Weekly Music Trading Post

Bulldog sent me -

Donald Fagen - The Nightfly

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"What a beautiful world this will be, what a glorious time to be free..."
​

Look at the cover. Fagen, the lead singer and primary songwriter of Steely Dan sits in a swivel chair in a radio studio, nonchalantly smoking Chesterfield Kings while spinning a Sonny Rollins. He sits, sleeves rolled up and tie loosened, as the epitome of New York night-life cool. So why does his record, entitled The Nightly, fail to meet the expectations set by the cover?

The problem with Donald Fagen's solo debut is not a conceptual issue. The Nightly chronicles the dreams of a young Fagen, who wants things greater than his current situation as a middle class New York rebel allows (for one, to "Move up to Manhattan and fill the place with frienRAB" - Maxine ). This works for The Nightfly, and the lyrics, while verging on cheese at times ("The key word is survival on the new frontier" - New Frontier) are adequately interesting from a story-telling perspective. It's no Born To Run lyrically, but it gets the job done.

The problem lies in the music itself. Donald Fagen's idea of soul is righteous, but his execution of it on The Nightfly is patchy at best. An American, the Steely Dan singer could not best the blue eyed soul of the U.K. at that time. The year following the release of this album, Paul Weller's soul duo "The Style Council" released their debut album, the vocals of which, while not better in the classical sense than Fagen's, are filled with more soul than it seems Fagen can materialize. The two recorRAB are similar, but the difference in quality is clear. This is testament to the musical truth that just a very fine line divides musical brilliance and failure.

5.7/10​


Sorry Bulldog!
 
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Coheed & Carabria - The Second Stage Turbine Blade
From - gunnels

Gunnels let me pick an album for him to send me from his last.fm list, and this is what I chose. I've always been somewhat interested in C&C due to them having the rather unique possession of being rather proggy in their playing while still being fairly high profile and well-known to more mainstream listeners, and this album (which is their debut I think) is pretty awesome. It flows well, and for a band rooted in emo/metal they're rather creative in how they get a groove going. I'm really enjoying it, so thanks gunnels!!! :afro:
 
Sent by Gunnels

CORNELIUS
Fantasma (1997)

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It's the third album by Japanese artist Cornelius, who seems to be a part of the Shibuya-kei scene, which I don't know much about (other than the page featured on wiki). So I thought having this album sent by Gunnels as a pretty cool deal.

As for the album:

I seriously loved it immediately. I don't know if I can say it got me more familiar with the Japanese Pop scene, but if I had to put this album in some genre category, I would tag is as "Sunshine Hip Hop".
The editing and mixing of the "musique concr
 
Bumped for three reasons.

1. Just listened to album Mojo sent me. I'll give a second listen tomorrow before posting my thoughts on it here.

2. I have nothing better to do.

3. If you want in on the next draw, say so here or drop me a PM. This draw will be themed, but it's one I'm sure we can all manage. We'll be looking for albums with a wintry feel in the next trade.

That should be on Sunday, maybe Monday. DepenRAB how many names we get over the next couple of days.
 
Good stuff, you're all in :thurab:

On that note, only put your name down for this if you're a) going to clear some inbox space for it and b) definitely gonna be around and up for the trade over the next two-odd weeks.
 
Nice review milo. I'm going to give the album you sent me some good listening time tomorrow evening after the stress of midterms is off.
 
All of their albums are good. My personal favorite is Playing with Fire (1989). Generally, that one and The Perfect Prescription (1987) are considered to be their best. But, Sound of Confusion has a great 13th Floor Elevators cover "Rollercoaster". Really, you can't go wrong with any of these.
 
Bags of time. Gonna try and get this round finished by next Sunday, so anytime between now and then. Anyway, welcome aboard :thurab:

By the way, due to a night of heavy boozing that was unforseen beforehand, there'll be a bit of a delay with my next review going up. I'll get this round started this evening, so anyone else wanting in should say so very soon.
 
wicked! is there like a criteria? and please tell me how you're sending stuff and how i send stuff to you. the only way i know how to send stuff to people is via email, and i don't know that my gmail account will allow me to send something of that size. or do we direct each other to streaming or torrent sites?

thx.
 
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