107 - Albums 💿🎵
Hey there, !
More music chatter! I wrote about a few memories about music previously, but this time around, I wanted to do something more specific - memories related to albums and why they’re important to me.
1. Hamilton
No surprise, man’s a theatre buff. I was annoyed that I wouldn’t be able to watch Hamilton for a while (because it was taking such a long time to make its way over to Australia), and was adamant that I wanted to listen to the songs only in theatre so I wouldn’t spoil myself.
And then…they did an intro to the Tony’s with the original cast and absolutely blew me away. It was so fun! And it told such a great story of the Battle of Yorktown and the different characters struggle’s in a really succinct series of songs - I needed more.
I slowly discovered the other great songs from the album (Right Hand Man, Schuyler Sisters), hesitating throughout as again, I didn’t want to spoil myself. However, the algorithm knew what I wanted, and just kept flooding me through a number of other ‘recommended’ links on YouTube…
So I decided to just listen to the whole thing in one go - who knew when I’d be able to watch it anyway!?
It was much harder to understand the purpose of the songs with no context. I honestly thought the story was going to be about some woman named Theodosia being fought over by kings and countrymen of the US and Britain (You’ll Be Back, Dear Theodosia - also that people were getting married (??)). I didn’t know that it was so wrapped up in American history! I just liked the songs.
I ended up watching a bootleg YouTube version so that I could understand what everything was about…and then the Disney+ version as well. It’ll tide me over…
Very fun and very worth a full listen. Looking forward to watching in theatres next year :)
2. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy - Kanye West
I didn’t know who Kanye was for the longest time. I remember loving his verses on ‘American Boy‘ as well as ‘Gold Digger‘ but I never really took an interest in who was singing., and since I wasn’t really listening to that kinda music, I missed out.
On 1377 3MP Easy Listening (AM Radio of course), I always forgot / missed the part where they tell you who the singer was; I just knew how to sing the song! In a memorable field trip out to Beechworth in Year 5, I remember the song ‘Unforgettable‘ by Nat King Cole coming on the radio, and I mentioned that it was so recognisable…yet couldn’t name the singer! Teacher made a whole competition in an instant to see who could name the song…and no-one got it. Trivia champion origin story.
Anyway, Kanye West - a man who was always on the radar for the wrong reasons (Imma let you finish) that I vaguely knew about due to his cult-like status with his fans. He hasn’t changed much in terms of his personal antics, but his musical genius - well, it takes a lot to stay at the top of your game for such a long time.
A few years back after being a bit more conscious that my music taste was a bit stale (you can only listen to the 60s and 70s so many times) I decided to branch out to see what Kanye was all about. Spotify’s algorithm wasn’t as good as it is today (which isn’t saying much…), and I thought ‘well, if people keep thinking he’s amazing, surely he can’t be all that bad?’
I did the normal (?) thing and checked a bunch of different ‘Best Kanye Album’ lists and settled on MBDTF being the first I should listen to and…
…it was F A N T A S T I C. Outrageously good music album - song by song; I learnt a lot about how satisfying it would be to listen to a coherently-written rap, the differences in timbre / pitch / way of rapping that could give such different moods to songs, the power of the synthesiser, and the incredibly genius way of using samples during songs.
This album is a slapper on every track - including Power, All of the Lights, Devil in a New Dress, Runaway (!) and Monster. The ending of the album with ‘Who will survive in America‘ made me shiver:
What does Webster say about soul?
All I want is a good home and a wife
And a children and some food to feed them every night
After all is said and done build a new route to China if they’ll have you
It introduced me to more hip-hop and rap styles, which meant I was exposed to a ton more great music :)
Give it a try - listen to the whole album end to end! He knows how to put one together, and helped me appreciate listening to a whole album rather than just a single.
3. A Hard Day’s Night / Help! / Abbey Road - The Beatles
I put these three albums because they have some of my favourite tracks (I’ve Just Seen a Face, Yesterday, Help!, Come Together, Something, If I Fell, And I Love Her) but the Beatle’s entire discography is (obviously) worth listening to.
The main story I wanted to talk about was the single Strawberry Field’s Forever which was released with Penny Lane in 1967 as a double feature.
It’s one of the weirdest songs they’ve done (outside of the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Band album) with trippy psychedelic imagery, swooping melodies and a cacophony of noise at the end of it which devolves into chaos.
A perfect selection for a Year 8 to sing on a charity album for school, right?
I was chosen as part of a number of students across Prep to Year 12 at MGS to sing for this album, and I got the headline track on Disc 1 singing Strawberry Fields Forever. What an honour (??) - I honestly don’t know, but I do remember it being my first (and to date, only) experience in a recording studio. I prepared a ton for it, and the actual day was a a blur; vague memories that the recording room was kinda small, and that I had to sing the same high notes a number of times because I wasn’t able to sustain it well for the swoop down.
It still exists somewhere at home. I’ll upload it if the newsletter gets to #200 :D
4. Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi - The Four Seasons
Everyone knows Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons - Summer, Winter, Autumn, Spring. It’s the joyful opening bars of Spring, or the frantic double stops of Winter, the delicate melodies of Autumn, and the oppressive yet powerful harmonies of Summer. A wonderful set of pieces that are known around the world - surely you can’t improve on perfection?
Apparently you can. I was turned on to this particular album because of Chef’s Table, where the title sequence uses this album to accompany the opening. As a violinist who had played the actual concertos, I found the slight deviations from the original disconcerting, but pleasant. I was determined to find out if they had the wrong tracks (?) or it was something new!
After finding the album, I fell in love. It’s very symbolic of ‘old style perfection being tweaked to become new and exciting’ - just like the food being made on Chef’s Table. The variations are wonderful, and the more you listen to them, the more…’staid’ and ‘proper’ Vivaldi’s becomes.
Not that that’s a bad thing! I just prefer this version now :D
I’m always on the look out to listen to some new albums, so please let me know your favs as well!
Chat soon :)
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✔️Real Life Recommendations
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Cruella - available on Disney+. What a fun romp of a movie. Go in with literally no expectations about an old Disney movie (101 Dalmations), come out after a satisfying 1.5 hours or so of a great origin story. Emma Stone opposite Emma Thompson - what a wonderful combination of fashion, sass, and campy fun. Don’t expect anything airtight in terms of plot - it doesn’t really hold up to too much criticism, but it’s a hella fun story!
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Lay’s Black Truffle chips - I’ve tried to scour the internet for these so that you guys can buy them too (and found this), but I’ve really only found them at my local Asian grocer. It’s a white, Pringles-looking can that has truffle on the front; it’s DELICIOUSly packed with flavour, bursting at the seams with truffle-y goodness (and I usually don’t even like truffle)! HIGHLY recommend these chips if you can find them. In other news you can get these snack reviews on my instagram (@vincentjr) every week ;)
🚌 Adventures on the Information Super-Highway
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What our Spotify playlists reveal about the emotional nature of financial markets - A kind of quirky study that maps ‘sentiment’ of music (happy, angry, sad) with returns on financial markets - essentially showing that more positive musical sentiment correlates with higher financial returns.
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Same-Gender Lyrics - pudding.cool is this online publication that does some extremely cool stories (usually fueled by fun datasets). This one is an analysis of same-gender lyrics, and how little there have been in the top 100 between 2008 (I Kissed a Girl - Katy Perry) to 2021 (Montero (Call Me By Your Name) - Lil Nas X - which is also a banger of an album!). Really interesting analysis of seeing yourself in media!
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Scammer Service will ban anyone from Instagram for $60 - where there’s opportunity, there’s money. More travels down the darknet.