The ever-popular "Currently Listening" thread

Faith and Pornography are the 2 Cure releases that didn't get properly represented on the collection, IMO. The singles off those two don't really match the overall tone of the cd, and some excellent songs got passed over. They did a better job picking representative and "better" tunes from the other releases. In other words, to cover their early work, you'd be best to buy SoaB, Porn, and Faith. You'll still miss a few good tunes, but you'll have most of it covered for "highlights" as well as "mood". I think you'll love the title track off Faith. Great on its own, and even better as the conclusion of the disc. The rendition on "In Orange" is pretty breathtaking, too.
 
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Not sure I completely agree with Ubereil's analysis...

Another sign of how evil republicans are! Any points in particular where you thought I was plain wrong? Disregard taste, please - I don't see the point in discussing which Kiss Me songs qualifies as "good" and my list wasn't supposed to be seen as fact.

As for their early work, do you mean up til HotD? I personally think Boys Don't Cry (if you get Three Imaginary Boys you miss out on the two best songs of the album, so don't do that) is worth getting just for the fact that it doesn't really sound like any other Cure album. It's plain, inventive, hook driven guitar pop that utilises clever interaction between the guitar and base because it's got nothing else to utilise. No synthesizers, almost no atmospheric stuff, almost none of the super nihilistic self-harm music The Cure is so famous for amongst pepole who aren't Cure fans.

And wtf, Bananafishbone is played a key higher on Spotify than on my CD? :S

Übereil
 
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But that's not quite true. In between Faith and Disintegration (which is a large chunk of their career) they had a more primitive, straight forward sound.
This is the part I didn't agree with. You look at Japanese Whispers and The Top and Charlotte Sometimes, and I just don't see where you get "primitive" or "straight forward". You've got electropop like "The Walk", you've got jazz shuffle with "Lovecats", you've got that primitive straight forward stuff with "Let's Go to Bed", you've got frenetic chaos with "Give Me It", you've got something close to twee with "Caterpillar Girl", you've got dense rockers like "Shake Dog Shake", you've got haunting layers with Charlotte.

To my mind, that period (well, technically, I'm cutting it off at Head on the Door, rather than Disintegration) was Fat Bob's first experimental phase, where he tried lots of different styles before settling in on his next "sound". He did the same sort of thing when he put out Wild Mood Swings. Unfortunately, where WMS is concerned, both the experiment itself and the resulting "sound" were rather disappointing.
 
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Well, I was comparing that period to Disintegration. Disintegration is a record where all but three song are close to five minutes if not longer. Four of the songs are over seven minutes, the longest is nine and a half minute. Compare that to Kiss Me where there are five songs that are almost 5 minutes. On Head On The Door only one song is almost five minutes.

This kind of highlights what I mean by more straight forward. They'd done what they'd done on Disintegration before on a few songs, though apart from One More Time from Kiss Me, Sinking from Head on the Door and Cold from Porn the songs most similiar to this approach is from Faith with All Cats Are Gray, Funeral Party and Faith. Faith was also an album with a generally more slow, atmospheric sound than most of their other work in the 80's, apart from Disintegration.

On Disintegration every other song had a two and a half minute intro, with lush, drawn out string arrangements. That's something they (as shown) did really sparsley earlier on, instead favoring a faster, more straight forward approach. The primitive comes from the sound in their more desperate numbers (All I Want, Shake Dog Shake, Pornography minus Siamese Twin, Cold and A Strange Day, you know, those songs). Primitive is probably not a very fitting word though (it doesn't really apply to any Head on the Door songs, for instance). But I still mainain that they had a more straight forward sound in between Faith and Disintegration (with Pornography the least straight forward album of the ones in between).

Übereil
 
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Haven't listened to these guys in a while. Popped up on my MP3 and I got taken in again just like before.

"Hardly Know You" by Ether Aura
 
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Trying out Joy Division's "Unknown Pleasures", it's the collector's edition available on MP3 @ amazon, so there's a bunch of live stuff on it. They sound like they were a great live band. Liking the cd so far
 
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Bark Psychosis - Hex (1994)
Sorta spiritual successor of Talk Talk´s Spirit of Eden & Laughing Stock.
Since there really isn´t a surplus of similarly sounding albums, this one is a welcome one.

Actually, this album is so good, it kinda surprises me how it hasn´t become a bigger hit.
Shoegazingly off-key vocals + 100% rule at the musical side (there´s jazzing too!) should be a winning combination. This band came up with this just ten years early, or something, I guess :).

Anyway,
first two songs (The Loom, A Street Scene)
Big Shot
 
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Ubereil - yeah Ian Curtis sounds like a pretty intense performer.

Listening to the live bits right now on that cd.
Also been doing a little of the Cure's "Bloodflowers" - i dunno about it tho. Gave it a few listens, and it just aint grabbing me. I cant say that I like it much at this point. It's one of the 3 cds performed on the "Trilogy" live concert dvd I got, so I was curious. I'll have to spin bloodflowers another week or so until I can say for sure whether it's a loss or not.
 
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Ian Curtis sounds like a pretty intense performer.

1134066037_l.gif
 
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Ubereil - yeah Ian Curtis sounds like a pretty intense performer.

Listening to the live bits right now on that cd.
Also been doing a little of the Cure's "Bloodflowers" - i dunno about it tho. Gave it a few listens, and it just aint grabbing me. I cant say that I like it much at this point. It's one of the 3 cds performed on the "Trilogy" live concert dvd I got, so I was curious. I'll have to spin bloodflowers another week or so until I can say for sure whether it's a loss or not.
A couple decent songs, but I'm afraid you've got to be pretty diehard to appreciate Bloodflowers. I chalked it up as a loss, although I didn't ditch it. Perhaps some day I'll give it another chance.


Forgive me, for my ears have sinned. I have no explanation for why this is stuck in my head, and why somehow I don't mind.

"Telephone" by Lady Gaga
 
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No problems for me with that animation.
 
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A couple decent songs, but I'm afraid you've got to be pretty diehard to appreciate Bloodflowers. I chalked it up as a loss, although I didn't ditch it. Perhaps some day I'll give it another chance.

That's what I feel as well. Where The Birds Always Sing and There Is No If are the only songs on that record I really remember, there are three or four more that I remember fragments of and then there are three or four songs I don't remember at all.

Übereil
 
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