Tag: music

Haven’t done this since January. We were doing well for a minute there, weren’t we?

A couple of nights ago I revisited Nimrod and Dookie by Green Day. Even pulled out the CDs and portable CD player for the full experience. Nimrod is possibly Green Day’s best album in a straightforward hits-to-misses pop sense. The album suffers by having too many good-to-great songs on there, so the third quarter gets a bit exhausting, which is probably a good problem to have. Dookie is more interesting artistically, since it is written from a more clearly identifiable point of view – pre-success angry layabout, with a growing sense of empathy. However, songs like “Pulling Teeth” and “All By Myself” have become a much more uncomfortable listens 25+ years after release. Nearly all the stuff I listened to as a teenager has long since fallen out of circulation, since I’m on a constant quest for novelty, but it’s good to go back there some days.

Today’s Jam is:

I read this excellent article by Simon Reynolds about ambient music yesterday, so be glad that today’s jam isn’t half an hour of forest noises and birdsong.

Today’s Jam is:

At various times of my life, I’ve had a system for getting new music into my ears. When I was a teenager, I read Kerrang!, NME (in the library) and occasionally Metal Hammer. I’d know vaguely what was coming out, and sometimes (always and two of them with MH!) they gave away a free CD to demonstrate the new music. I stopped buying magazines at some point, like everybody did.

In undergrad, I developed more of a general interest in pop, and fairly religiously listened to Zane Lowe’s new music show on Radio 1. In postgrad, I consciously started to try and train Spotify to serve me up new and interesting stuff, or at least keep me up to date with artists I already knew I liked.

However, in between these times, there have been fallow periods. I am in one such period at the moment. Occasionally I find something on YouTube, but I stopped training Spotify and its recommendations have turned to sludge.

The main problem is I haven’t really had any “music friends” since I was a teenager – I’ve mostly since bonded with people though social situations, be they work, theatre and classes, rather than fallen into groups where we’re regularly sharing music.

If anyone reading this wants to drop any suggestions in the comments, or invite me to a music-chat WhatsApp group, I would be grateful. Personal recommendation is always the best way forward. Hence this very series.

In short, I haven’t really listened to much new music at all this week. At any rate, none of those songs are today’s jam.

Today’s Jam is:

So Eminem Beyonced (surprise-released) a new album today, Music To Be Murdered By. After one spin, it seems like a synthesis of the approaches taken on Revival and Kamikaze – the production of the former and the confrontational lyrics of the latter – with an added flavour of mumblerap’s production style. I’ve been listening to Eminem on and off since I was seven, I realised today, so I struggle to form an opinion on any basically competent album by him beyond “yay, new Eminem!”. Plus, I’ve only listened to this once. I lost interest in Kamikaze after only a couple of listens, but perhaps the new one will grab me more. In any case, none of those songs are today’s jam.

Today’s Jam is: