'18' by Moby

Listening to this album was the sort of experience I was hoping for when I started this. It's one of those albums I bought on it's release, then listened to a few times, then vaguely forgot about. In my head, it wasn't that good, but today, I've very much enjoyed it.

It's 18 tracks long (hence the title), so longer than it needs to be, but stripping out a few of the weaker tracks wouldn't make much difference to the album as a whole. The variety in the songs is enough that it doesn't get boring, even though it clocks in at over an hour. The album is a mix of conventional pop/rock songs ('Extreme Ways' and 'We Are All Made Of Stars' in particular), dancier tracks, and more gentle ambient stuff. Not all of it sticks in your head, and that probably IS a consequence of it's length, but it's a pleasure to listen to, especially if you're using it as a soundtrack to whatever else you might be doing.

'13' by Blur

The first album on this listening marathon that wasn’t bought by or given to me. This was originally Tessa’s, existing in my collection only through a copy on minidisk before we got married.

‘13’ was an end-of-an-era album for the band themselves, being the last full album they would record together as a four-piece band, though they weren’t to know this at the time. Never-the-less, it sounds like a bit of an ending, and it’s hard to imagine where the journey it takes them on would have progressed to if circumstances had been different.

Having moved away from their Britpop sound with ‘Blur’, ‘13’ sees a further digression into a more experimental form of music making, and as such, it’s an album of contrasts. First single and opening track ‘Tender’ is a gentle acoustic strum-along, made rather lovely by the accompanying gospel choir, and ‘Coffee + TV’ is a fairly conventional pop song (though a fine example of the genre). The rest of the album, however, is a combination of fast, angry blasts of frantic noise (‘Bugman’, ‘B.L.U.R.E.M.I.’) and dense washes of sustained chords and multi-layered guitar noise from Graham Coxon. Of these, most are very effective – only ‘Caramel’s too short on structure or tune to make much of an impression.

Only ‘No Distance Left To Run’ stands out as separate from the main body of the album. A bleak, sparsely accompanied song about the breakdown of Damon Albarn’s relationship with Elastica’s Justine Frischmann, it’s a track which eye-wateringly confessional, but beautiful with it. Rarely has someone’s dirty washing been aired in public so effectively.

'12 Memories' by Travis

The period following the release of ‘The Invisible Band’, the album that preceded this one, was the culmination of a difficult time for Travis. Drummer Neil Primrose broke his neck and almost died in a diving accident, frontman Fran Healy had suffered from depression, and Coldplay were nipping at their heels.

It would have been helpful, then, if 2003’s ’12 Memories’ had been something special. Sadly, it isn’t as good as it needed to be. It starts well – ‘Quicksand’ is a solid piano based opener strengthened by a violin line that swoops around all over the melody, singles ‘The Beautiful Occupation’ and ‘Love Will Come Through’ are both fine songs, and most of the rest of the album is perfectly pleasant to listen to, but it’s all a bit too samey for anything to really stand out.

Lyrically, there are some strengths. ‘Re-offender’, the first single, tackles domestic violence whilst avoiding the all-too-obvious traps it could have fallen into, and ‘The Beautiful Occupation’ was a rare, early example of a mainstream band commenting on the Iraq war. Again, it stays the right side of obvious, and it’s helped by a strong tune. ‘Peace The Fuck Out’, however, is horrendous – an ugly clomping rhythm, and verses layered in reverb (presumably to disguise thei rubbishy nature). The language in the chorus is regrettably offensive – not the language itself, but the clunkiness of it’s use and the inanity of its context. It’s not even saved by a good guitar solo – just a squalling mess, as though Andy Dunlop realised it wasn’t worth the effort of anything better. The football crowd chanting at the end doesn’t save it.

It’s telling, perhaps, that it took five years for Travis to record a follow-up to the album. Even its good points weren’t enough to prevent the band from sliding into an obscurity they’ve struggled to escape ever since.

'"Heroes"' by David Bowie

An interesting way to start. This appears first on my mp3 player, as the ordering system presumeably struggles with the speech marks in the title. A good one to begin with though, as I've never quite got to grips with it.

I can't quite remember how I got hold of this album, but it was certainly at the point where I was plugging the few remaining gaps in my Bowie collection. I've certainly listened to it a few times, but I've never given it much attention 'til now.

It was never going to be a conventional record. Recorded in Berlin as a follow-up to Low, Bowie was in the middle of a very expermental phase of his career, but there's no easy beginning here. 'Beauty and the Beast' is a relentless one-chord wall of noise, with backing vocals apparently contributed from a sackful of cats. The record company must have loved putting it out as a single - even now, it's surely one of his most ambitious attempts to break the charts. There's no let up after it either - 'Joe The Lion', and 'Blackout' both sound like each instrument is playing a different song to everyone else, while Bowie appears to be making up his melodies on the spot. It's surprising, then, that 'Heroes' itself manages to be so good - at track 3, it's the first point at which every contributor realise they should be working together. Bowie's vocal, part crooning and part wail-of-despair, is surely one of the best he ever did. 'Sons Of The Silent Age' is the only other vaguely normal song on the album, though quite what it's about is anyone's guess.

As with Low, half of the album is instrumental. The first such track - 'V-2 Schneider' is surprisingly well structured, with a discernable bass-line, and a repeating saxophone motif. The others are far more abstract, though all very atmospheric in differing ways. The album finishes with 'The Secret Life of Arabia', which sounds like a left-over from the first half, and is an odd way to finish, being neither a fitting end to the instrumental section, or a particularly good song in it's own right. All of which may very well have been deliberate.

A beginning

I've decided to listen to all the albums I own in alphabetical order. Why? Firstly, because I've got lots of music that I haven't listened to in a long time, and a fair amount I've not listened to very much at all. So this will be a chance to reassess a lot of stuff. Like lots of people (I suspect), I tend to listen, on a regular basis, to a very small percentage of what I own, so it'd be good to cast the net a little wider.

I've decided to keep track of what I'm doing here, just for fun, really.