class-diddly-assic. she has such an achingly beautiful, quiet voice and the songs are generally great. definitely one of the best 60s/70s UK folk albums.
-- your null fame (awesoma_pow...), March 13th, 2003.
The Cure's original is still achingly beautiful even after having heard it hundreds of times. They win this one, but Dino Jr's version can't be dismissed entirely if only for the solo. The abrupt ending used to drive me mad but I've come to embrace it.
-- J-rock (juice_rock...), June 27th, 2003.
The new album. Due out September 12. Supposedly contains several songs that clock in at 4 minutes. Contains "Milano," a song that's they've been playing for a few years now....it's incredible, beautiful, achingly gorgeous, what-have-you. Check it. (Search the version from The Tabernacle in Atlanta circa 2003).
-- PB (non...), July 26th, 2005.
lately it's been fennesz's achingly beautiful "endless summer."
-- jess (dubplatestyl...), September 18th, 2001.
its just achingly beautiful stuff. a lot of what i feel about it has already be said and better than i could ever.
but its the contrasts that draw you in. the cold/warm. the natural/unnatural. the idea that beneath the slickness there's confusion. beneath the expressions of desire there's emptiness. and vice versa a lot of the time.
-- bulbs (fan...), November 19th, 2004.
Horns? My mind's playing tricks on me - I could have sworn that this was awash with soulful brass stabs, but listening to it again I'm completely wrong. It must have been the buses driving past outside. It's still achingly beautiful, but obviously crying out for the full Acid Brass treatment.
-- Mike Ratford (mratfor...), July 29th, 2002.
Another one you should hear, Kim, that's fairly close in sound is Saturday Look's Good To Me's All Our Summer Songs. It's more of a lo-fi, Spector/Beach Boys style song cycle with a bunch of guest singers on hand. Like a looser, synth-free Stephen Merritt production. Achingly beautiful in places, and the more I hear it the more it all seems of a piece.
-- Curt (curtisgoul...), May 18th, 2003.
What I really like about her music is that it doesn't always go in a straight line; it's structurally unexpected -- and yet it also has this homemade intimacy to it. And actually, maybe the unconventional song forms even contribute to that sense of intimacy: she wants to go off into this out-of-nowhere bridge, so she does. It's an intuitive approach to songwriting. And it's all so achingly beautiful.
-- jaymc. (jmcunnin...), March 21st, 2003.
Commonswings is OTM. Stormbringer! in particular has to be one of the most achingly beautiful songs about unrequited love ever written, and that's up against some pretty stiff competition.
-- chris sallis (chry...), September 24th, 2002.
The team that gave the world the stunning 'Don't Dream it's Over' and 'Mean To Me' and the achingly beautiful 'Message To My Girl' also inflicted the following, complete with full orchestra and chorus and the most bombastic production job since the darkest days of Yes, on a totally unprepared world:
'It should be possible I know, to see you without stress/But I can see I'll have to go, I'm changing my address.'
-- Fred Nerk (bjhaus200...), December 17th, 2002.
Jason Lytle is a damn fine vocalist, and his goofy bored-suburbian lyrics are as strangely affecting as Malkmus's are entertaining. Their music can be achingly beautiful, especially "So You'll Aim Toward The Sky" and "He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's the Pilot." "The Sophtware Slump" _is_ the place to start, it's really superb, and if it's their "The Bends," I can't wait to hear what they cook up next. Blah, blah, blah, gush, gush gush. Make up your own mind but I think they're fab.
-- Jack Redelfs (squirrel_polic...), September 23rd, 2001.
Category C makes me think of Tara Jane O'Neil. Her first solo record, which I found quite accidentally, is achingly beautiful and sparse. And since I don't know anyone else who's heard of her (besides people I've recommended her to), I think that really contributes to the intimate, homemade vibe I get from the album.
-- jaymc (jmcunnin...), March 20th, 2003.
If you're unconvinced by my argument, or by the claim that Wheeler's declaration in ‘Skin and Bone’ once again makes love available, you may want to listen once more to the incredible 'My Finest Hours'. With its achingly beautiful chorus and unexpected but perfect coda, it shows the heart of Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic with both its words and its music—which provide their own argument.
-- the bellefox (pinefo...), August 17th, 2004. (quoting some other dude)
‘Cloudberries’ was formerly called ‘Hummingbird’ on account of the lovely humming throughout its achingly beautiful first couple of minutes. Then, however, it too changes to an almost samba-ish carefree sway. It is the closest the record comes to any hint of a South American sound (something the band were at pains to avoid), but soon enough it too gives way to the more heavenly strains of the massed choir.
-- gorge (sdl466...), June 21st, 2005.
For good examples of many of these exotic blossoms, look to the Globestyle and Real World releases of the last decade and a half-- here you'll find world music that isn't all light-hearted and merely pretty, but much also that is searching, dark, and achingly beautiful in unexpected ways. (Just listen to some Armenian dudek to hear the collective soul of a people who must experience excrutiating sadness even as they make their tea.)
-- X. Y. Zedd (xyzed...), June 21st, 2001.
Rachel's subtlety comes close to the most achingly beautiful and minimal Satie pieces (yes, I do know some folks y'know). Max Richter's Blue Notebooks, no explanation needed here.
-- Dom Passantino (juror...), March 20th, 2005.
They just got everything right on this release, from the evocative cover photo of an ancient sentry to the achingly beautiful, stirring music. I can't get enough of the three-part vocal harmonies, the dual guitar leads, or the melancholic power of the riffs. Favorite tracks include the beautiful British folk of "Leaf And Stream", the anthemic "Warrior", and the shoulda-been-a-pop-hit "Sometime World". The whole album has a timeless vibe. Maybe you could call their style "rural progressive" rock? It's melodic, mystical and complex in ways that make it sound simple.
-- Tim Ellison (timejeanne...), August 27th, 2004.
Looking forward to one day getting the Plaid remixes. This should be more coherent seeing as Plaid could be counted as genre-opposite to Aphex in that they are perfectionists, unafraid to focus their attentions on every melody and timbre until they've made something achingly beautiful rather than the AFX approach of, wack it through the madloops generator, job done mate, NEXT! I've already heard the mix of "All Is Full of Love" by Bjork and it shines in comparison to anything off of "26 Mixes" simply because one realises that they're actually trying.
-- dog latin (doglati...), April 1st, 2003.
Animal Collective - Two Corvettes
Yeh, so I'm a big fan but I've found a lot of stuff impenetrable. I was lying awake stoned in bed listening to Campfire Songs and this is the one that clicked. Reading the lyric sheet along with the song really helps here. It's like a time-stretched Beach Boys surf-and-car song with a really sad ending and it's achingly beautiful.
-- dog latin (doglati...), August 1st, 2005.
I love the soul ballads and the 'fake country' (whatever that is) - they're so achingly beautiful and poignant. For something made by a bunch of British rockers, it's very...well...Wyoming. It's difficult to explain. But the album sounds the way Wyoming feels, and I mean that in the best way possible.
-- geeta (geet...), June 24th, 2002.
― 7, Friday, 12 August 2005 20:48 (twenty years ago)
This eagerly awaited debut from M.I.A. is as confrontational as marmite, and looks set to be one of the albums of the year.
The music is peppered with gunshot beats and juddering giger counter bass. The lyrics are equally up front, flavoured by bombs, terrorism, kidnap and revolution. 'Load up, aim, fire, fire, bo!' shrieks Maya Arulpragasam, the 28 year old mc who is M.I.A. Given her background this full clip aggression isn't surprising. She spent her early youth in Sri Lanka, the daughter of a Tamil insurgent, relocated to the UK as a refugee, and ended up in a South London council estate.
Some aren't convinced, seeing the media as hyping up the album because of her exotic past. Those who love her find her songs as poetic an autobiography of a troubled life as Dizzee Rascal's Boy In Da Corner.
Another point of contention is the beats. Arular has been criticised of being a mere pastiche of dancehall, electro, hip hop and Rio-baile funk (the in your face, hook laden booty bashing party music of the Brazilian Favelas). But really this is what urban music should be; a concoction of sounds that could only be cooked up in the crucible of a multi-cultural city. Purity equals snobbery in my book. Arular is a massive success because it is crammed with so much sonic variety.
Picks are as follows: The Diplo produced "Bucky Done Gone", with its marching band trumpet, big bass drum and frantic eighties back beat; the achingly beautiful "Sunshowers" with its unsettling, unusual but ooh-so alluring vo-coded harmonies; and, of course, Galang, the underground smash of 2004 that started it all.
M.I.A. stands for both Missing In Action and Missing In Acton. You're going to be hearing a lot more from this fierce new talent.
― gear (gear), Saturday, 13 August 2005 01:02 (twenty years ago)
three years pass...
four years pass...