This is her first solo album. It was released in 1993. The first single was Human Behavior, it is also the first track on the album. I remember seeing the video for this song on MTV. The drums that are used on this song are perfect. It is basically a drum and bass song with her vocals on top. The video depicts a teddy bear running through the forest and Bjork in the teddy bears belly. There is no blood and guts but she is warm and cuddly in the bear’s belly. It is really an interesting thought. After hearing the song a few hundred times on MTV and on the radio I had to have the album. The album was a big hit with 5 singles being put out. This album came out when I was feeling the desire to start finding better music. There is always so much music being put out it is easy to branch out and find something new. It also helps when there are competing radio stations in the area. I had two at the time, Rev 105 and The Edge. I preferred Rev over The Edge. Rev was not so heavy and played more of the UK pop that I started getting into. The next single was called Venus As A Boy. This song is a bit slowed down. It reminds me of a summer night spent staring up at the stars and wondering what is out there that we, human kind, have not seen or explored yet. There was also a non album track that was released in the middle of this album called Play Dead. This track was later included on the albums future releases. The next single was a big hit across the world and had many remix versions put out for the DJs. The song is Big Time Sensuality. It does have a great beat for dancing. The video was cute too. It was her on a flat bed trailer being filmed as the truck drove through a city. She really had fun with the video it seems like. She danced and sang to the camera. It is a fun video. The song in the video is a remix version, not the one found on the album. I remember the video but not the version that in the video. I have listened to the album so much that I had forgotten that it is different. It was not until I looked up the video on YouTube that I actually realized this. Violently Happy was the last single from this album. It is another dance influenced that also had a bunch of remixes put out. There was a video put out for this single too but I don’t remember seeing it. My favorite song from the album is called There’s More To Life Than This. This was a live recording and it is plane to hear in the recording. You can hear the crowd and clinking glasses. She has her own mic through the song. The other parts are through the sound board. At one point in the song she goes out side and sings part of the song. You can tell because the rest of the band is dimmed down as she sings this part of the song. The song is very up beat and happy. This is probably why I like the song so much. This is yet another unique idea from bjork.
Blur - Park Life
This is the third album from Blur. It was released in 1994, My senior year in high school. I was big into the UK pop in that time and this album is my high point of that music. The first single from the album, Girls & Boys, put me over the top. To me it is about loving someone and making love to that someone. The song went deeper than that but I did not want to see farther than that. I can sing the whole song word for word when the song is on making it more fun to listen to in the car. None of my friends cared for the song so I usually sang the song on my own in the car on a cassette, of course. I would tape the CDs so that I could listen to them in the car. I hated the cassette adapters that were being put out. They always malfunctioned after a certain amount of use. The track only reached the 50s in the US top charts but I loved the song so much with that super pop appeal. There were four singles released on this album. The first was Girls & Boys. The second was To The End. This track was the slow dancing track. It is a great track with the strings in the background. It did not get much air time in the US but that is probably because it was too slow. The next single was Parklife. The verse in this song is spoken. At this time the band was in competition with Oasis. I was not a fan of Oasis. They did not put out anything that I thought was fun. It was all depressing and bland to me (sorry folks there will be no Oasis reviews in this blog). Apparently, when Oasis won the UK version of album of the year they sang this song replacing the word Parklife with Shite-Life. How sad is that. They are so low that they make fun of another competitor’s song instead of just thanking the voters and fans. The last single from the album is End Of A Century. The song seems to focus on the upcoming end of the 20th century. They obviously hit is right on the head when they stated “End of a century, it’s nothing special.” It was nothing special. I think that the second song on the album could have been a single too. That song is called Tracy Jacks. It isn’t the greatest song on the album but it is upbeat enough that it could have been a single too.
Incubus – Morning View
This is the fourth album from Incubus. It was released in 2001. This is the best album that they have released in my opinion. It has that warm blanket feel that makes you feel good. The first song was the second single, Nice To Know You. It really sets the tone for the album. It has a rock edge but also still has a great feel. It is not a super fast rock song but flos along at a good clip. The actual first single was Wish You Were Here. This song reminds me of being on the beach at night in Hawaii. The air is warm, the sand is dry and the sky is black with bright stars shining down. One could sleep on the beach and it would not make a difference. It is so comfortable on the beach at night. I wish that everyone could visit at least once in their life time. It is really a great place, at least in the tourist areas. The song Warning was released as the third single. It is a good song but it did not touch me in the same way that Wish You Were Here did. There are some cool guitar sounds going on in the song along with some cool DJ sounds. I think that it may be that it is too slow for me to get into enough. The song Circles was released as the fourth and last single. This song is a quicker harder song that has a cute little “blink, blink” sound clip that the lead singer does. He sings that everything moves around in circles in the chorus. After I met my wife I found out that she is a huge fan of Incubus. I now have a copy of this album on vinyl too. I would prefer this copy over a CD or MP3 copy every day of the week.
Man or Astro-Man? – A Spectrum of Infinite Scale
This is the last album from Man or Astro-Man? up to this date. The group has gotten back together but there are only rumors of a new album from the group. The album was put out in 2000. This was the first album that I got from them. I wish that I had heard about them sooner than this. I would have loved to have gotten into them when they were putting out new material. This album is their most experimental album of all of them. I originally bought this album on CD. The normal CD jewel case came in a paper slip case. I think that this was the first time that I had seen a CD come in packaging like this. Later I bought the album on vinyl. The vinyl came as a double 10” set in clear yellow. This set also came in an outer slip case. I have never seen a record come in an additional paper slip case. I also still have the original plastic wrapper that the record set came in. This is their seventh full length album but I consider it their sixth because Intravenous Television Continuum is basically remixes and cover songs. For me this album is a complete departure from their regular surf material. This album also came out when I was into the heavy rock sound so what I hear it the heavy rock influences more than the surf sounds that they usually make. It is still wordless music. There were no official singles released off this album but I have heard that the song called A Simple Text File was popular and played in the UK a lot. This song is literally an Image Writer II printing out a file. I couldn’t tell you what it is printing out but the group challenged them selves to make it musical. I guess that this album is not the happy surf rock record that the beginning of their career was. I think that this album could have gone up agents the last At The Drive-In album and The MOAM? Album would have kicked its but. The only reason that the At The Drive-In album had so much popularity is because of the lyrics. Lyrics don’t make the music in my opinion. If the music is awesome then the lyrics don’t even matter. That is why this album wins. It also takes more ability to make a great album with no lyrics. I try to make music like this but I don’t see it as a job so my music couldn’t stand up to this kind of creativity. They are still a great influence on my music as is Radiohead.
As a side note, the group also put out an album called A Spectrum of Finite Scale. This album was only released/given out at their concerts during this tour.
Nine Inch Nails – With Teeth
This is the fourth album from NIN. It was released in 2005. The album was produced by Trent Reznor and long time collaborator Alan Moulder. This is the first studio album since 1999. The delay was caused by his abuse of alcohol and other substances. Dave Grohl, of Nirvana and Foo Fighters, played drums on seven of the 13 tracks on the album. I think that he really helped the sound of the album. I can hear a difference in the drumming compared to the previous album, The Fragile. The album was a huge success and put out three singles. The first was The Hand That Feeds. The bass line drives the song and is very simple. IMO, this is what drove the song to popularity. The video features the touring band playing in their practice space. There are glitches that happen in the video while the band plays as a result of the pan and scan method of recording. The glitches can be labeled as distortion, pixelization and interlacing. The second single, Only, uses a hard edge drum kit. It is very clear in the sound. There is also a slightly distorted bass guitar that sounds really cool along with the normal guitar and classic NIN piano. The video for this one is very cool to. It takes place in an office with a pin platform. Trent and the group are imprinted on the pin pad as the song plays. I think that they also appear in a distorted computer screen at given points in the video too. The last single is Every Day Is Exactly The Same. This song reminds me of a single from the previous album called The Day The World Went Away. I have played them back to back and the themes are close. I still like the pair of songs but they are similar. I see what this song is about every day at work. I have a set routine at work and it goes the same every day. The problem with this ideal is that one will get in a rut if they truly believe in it. It is for this reason that I try to see the differences in each work day. I don’t need to fall into a depression simply because I am over looking the things that make a day different from the other. But I can see the things that are the same and, I am happy to say, I can see the things that are different in my day to day life. This is what keeps me sane in this weird world that we live in. The song has a monotonous sound to it. I think this is on purpose to emphasize the song title. The song also drags a little to add to the sound. There are other songs on this album that could have easily been set up to be singles. The title track, for example, With Teeth, could have been a great single. This is also one of the tracks that Dave Grohl recorded drums for. The drums are so tight and the listener can plainly hear that they are recorded drums not samples that you can really tell that it is Dave playing.
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