Frank Zappa - Joe's Garage

Frank Zappa - Joe's Garage

Published in 1979

Wikipedia - and trust me, you need it.

First off, this was actually a suggestion, so I am supposed to thank Tommy Clark for suggesting it.  I say I am supposed to, but I am still reeling from listening to this thing.  

WHAT THE FUCK, FRANK ZAPPA?

Okay, now that my confusion has been expressed, let me give you some opinions.  You know why rock operas are so incredibly obscure and strange?  It's because they are by nature subversive and strange.  Instead of recognizing this and trying to formulate a regular thing around this, Mr. Zappa has chosen to take it to the other extreme, and just go fucking crazy with it.

This is the first album on the album project to do various things, allow me to list them, so you can be baffled if you haven't heard it.

• Wet t-shirt contest dedicated song
• Incredibly diverse mentions of VD
• Appliance Sex
• Dystopian future where music is banned (rock opera edition)
• "Subtle" allusions to Scientology
• Detailed Appliance Sex Music
• The fact that to have sex with appliances, you need to speak another language
• Catholic Girls are whores
• "Gimmie that, gimmie that, Bloooowwwjob."
• Breaking the fourth wall, referring to "two songs ago"
• And much much more.

Seriously.  I'm not making one of those up, and I am amazed that I don't think that I could.  It's like an album that was designed to completely fry your logical brain.

However, the non rational side of your brain is going to be fucking loving this shit.  It's incredibly fucking strange, but beautiful and strange as shit.  It is entirely non commercial, but it's fucking awesome.

You know what it is, it's the Aqua Teen Hunger Force of rock operas.  It's obviously written while people were on fucking insane amounts of drugs.  It has no recognizable structure.  The acts are delineated by who the fuck knows what, and the resolution is crazy as the rest of it.

I'd never really listened to Frank Zappa in any capacity before, so this was a... something... experience for me.  I don't believe that, even if I started doing drugs today, I will have ever done enough drugs in my life to fully understand what is going on in his mind.  The writing is fucking insane, not in a bad way, but in a incomprehensibly amazing way.

Seriously.

However, if you listened to it just for the music, there are some real amazing bits in there.  Mainly the parts between the weird fucking shit.  However, even the weird shit is pretty musical.  It's about 50 - 50 amazing music - fucking insanity.

So yeah, you should listen to this album.  It's an  assault on everything in the world, and it's amazing for it.  If you didn't listen to it once, I'd be surprised, because what are you, some kind of coward?  Cowards don't read the Album Project, now go out there and get crazy.

Well, thanks to Tommy for the robot fuckingest album I have ever heard.  You're out of your damn mind, and I mean that in the nicest way possible.

Since this is the ATHF of music,

"Oh, I'm so sorry, I've been a bad host, would you guys like some juice?"

Matt

PS. GIVE PHIL FIVE, OR DIE!

jj - jj n° 2

jj - jj n° 2

Published in 2009

Wikipedia

First off, thanks to doomsday for suggesting this album.

This album landed with a resounding thud on my iPod. I was listening to it going what the fuck is this. Weird etherial electronic rap lady singing insanity? What on earth am I listening to?

I'm writing this without the internets but i'd bet, were I to look up jj on the Internet, they would be some sort of Scandinavian collective of electropop artists based on what I am hearing. It's so ecclectic that it could only be made by white people who were cold and bored.

Look, I don't know if I like this album or not. I literally cannot tell. Some of it is very cool and interesting and makes me want to be a huge fan. But some makes me want to punch someone in the face for sheer pretentiousness. I just want to know why they are trying so hard all the time.

To get a little psychological, I have a feeling that the prophet doomsday suggested this album because it reminded him of theivery corperation. He knows how much I like them, so he gave me this. I think I really like TC because of the wide influences and because it is perfect chill music. Every song takes it's time, allowing the listener to really get involved in the permutations of the sound. This doesn't allow me to do that, perhaps because they are trying to be too upbeat for it.

I come not to bury albums but I cannot say that this is anything but optional for me. The vocals are quite nice, and some of the tracks are good. Nothing seems to just jump put at me, and that means something. It ether means that I just don't have the chops to get on board and I am missing an essential piece of the puzzle, or it means that it just doesn't work for my pallet. I can recognize moments of real beauty and grace, but it seems to be weighed down too much with strange shit.

Patrick, I understand this album, and I can see why you like it, but it just never hooked me, which is trouble. I was looking for something else in there that just wasn't. Maybe this one will grow on me eventually, but it's not working for me right now.  But thanks again for the suggestion man, and keep more coming.

"What do you do man?" "I kill people, professionally."
Matt

PS - Next Week The Ink Spots - The Very Best of the Ink Spots

Metallica - Ride The Lightning

Metallica - Ride the Lightning

Published 1984

Wikipedia

First off, of course, let me thank Tommy Clark for her suggestion of this album.  I'll be rolling around to some of your other suggestions when I can, and keep you up to date when I do.

Metallica should be my favorite band.  They should be, but they aren't.  It's actually been one of those weird questions that haunts the back of my mind when I think about music, why I actually find Metallica pretty pedestrian and mediocre.  I like the album, I like the songs, I like the sound, I just never really got into them as a band.  This is one of those albums that a lot of people feel passionately about, especially two of my best friends, so it's weird that I don't like it as an album.

Let me be clear, if I were about to go do something awesome, I'd want to listen to Metallica.  They have a way with being fucking awesome, and play some awesome songs.  They're like the Scorpions, but not a joke (and I fucking love Rock You Like a Hurricane).  They have obviously influenced a ton of bands that I love.

Remember when I said, just down below this post, how mature My Aim is True sounded?  Take that, and reverse it.  This sounds like someone trying to be incredibly edgy, but not really fully pulling it off.  It's not that I can't get into it, and I will admit to banging my head a bit, and enjoying the shit out of parts, but sometimes, it sounds like it is the metal madlibs.  Nouns are always fire, dead or brain.  Verbs are always gonna, want, and will or burn, eat and murder.

And yet, I feel like a shit for even bringing that up.  It's fucking Metallica!  Who the fuck listens to the lyrics?  They are designed to be shouted so that Kirk Hammett's fingers don't explode into flames on stage!  In this respect, I will say, this album kicks ass.  The solos are awesome, the bass is fucking kicking, the drums are as good as Lars Ulrich gets.  Everything is designed to be as loud as hell, and ready to burst your eardrums.  I mean, when I was twelve or thirteen, I saw fucking Papa Roach at a concert, and I will never say that fucking Last Resort was any sort of good song, but that concert rocked because the band made it rock.

Which actually might bring me to my main problem with this album.  I don't want to hear Metallica on speakers, sitting at my computer.  Driving really fast?  Maybe.  Setting shit on fire?  Definitely.  Live?  Fuck. Yes.  This might be the quintessential live band for me, and I feel like I may have missed my opportunity to see them at their thrash metal-ly best.  Actually, I know I have, because I was born two years after this album came out, and as far as I can tell from their singles, they peaked when I was two and have been sliding down ever since.   I mean, right now, I'm listening to For Whom The Bell Tolls, and I can see the fucking stadium that I want to be at to see this show.  It's RFK stadium, the field is covered in people, the stage is huge, and they are playing this song.  Like twice as fast though, and they are fucking psyched to be playing music still.  They haven't gotten to the point where they feel entitled to anything, but they are just there to make some fucking great music.

Maybe that is the reason I can't get into them.  I just can't think about it in terms of never actually getting to see that band.  I guess if there is one thing that Ride the Lightning has taught me, it's that I need to make sure to go out and see the bands that I want to see ASAP, or they'll put out Death Magnetic, and no one wants that.  (I kid Metallica.  I never listened to Death Magnetic.  And neither did anyone else, apparently.)

I mean, this is a solid album.  "Ride the Lighting", "For Whom the Bell Tolls", and "Fade to Black" are fucking classics, and I don't give a shit who you talk to, anyone who says differently is lying through their teeth.  It's just not my cup of tea.  What I'm saying is, this is an optional album to me.  If you love Metallica, you already have it.  If you love Slayer, you already have it.  If you hate Metallica, nothing will turn you onto them.  And I'll be right between you guys, wondering which ones of you are the clowns, and which ones are the jokers.  Yeah, that was a Steeler's Wheel joke, you heard it here first.

Anyway, thanks again to Tommy, and I hope to be screamed at by my friends who love Metallica.
Smile and you are happy,
Matt

Silver Jews - American Water

Silver Jews - American Water
Published in 1998
Wikipedia - Silver Jews

So you thought you got rid of me? You thought that just because I have no job and nothing really to do, I'd drop you. Well, that's what you get for doubting me, because here I am, back with another update to The Album Project.

First of course, we must thank our generous opinion donor. Zach T, thanks for the suggestion.

Unfortunately, I don't have a lot to say about this album. It was a good album, and I enjoyed it, but it didn't really stick with me that much. I enjoyed the songs in general, and the music was good, it just didn't really leave that much of an impression.

I will say, I really enjoyed the sound of the album. They had a great sound going, and the vocals are quite nice, especially when the two vocalists are singing together. It's an album that I think I would enjoy more if I listened to it more.

Zach, I'm psyched to try out some more of your suggestions, I'm sorry I don't have more to say about this.

More later,
Matt

Dream Theater - Train of Thought

Dream Theater - Train of Thought
Published in 2003
Wikipedia

Three posts in one day? Say it ain't so! I'd of course like to thank Zach for the suggestion, and for putting the word out to other people, Thanks!

Let me talk a little about my relationship with Dream Theater before I get to this album in particular. I've been trying to get into them for years, but have always had trouble just penetrating the surface. I find them to be a band that seems just out of reach of my tastes. When they go metal, they just go a little too far for me. Two of my good friends swear by them, so I keep trying. I've actually been more of a fan of Systematic Chaos (After Train of Thought), because that was the only album that really kept me listening. I enjoy it, and I find times to listen to it, but it's never gotten a hold on me the way some other music has. With that in mind, lets move on to Train of Thought.

First, and allow me to make this abundantly clear, this is a dark album. There is a lot of abyss in this motherfucker. Go too far in, and you'd be liable to find some old fucking gods. In the first couple of seconds, a triumphant sounding beginning is crushed by a pulsating baseline. The lyrics, which are hard to make out sometimes for me, but become more and more clear as you listen more and more, are deep and dark, just like the music. You want some fucking awesome 'getting pumped up to fucking rip shit apart' music, this is the kind of stuff that I'd suggest.

When Dream Theater is on top of it's game, they play some fucking great music. It's exactly what I'd have liked to hear from Metallica in their prime, but harder and more epic. I have a feeling that these guys heard guys like Metallica and said 'Why are you backing off, you fucking pussies?'

What they do very well is motifs and themes. Now copy and paste that about a hundred times. If you are not a student of music, this is what I think makes them a bit hard to pin down. These guys love repeating, morphing phrases. They want you to hear the same riffs over and over again in every possible permutation, drilling them into your head and then switching them up. When you notice the changes, it's kind of cool. Unfortunately, it is also where I sometimes get lost in their songs. They repeat so much it is sometimes hard to hear the subtle things that they are doing to change the music. I'm happy to report however, after really paying attention to the music, I've grown to appreciate them at the top of their game.

The reason that I am not in love with this album is because in some of what I thought were their best songs, there were parts that I found, to paraphrase Christian Bale, fucking distracting. Why do we need to have all of the whispering repeated lines over Honor Thy Father, when the music is plenty oppressive enough? What the fuck is with the loony tunes fucking interlude in Endless Sacrifice at 6:30? These kinds of things break my concentration and appreciation, but maybe that is just one of the things that they do, I don't know.

Don't let that last paragraph give you the wrong impression, I like the album, and I think it is a good one, I just can't find myself desperately wanting to listen to it more. Actually the song that I think is best on it is the shortest one on it. Vacant is what some would call a fucking tight song. It's brief, yes, but what it makes them do is incorporate what is good in a long song into a great short song. It's beginning is one of the perfect sinking chord progressions that you can really hear in their songs. It's slow, but it milks you for the emotion that it wants. It has a fucking Cello in it for fucks sake!

Maybe I've been trained to listen to short music by pop music, but I really do feel that they are at their best when they aren't wandering all over the place. When they are forced into a tight rhythm they can kick ass, and that doesn't mean that they can't get the permutations in. But I will say, I respect the hell out of these guys for not giving in to fucking assholes like me telling them to shorten it and tighten it up. These guys are obviously incredibly talented artists, and they can seriously fucking shred, to use the parlance of our times. This just might not be the album that gets me to jump down the rabbit hole, which in retrospect I should have known. A real fan of these guys suggested this album to me, which probably means that having spent a lot of time with the core course work of Dream Theater, this is one of the last bastions that he hasn't finished. If you love metal, you've already heard it, but if you haven't, it's an interesting experiment. This is an album I'd love to have a long conversation about.

Once again, thanks a lot Zach, it was a wild experience. I think I'm actually liking it more the second time around, so I promise to keep listening to it.

Up Next: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots by The Flaming Lips

In the not too distant future,
Matt