792. Exit Planet Dust - The Chemical Brothers

This album always reminds me of an early version of FIFA, where tracks off this album seemed to feature heavily, and that is about as good as nostalgia gets. I'm not a massive Dance Music afficianado, but I do own a copy of this album (still proudly proclaiming its Virgin Megastore £3 bargain-ness).

The album title partially derives from the transition of the duo from their previous incarnation, The Dust Brothers, following a law suit from the Beastie Boys collaborators of the same name. They selected Chemical as the replacement term after their song 'Chemical Beats', off this album. This, the group's debut LP, reached number 9 in the UK charts, and made some headway in the US too. The band subsequently became something of a behemoth, including winning three Grammys and a Brit, and are still producing records. 

Leave Home is an absolute 90s dance classic. The vocal sample drips with utter self-assuredness, and the crescendoes and guitar licks are wonderfully fresh. It has a lot of depth, and never feels repetitive. In Dust We Trust starts out as a real ripsnorter, but loses its way slightly; there are still some pretty tasty drops in there though. The smooth slide into Song to the Siren, which combines siren like voices with an actual siren. If this is an accurate taste of a live Chemical Brothers performance, then I can imagine it would be quite the experience. After that the album ends up being moments of audacious brilliance, surrounded by more moments awaiting these. For example, Three Little Birdies Down Beats has the Fifa sample that absolutely takes me back, but were it not for this, the use of a phaser to vary the sound over and over again is a bit boring. Fuck Up Beats could let the drums off the chain, but doesn't, and so it flatters to deceive. Chemical Beats lacks sufficient beatage, Chico's Groove lacks the necessary groove. One Too Many Mornings is a bit more interesting, with its vocals and unusual sound effects ebbing and flowing nicely. It's a decent chillout, morning after the night before kind of track. Life is Sweet has a great beat, but the vocals leave me a bit cold, although Chloe really enjoyed it. 

Overall, I really enjoyed a few tracks off the album, but it didn't really stand up to repeated listens as a whole body of work. Whilst the concept of a dance album can really work, Underworld being an example who get it right, it can just sounds like a collection of catchy beats, nice piano/guitar lines, and snappy samples. This album falls slight victim to that, and whilst I'm sure the energy of a buzzing crowd would carry you along when listening to it live, just listening to it at home it can't quite generate enough momentum to carry itself off for its 50 minute duration. 

Chloe's album rating: 6
Chloe's favourite track: 9. Life is Sweet
Olly's album rating: 6
Olly's favourite track: 1. Leave Home

Next week we're rolling with 966. Fishscale by Ghostface Killah. Yes, I used that phrase. Yes, I apologise unreservedly.

917. Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea - PJ Harvey

This is the PJ Harvey album I know best, and I listened to it a lot when I was in my late teens. A lot. But I probably hadn't heard it in its entirety for about ten years, so playing it again was like putting on some once-discarded-now-refound-jeans that fit surprisingly well, and remind you of a simpler time, that didn't seem simple at the time.

This album was Harvey's breakthrough to the bigtime, and won the Mercury Music Prize in 2001. Her fifth record, it was a much more consistent record than her earlier work, and whilst it may have lost some of the vitriol, it showed greater consistency. The songs are primarily written about New York, although some hint back to her time in the UK. The story-telling is compelling, and the variety of tracks is impressive, showing the many facets of Harvey's song-writing. Many have labelled it her finest album; no mean feat given the strength of Let England Shake, which also features in the 1001 list.

Big Exit is a bold brash opener that is pretty confrontational, and the guitar-organ combination is pretty compelling. It's a dark and foreboding intro to an album that seems to explore life in all its forms. Good Fortune is one of the stronger albums lyrically, with some powerful imagery surrounding escaping ones own fortune. A Place called Home is a full bodied song that reveals different elements each time you hear it. From the light acoustic guitar, via the strings and stereo panning percussion to the organ, it just doesn't let up. Beautiful Feeling is a bit too slow for me, although Harvey's voice is beautifully haunting. The Whores Hustle and the Hustlers Whore is not only one of the great song titles of the 21st Century, but again it shows the depth and variety of instrumentation that Harvey confidently employs. Whilst it is the guitar and vocals that drive the song, and I'd be interested to hear an acoustic version, I love the onslaught of noise. This Mess We're In is a stunning duet with Thom Yorke that I had previously overlooked off this album. It is utterly beautiful, and highly appropriate looking at the current global political picture. Kamikaze is a fantastically angry song, with an achingly good guitar sound, which neatly flows into This Is Love, featuring the killer couplet "I can't believe life's so complex/ when I just want to sit here and watch you undress". The combination of crystal clear guitar overlaying a grungy, fuzzy axe (is there another synonym for guitar?) works an absolute treat, and Harvey's voice seems to oscillate between these two tones. Horses in my Dreams has moments of stunning clarity, but feels a bit listless the rest of the time, where the insistent snare drives We Float into being more than just another slow number. This Wicked Tongue is the classic late-'90s/early-'00s hidden track, that makes me nostalgic for the time, mainly for the fond memories of deleting 6 minutes of silence when copying albums onto my minidisc. Artistic integrity be damned - there were only so many minutes in the day, and I wasn't going to waste them waiting for your studio offcuts, especially when those offcuts were actually rather tasty.

You know it's a great album when songs as strong as One Line barely register. Whilst I don't feel like I loved it more at the end of the week than at the start, I certainly appreciated parts of it I may once have overlooked. The variety of the songs is genuinely staggering, and the originality is what gives the album such depth. I can imagine ten different people comfortably picking out ten different favourite songs, and whilst I may find some songs too pedestrian, I still get that they're very good. So, a very good album, that I may have felt even better about had it been my first introduction.

Chloe's album rating: 9

Chloe's favourite track: 2. Good Fortune

Olly's album rating: 8

Olly's favourite track: 7. This Mess We're In

Our next record is 792. Exit Planet Dust by the Chemical Brothers; I suspect this one will be listened to at a high volume.

731. Debut - Bjork

As a lover of chronology, I'd started to get into Bjork by focusing on her first album, and it took me a long time to bother moving onto Post, such was the depth of this particular LP. A week of re-listening to this on cold, dark mornings on the way to work sounded ideal to me.

Bjork's musical career started at the age of 11 when a cover of I Love to Love was broadcasts nationally in her native Iceland. She had some local success in her home country throughout the 70s and 80s, and the Sugarcubes made a name for themselves globally, selling over a million copies of their debut Life's Too good.  Following the split of the band in 1992, Bjork released her solo album the next year, to huge critical acclaim and slow, but eventually stellar, commercial success. She's gone on to become something of a subtle iconoclast, and is hugely influential in many fields outside of pop, as a recent exhibition at MOMA demonstrated.

Human Behaviour is probably the most interesting song lyrically, and the military drumming drives it along nicely. The industrial NIN-esque sound effects work well too, and hint at the variety of gems this album contains; so many get the perfect balance of ethereal wonder overlaying a mid 90s house banger. Crying has that great keys, synth and bass progression, and some cracking Bjork imagery. Venus as a Boy is just pure wonder and inquisition distilled into a song. More to Life than This is pretty clever with its po-mo stepping out of the party, but actually it's one of the more repetitive albums on the track. The following track, Like Someone in Love is a bit too saccharine for my tastes, and although I think I can hear a tongue in a cheek somewhere, it's either too subtle, or too imagined. Subtlety is not a feature of Big Time Sensuality which should be a club staple (it may be - I haven't been to a night club in years) with its keyboard riff and crisp drumming, and Bjork's cathedral-like voice overlaying everything. The burbling One Day is a modern day lullaby, but it's Violently Happy that just grew and grew for me this week, ending as one of my favourite on the album. Played loud on speakers, it just sounds so crisp and fresh. Play Dead is still my number one though, with its combination of strings, horns, breathy vocals and rumbling bass a slice of experimental pop perfection. It should be sampled everywhere, but I'm thankful that it hasn't been. And yes, it wasn't on the original release, but it was on the reissue, and I'm making the rules, so it's included.

What's great about this album is that you can't listen to it without picturing Bjork walking through an ice cave, entranced by the light patterns created by the striations on the walls, a look of bliss upon her face. It takes elements of naivety, early 90s dance music, glossolalia, and pure pop, and turns them into a masterpiece. Whilst it falls short some of the time (Aeroplane and The Anchor Song are interesting, but just not that great), the scope of the album is colossal, and to have the courage to kick off your solo career with this is something else.

Chloe's album rating: 8

Chloe's favourite track: 6. Big Time Sensuality

Olly's album rating: 8

Olly's favourite track: 12. Play Dead

From one kick-ass 90s female solo artist onto another - it's 917. Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea by PJ Harvey. Blinding.

72. Revolver - The Beatles

Revolver is one of the Beatles albums that I know best, having quite arbitrarily picked it out as the Beatles album to listen to when I was much younger. It is often regarded as their finest album, and whilst I'm not going to wade into that discussion, it does capture some of their best songwriting.

Revolver was released in August 1966, and was the number one album in the UK for 7 weeks. It made innovative use of new studio techniques, including Automatic Double Tracking, where a tape recorder would automatically make a slightly varied recording of a vocal performance to add depth to the voice. Varispeeding was also used for the first time, where recordings would be played back at a different speed to the original. All of these techniques pushed the group even further ahead of their peers, and showed that experimental pop music was not an oxymoron. Indeed, it regularly tops lists of greatest albums ever, or at least places in the top handful, and whilst it's success may have been slightly muted in the US when released due to Lennon's "Bigger than Jesus" claim, it has since gone five times platinum.

Taxman is one of the greatest opening songs of all time. Not only is the guitar jaw droppingly good, but the lyrics are great too. Given that income tax rates were 95% on high earners, you can see the band's point, although I can't imagine many groups getting away with moaning about taxes these days. Eleanor Rigby follows this, which has an incredible string section alongside Paul's best vocal work. I have always loved this song, and it simply got better as the week went on, with the intensity of the sound never failing to hit home.  I'm Only Sleeping slows things down, but with a delicacy that the band are tight enough to get away with. Love You To cleverly combines the Indian sounds that had such an influence on the group at this time with standard Western fare. The double tracking on the voice is slightly eery, but that works perfectly over the sitar. Here, There and Everywhere is one of my wife's favourite love songs, and I can see why. The simplicity of the song, alongside the heartfelt lyrics make it one that feels familiar even the first time it's heard; testament to what great songwriters can do with a guitar and drum. The next song is the annoyance that just does not fit on this album. Yellow Submarine is a terrible song, and I admit I had to skip it many times this week. I don't really understand the rationale behind this being added to the album. She Said She Said starts with such a devastatingly strong guitar that still sounds fresh to modern ears. It is a track that I would often not notice, but with sustained listening it demonstrates just how consistently good, and innovative, the songwriting is. Good Day Sunshine is certainly not one of the stronger tracks, but the swinging rhythm and lilting piano work very well together.  And Your Bird Can Sing is a stunning song, the guitar in particular a stand out. For No One doesn't add a lot, but is enjoyable. Doctor Robert is a classic slice of pop-rock which is almost impossible not to sing along with. I Want To Tell You has a wonderful collaboration of guitar and piano, but doesn't match the splendor of Got To Get You Into My Life, where the horn section is just sublime. The desperation of the vocals conveys the song's message exceptionally well. Tomorrow Never Knows is one of Chloe's favourite songs, and is a real slice of psychedelic wonder, using tape loops and recordings played backwards to great effect. It pretty much gave the Chemical Brothers their entire sound, and sounds almost identical to their song Setting Sun.

The difficulty in rating this album is simply how to justify not giving it a ten. My justification is that I really, really don't like Yellow Submarine. Everything else is simply one of the best bands ever at the peak of their powers.

Chloe's rating: 8

Chloe's favourite track: 5. Here, There and Everywhere

Olly's rating: 9

Olly's favourite track: 2. Eleanor Rigby

2017 is being kind to us - next week is 731. Debut by Bjork.

32. Jazz Samba - Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd

My knowledge of Jazz being limited, and our most recent Jazz experience being frankly scarring, I approached this album with a triple measure of scepticism combined with a healthy mixer of reluctance. It quickly became apparent that this was certainly going to be an easier listen than John Zorn.

This album is a mix of Bossa nova and Samba with some Jazzy touches. It was created in one recording session in a church in Washington DC, following Charlie Byrd's visit to Brazil in 1961. He was heavily influenced by the music he heard on the streets there, and decided to integrate this with his own Jazz roots, if he could find a collaborator in the US. Stan Getz rose to the challenge, and his tenor sax fitted seamlessly with Byrd's guitar. The album went to number one in the US, and is widely considered as having started the Bossa Nova craze.

Desafinado was the hit that really launched this album, and as such it is appropriate that it starts the album off. It is a well known piece, and whilst it can be a bit lightweight, it is very catchy and enjoyable. The sax lightly dances around the guitar, with the insistent drumming keeping things together. The two minute version which was the bonus track on the reissued CD has less going for it, as it loses the build up of the original. Samba Dees Days is a more pacey song, with the sax playing an even more dominant role, particularly in the powerful ending. O Pato is probably the best track on the album, with the duet between guitar and sax at its most symbiotic. The guitar is also given space to breathe, and shows off Byrd's impressive finger picking style. Samba Triste has a more somber note, as you'd expect, and seems to sway in both rhythmic and melodic terms, with a more sedate tempo and a gentle, lilting tone to the Getz's playing. Samba De Uma Nota So slightly merges with the other tracks, some nice arpeggios and a decent guitar solo aside. E Luxo So has some nice syncopated drumming, but is largely forgettable, that aside. Bahia has a more varied tempo than most of the tracks, but seems to slightly lose its way, which is what I'd expected to hear from other tracks, but they all seemed more focussed.

This album has lift music written all over it, yet I found it ok. Maybe even ok plus. It is very calming as background music, and just sort of drifts along; it's exactly the sort of piece that would get played on a Spotify playlist entitled "Jazzy lunch". There are some very impressive technical aspects to the playing, and to think that it was all recorded in one day is quite something. I can't imagine regularly replaying it, but I can certainly pick out contexts where I would be happy to have it playing - trying to get a baby asleep for example.

Chloe's rating: 6

Chloe's favourite track: 1. Desafinado

Olly's rating: 6

Olly's favourite track: 3. O Pato

Good news for 2017 - it's off to a flier with number 72. Revolver by the Beatles. Stonking.