's fertile breeding ground.
No, it may not have been alone, but you gotta admit -- the first one (what was yours, the Mark Hollis?) of "this kind" of album -- where the patience is almost the aural equivalent of a Stanley Kubrick film -- it "breaks" you, in a way. Breaks you of impatience. Because of the one track ("Desire"), or maybe because I found the whole album so intriguing, I gave it (the whole album) a chance (that I wouldn't have otherwise), and eventually (rather quickly, actually, since I pounced on the follow-up when it came out), found it a very rewarding listen. But before that, I never heard anything even remotely like that. It was definitely one of the stepping stones.
I recorded a tape once, of Skinny Puppy on one side, and this Talk Talk album on the other, for my sister. She still hasn't forgiven me for that. Nor them.
Hey, on a totally different subject -- have you read the latest audioXpress? There is an article about some weird transmission line speakers that the author built. Right in the middle of it, he says something about speaker shape, and said that he made the worst possible choice -- cylinders. And of course, my first thought was your "cathouse" speakers. Do they suck? I suspect not. I was just wondering -- what the L was he talking about? He said something about placing the driver in the center of a circle exaggerates the edge effect. |
| Watch your step (alien speakers) | Davey
Mar 3, 2003 1:30 PM | | I haven't read the latest or even any recent audioXpress magazines. Actually, probably not since they combined them. I used to get The Audio Amatuer and then Audio Elecvtronics and occasionally Speaker Builder, but not for a few years. In any case, I've heard that argument before and it would be true if the baffle was large enough to cause edge diffraction, but my original goal was to approach the spherical ideal and avoid all edge diffraction. The cylindrical shape was a compromise but by keeping the baffle size so small as you can see in the old picture below, there isn't really going to be appreciable edge diffraction effects, even around the tweeter. Adding a larger, irregular shaped baffle might minimize diffraction at some specific frequency, but at the expense of a much larger and easily heard enclosure signature. My enclosures really just add a contoured radius to the magnet structure around the tweeter and nowadays you can get tweeters with a much, much smaller frontal area thanks to rare earth magnets.
 |
| re: If I had to do it all over again .... | 3-LockBox
Mar 3, 2003 10:29 AM | | I wouldn't have been such a recording industry dupe. I wouldn't be a 38 year old man that never heard Genesis' Selling England Buy The Pound, I wouldn't have spent so much of my 20's being such an audiophile, concentrating more on sound than music, and I wouldn't have shot that man in Reno, just to watch him die. |
| re: If I had to do it all over again .... | Troy
Mar 3, 2003 11:01 AM | | I tend to miss stuff by a year or 3 all the time. that's why I don't really like to make best of the year lists in December of that year because I invariably miss a bunch of stuff until the following December.
Radiohead's OK Computer flew right by me when it came out.
I didn't discover Be Bop Deluxe until they broke up, even though I saw them live!
Missed Kevin Gilbert until he died. But I think everyone did. I even had his "Toy Matinee" album in the early 90s, but I didn't know he did it until I already had other stuff by him!
I was too young to like the Doors in their day. Ditto the Peter Gabriel era of Genesis.
Prog-fusion band Happy the Man flew by me in the 70s. Never heard them unti the mid 90s. |
| Good topic Dave | DLD
Mar 3, 2003 11:08 AM | | Man, I wish I would have listened to more Who when I was in college. Heard lots of it on the radio, but never owned Who's Next til ten years ago. Prolly wouldn't have been a life changing event tho. Jimi Hendrix/Joplin/Steppenwolf were life changing events. And movies like Easy Rider, The Graduate, Wild In The Streets, The Trip, etc., had major impacts.
To my (eternal?) chagrin, I didn't pay attention to a good friend of mine's music recommendations in the mid/late 70's, initially at least. I was stuck in a Bob Seeger/Fleetwood Mac/Eagles and unfortunately, Disco, rut when he was touting Mink Deville, Elvis Costello, Wendy Williams and the Plasmatics, Talking Heads, Sex Pistols, The Police, XTC, yada yada yada. I'll give him credit here, Bill Fenton was WAY ahead of me on the new music curve. It wasn't until these groups (or most of them) got significant radio airplay that I realized something special HAD happened. I immersed myself in it in the early 80's but being in on it when it was just starting, and catching those groups on their first tours, would have been so much cooler. As far as possibly changing my life at least a little, I'd say had I caught this wave early, it may have had some influence on me. This guy was sneaky. He came over one day and I was playing some Brother's Johnson LP (with Strawberry Letter.. and NOTHING else on it worthacrap) and he said, Man thats great, lemme trade you this Dave Edmunds "Get It" LP for that LP. He told me later he hated the BJ album and wanted to rescue me from it by giving me Edmunds. I now own 8 Edmunds albums and 15 by his running buddy, at the time, Nick Lowe. Thank you Big Bill! |
| Less Patti Smith. More Ted Nugent. (nt) | Darius
Mar 3, 2003 11:08 AM | | :-) |
| "Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain", "Bewitched" | Ex-Lion Tamer
Mar 3, 2003 11:17 AM | | In the early '90s I think I was in one of those <i>all music today sucks</i>, phases. Either that or concentrating on "audiophile" crap. If I'd have only known that the underground music scene was alive and well back then, I wouldn't have so many '90s albums on my wish list. Thank God that RaveRecs was there to set me straight, before I actually bought Michael Ruff, "Speaking in Melodies", (unfortunately I didn't find this place early enough to save me from "Jazz at the Pawnshop" :-)).
Mark |
| Imagine if we had the internet in the early 90s | Davey
Mar 3, 2003 11:24 AM | | like it is today. Or in the 80s! We would probably all be living alone with our ten thousand album collections by now :-) |
| I used to telnet into CDNOW :-) | Masonjar
Mar 3, 2003 1:29 PM | | ahh those were the daze.. I bought My Bloody Valentines TREMOLO ep, though I can't recall what else right now.. I can't imagine that giving them my cc information over the internet was all that secure back then either...lol :-)
-jar |
| I remember that! | DustyChalk
Mar 3, 2003 1:51 PM | | I used to go there just because their discographies were so good. They used to have zillions of Skinny Puppy "albums" (which I have since found out were bootlegs -- shoulda bought them when I had the chance). |
| Vanilla Ice's <i>Mind Blowin</i> | Stone
Mar 3, 2003 11:25 AM | | How I missed this follow up to his stunning debut I'll never know. It was so innovative, non-reactionary and creative that I lie awake at night wondering what would have been had I heard it when it was first released...
Actually, Gang of Four's <i>Entertainment</i> comes to mind. I wasn't into this kind of music when it came out (at age 9), but picked up a lot of stuff from this era in the early to mid-80s. Somehow, this one slipped through the cracks until a few years ago. This one is so good, so fun, and has influenced many bands that I love that I really do wish I had heard it "back in the day." Hearing this when I got into punk/alternative/new wave could have changed my listening habits, but who knows.
Stone |
| I wasn't really a Stones guy... | Mr MidFi
Mar 3, 2003 12:10 PM | | ...until just a few years ago. I always had <i>Hot Rocks</i> as a kid, and a used <i>Let It Bleed</i> CD...but it wasn't really my thing. Lately, I can't seem to get enough of <i>Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main Street, Beggar's Banquet, Through the Past Darkly,</i> etc., etc.
Something tells me I'm about to go through the same thing soon vis-a-vis Iggy & the Stooges. Has anyone done a comp yet with selected tracks from Fun House, Raw Power, and the best Iggy tracks??? |
| don't make my mistake | cc
Mar 5, 2003 2:40 PM | | After getting Raw Power in high school, it somehow took me years to pick up the others. There are like 15 total songs on Funhouse and Raw Power. Just get both albums. You will be rewarded many times over.
I think Iggy's Stonesiest album is New Values, so you might get that one. The Idiot and Lust for Life are both superb, though maybe only get the latter if you're not a David Bowie fan. Nothing I've heard from Iggy since those is terribly exciting, though I love the song "Cold Metal," from Instinct. I could hear a comp of that song for about 50 minutes. |
| I somehow managed to miss.... | tentoze
Mar 3, 2003 12:17 PM | | Peter Gabriel until about 5 or 6 years ago. Don't have ANY idea where my head was. I picked up the remaster of Shaking The Tree this weekend, a very happy purchase.
Also somehow ignored John Hiatt for about 10 or so years, and that was a major mistake, IMO. |
| Classical | DustyChalk
Mar 3, 2003 1:02 PM | | I never paid as much attention to classical music as much as I enjoyed it. I might be into Mahler, Mozart, and maybe even Stravinsky more than I am today.
I'm sure there are albums that I can say, "Where have you been all my life?" to, but I can't think of any right now. |
| would've started listening to rock a lot earlier. | rufus
Mar 3, 2003 9:03 PM | | growing up kinda sheltered, in a small town, i didn't even begin to hear real rock music until i was around 16 or 17. until,then, it was top 40 radio and pop music. so at 17, in 1977, i was just beginning to hear and appreciate classic rock. it took me a few years just to begin to understand the history of rock, and i was in catch up mode for many years. which is why my first concert was foreignor at age 17. why i would see My Aim Is True at a kid's house during a party and wonder who the geek was. why i never heard the clash or the sex pistols until 1979 or 1980 instead of 1977. why i missed the clash at bond's casino. why i never got out of my small town to go see concerts at small clubs in boston until i was out of college. and am still catching up on great music i'd never heard, even today. |
| I can think of a few .... | Whooptee
Mar 4, 2003 1:50 AM | | off the top of my head anyway. I really hate that I missed The Young Marble Giants' "Colossal Youth". That is such an utterly unique and cool album, especially coming from 1980. Ok, so there's a cheesy drum machine in there, still it's tastefully done and doesn't distract from the sparse darkness and mysteriousness of this music.
I also would have been happy to have had a few more years with Slint's Tweez and Spiderland. Both still make it regularly into my listening rotation and I'm sorry that they haven't been there all along. Another would be The Feelies' "Crazy Rhythms". What a great album that must of been to hear in 1980. Still pretty doggone good today. I'm also sorry I missed Wire's "Pink Flag". I have this place to thank for correcting that oversight. Thank you!!!! I wish I had heard Big Black in the 80's. I also wish I had caught on to Yo La Tengo a lot sooner than I did.
I agree with you about "Spirit of Eden". It's a remarkable album. I knew Talk Talk as a sappy run-of-the-mill synth pop band and didn't see how I could possibly have any interest in hearing anything from them, so I missed this one by a few years myself. I actually got "Laughing Stock" first. That was one of those ones where it was playing at the store while I was desperately looking for something new and interesting. It definitely fit the bill. Not long after that I acquired "Spirit of Eden", "The Colour of Spring" and unfortunately their first album (can't remember the name, but it was cheesy synth-pop that I hated).
John |
| mistakes, I've made a few... | cc
Mar 5, 2003 2:36 PM | | I was lucky to be "schooled" in classic rock by my older brothers, but I had trouble once I tried to move beyond there. "There" was basically Beatles, Stones, and Who. I'm happy that I only spent 1 summer with Led Zeppelin (13 years old - ain't that perfect?) but I quickly bottomed out when I bought BTO's Greatest Hits (yes, a complete album, optimistically titled Vol. 1). Then I found a book in the library about unknown bands of the 60s, featuring the Velvet Underground... but even then, I didn't really pursue groups all at once - I would pick up one album, then a different group. So I'm still missing some key things.
One problem I had was that I was looking for aggressive music, but I didn't like metal. This was when Metallica had gotten big. I read an article about ...And Justice For All, and it sounded awesome, but then I saw the lengths of the songs on the back of the album. I envied metalheads' ability to plunge into a subculture - I could find Dinosaur Jr. tapes at a decent record store, but at this time, there were no t-shirts, stickers, wrist gauntlets for indie rock. I guess that changed within a few years. But at the time I was looking for another Sex Pistols - "how could they only make 1 album?!?" - and was initially disappointed by such groups as Black Flag, the Minutemen, and the Vibrators when I first listened to them and they weren't as blazing. Kind of silly and ahistorical...
However, I have no regrets for only getting into Dylan in the past few years. Not that he's really subtle, but I'm glad I didn't spend my college days analyzing his lyrics as though it hadn't been done 30 years before. I have the benefit of total hindsight - I don't really care that he went years without writing many new songs, because I don't have to wait. Also, I have now enough of the aggressive music of the last paragraph to last me quite a while, so I feel freer to spend time listening to folkier things... though it is funny to sometimes read descriptions of a more rocking Dylan song by someone who's coming from the folk tradition. They make it sound as though Napalm Death backed him on the '66 tour.
Similarly, I fell in love with Eno's early albums right after getting out of college. A friend of mine had been telling me about him for at least a year. But I'm not sure I would have appreciated him when I was more into guitar rock. |
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