#0009
listen here
Though I'm not really big on swing, this is a bit more towards the kind of jazz I enjoy. This feels a lot more thought out than a lot of the other swing I have heard, and also has something more interesting to offer rhythmically than a lot of the swing I have previously encountered. It still falls victim to some of the things that I don't quite like about swing (most notably how dated it sounds), but just not nearly as badly as the usual swing album or track will.
Overall the record sounds really nice and the last track on here is just a beautiful composition. It's good background music but not a whole lot more.
#0008
listen here
I guess Buddy Holly does have good stage presence, but most of this is just too dated for me to really get into. "An Empty Cup" was really nice but a lot of music in this style is just too middle of the road to really provide any real any enjoyment for me other than a mere glance into the past. If they had done a little more with songwriting then maybe this would be a bit more compelling, but the thing is, this record just kind of provides a caricature of what the 50's were supposed to be like based on every movie anyone's ever seen of the era, not a real accurate look into the days of yore like a lot of the best music of that 50s era did.
#0007
listen here
The second Sinatra album on this list is his follow up to In The Wee Small Hours, and despite having some killer singles, doesn't quite reach to the heights its predecessor hit. However, it still proves that Sinatra was great even when he wasn't sad, and kind of upset my expectations. His sad bastard stuff is usually the stuff everyone loves and his happier, Christmas-ier stuff is seen as kind of lame, but it still manages to sound great, if a bit dated. This album is pretty great and I could see myself listening to this again or a few more times.
Weirdly, despite a lot of the oversaturation Sinatra gets around Christmas time with singles like "You Make Me Feel So Young", the songs themselves are still unavoidably uplifting and I can get why he was such an acclaimed singer. Fuck this thing is so sweet. I definitely recommend it.
#0006
I guess swing just isn't really my thing. While the solos on here are really nice for the most part (as are most of the instrumentals), it just doesn't interest me. I love my jazz, don't get me wrong, but I find swing usually to be a tad mundane and kind of tedious to listen to for long periods, which applies to this album. Duke Ellington is a man I have a ton of respect for, but I'd be lying if I said I enjoyed this album more than just a little bit. Though I'm not very familiar with his work, Money Jungle is much much better than this, IMO.
#0005
This is looking like another pretty fun 50's R&B/jazz album, similar to that Louis Prima record. It's upbeat, catchy, fun, and the melodies on here are, if a tad generic, still really great. Though This is Fats comes off as pretty dated, it still never ceases to be a fun little record. If you ever want to have some good old fashioned fun around town with your friends, this should be the soundtrack.
#0004
This is some of the most fun stuff I think I've ever heard. I can just imagine being around at the time and popping this on a record player and going nuts. Honestly pretty sure this thing invented the banger. My favorites here are probably "Jump, Jive, An' Wail", "Buona Sera", and "Basin Street Blues/When It's Sleepy Down South".
Musically this is some classic swing jazz, with Prima's hugely energetic and charismatic vocal refrain dotting these well played instrumentals with some flares of character and fun. I can definitely see myself playing this at work.
listen here
#0003
This really isn't something I have a strong opinion of. I enjoy traditional American folk music to some extent and this country record is no exception. There are some great harmonies on here and the guitar/mandolin playing is all good. But in all honesty this seems to function more as background music than as something I'd go out of my way to listen to. Sonically this is really nice but for a 36 minute record it gets a tad boring after a while. Still this is something I'd recommend if you want some nice music for a road trip through Appalachia, especially the song "In the Pines".
listen here
#0002
Next stop on my listening trip was the debut album from Elvis, one of the most influential people musically in the U.S at least. Obviously it seems like in the modern age people have completely forgotten his music, and instead only seem to know his image as the rebellious hip-waving bad boy that he was at the time. I guess I could say I was the same up until now.
I don't really want to play the iconoclast here but I just do not like Elvis at all. To me at least he seems the classic image over substance musician. Now that's not to say I don't enjoy a couple of his songs here and there (Hound Dog most notably) but overall he just doesn't appeal to me, especially on this album.
Now listening to this I can see why all the sheltered children of suburban white parents in the 50's would love this. Also I can see why the parents of those kids would find it vulgar in a 1950's mindset. But to me it just feels dated. While the Sinatra record I listened to before this or the multitude of jazz records I have listened to from this mid-50's era still hold water today, in 2016 this album just falls flat, to me at least.
listen here
#0001
This album makes me want to turn the shades down on a rainy November day, sip on a bit of cognac and just stare out the window. Frank Sinatra was a sad sack before it was cool. The thing that makes this record so heart-wrenchingly beautiful is just the fact that Sinatra manages to sound heartbroken with seemingly little effort put into actually doing it. This sounds like what actual heartbreak sounds like, and he just doesn't try hard to make it some kind of overly depressing look-how-fucking-sad-i-am-fest like a lot of musicians tend to do.
Another thing about this album is that it just doesn't sound dated. At all. It's honestly a bit awe-inspiring how great this thing still sounds 50+ years on from it's original release. But honestly as I was listening to this and thinking about it, when the record came to a close it felt like some kind of void was left in it's absence, and idk this thing is just getting better and better every goddamn time I listen to it. The instrumentation here is generally standard (though really good) jazz-pop fare, setting a fitting backdrop for Sinatra's lonely and sorrowful cries.
The lyrics here are also fantastic, and not in a way that uses a ton of adjectives or metaphors or plays on words. They're just so poignant. They don't need you to contemplate them, all these words do is go right for the heart and impale you with melancholy.
All in all if you ever find yourself lonely and/or sad after midnight, please put this on. You won't regret it.
So as a future journalism major I decided that it would be good experience to start a blog. But what topic to cover? Then I remembered the project I've always dreamed of attempting.
1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die
I'm pretty sure everyone who knows anything about music is perfectly aware of this list, but for those who live under rocks, this was a book published in 2005 and 2008 (I'm using the 08 version btw) that compiled a list of, well the title is self-explanatory. I've been wanting to listen through the whole thing for a while and decided it would be better to do it on a blog and try to flex some journalistic muscle than do it on RYM or something.
The whole list is going to be in chronological order and whether I've listened to the album or not I'm going to sit down and just absorb it, all the way through, then post about it and write something from a blurb to an essay about what I think. I don't know how long this is going to take but hopefully I can finish in a couple years.
Also a little about me... (Ted Orbach)
I'm about to graduate high school and go to my local county college for an associate's, then transfer somewhere else. I live in Rockaway, New Jersey. I am a drummer in an indie rock band and I have a folk/lo-fi side project that I work on sort of often. Music has always been a big part of my life, but I also enjoy a lot of films and books and stuff. I'm going to link my RYM and last.fm here so yeah, hit me up with recommendations or whatever, even just message me to talk about music.
Thanks for reading, even if it was just a little bit.
-Ted
