Desert Island X: Group 1 Listening Thread

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Padj:

A unique playlist to listen to. Loved the first three songs, although the vocals on Sad Lovers & Giants was way too low in the mix. Is that how they usually sound? A bit distracting on an otherwise solid tune.

Great twofer with Caribou and Cults. I never know what to make of Caribou. Some songs click, and then others I find flat out boring. Really liked your selection though.

But I really don't like Sparks; the vocals are just too grating for me. Nice to hear the B-52's, but not sure what happened with your version here. It ended, and then the next track started before being cut off. Totally disrupted the flow.

Great to see Husker Du; I'm not gonna complain about Bob Mould being included. The next two songs put a minor damper on things but you followed that with a superb run from Liz Phair to GEMS, and I'll echo what others said on the latter - that was a great track to discover.

Metronomy was also a good new song to hear, although again, it seemed like it went to the next track before ending, and not sure if anyone else had an issue with the Belle & Sebastian song, but it skipped all over the place for me. Perhaps a simple download issue there.

Regarding the foreign language songs, I think you did a good job inserting them at decent moments. They personally wouldn't be something I'd go back to a lot, but from an overall playlist perspective they worked. I liked the Paolo Conte song the best.

Your ending pair of Caravan and Jethro Tull was another highlight. Sneaking a little prog in always works for me!

So this playlist had a little bit of everything, and I will say that apart from the errors I encountered, the flow and sequencing were top notch. I didn't like everything on there, but it came together very well.
 
Joey:

From a cohesiveness perspective, this was probably the best playlist you've constructed yet. The theme, the transitions, the subject matter - all of these were top notch.

Loved the opener, I thought it worked very well.

Most know I'm not a big fan of Bowie - I only like a handful of his songs. This was not one of them.

But then you had a great run of tunes all the way to Steven Wilson. Yes, even Bjork, who I also don't like save for a few tunes. This was one of them.

Not a fan of EMA. Perhaps I'll like her stuff as time goes on, but for now, I just haven't really enjoyed anything of hers yet.

Seems like most people loved the transition from The Decemberists to Astronautalis, but it didn't quite work for me. If The Rake's Song had a cleaner abrupt ending, it would have been perfect, but unfortunately because it goes right into the next track on the album, it was slightly off. I bet I could edit that ending to make it flow seemlessly though. Probably didn't help that I didn't care for Holy Water.

And Hazards Of Love is underrated.

Everyone pretty much knows the last five tracks, all stellar, and I agree the transistions here are probably the best stretch in the entire playlist, although apart from above, as I said I thought the whole thing came together for you very well. Nicely done.
 
Laz

I thought disc one was really enjoyable. Good flow throughout, and transitions that were obviously thought out and given careful attention to. "Let's Get The Party Going" was a great opener, did a very good job of setting the "party" mood, I think. Other favorites - all new to me - were the Stones track, because it sounded so very un-Stones-like, almost disco in nature, the Prince track(I was going to say it also didn't sound like Prince, but Prince has sounded like so many things over the years that I'm not sure that statement would mean much), and the Beach Boys track, on which Brian Wilson has never sounded more like Stevie Wonder. I mean, I was convinced for a few moments that Stevie was guesting on the track or something. Also liked the Van Morrison closer.

The second disc wasn't quite as strong for me, but still a pretty good flow and some standout tracks, namely M83, Nina Simone, Brian Eno, and I like the closing one-two punch of the Twilight Singers and Bettie Serveert, especially the latter.

Overall, good effort, pretty much all new to me, and I really enjoyed it.

IWB

I really liked your first disc. Just a plethora of classics from a certain time period. Because they were all from that same general time period, it almost couldn't help but being very cohesive. Standout tracks include "Secret Agent Man", "Baby I Need Your Loving", "The Tracks Of My Tears", and "Twist And Shout". Also, a word about The Sonics' "Strychnine" - I'm currenty taking a rock history class, and this was one of the tracks we listened to a few weeks ago during a section about garage bands from the 60s. My thought then and now is that this song sounds perhaps a decade ahead of its time, like proto-punk. Good selection. Overall, great first disc.

The second disc...I'm sorry, I just couldn't get into it. I tried, but I couldn't. It's just not my cup of tea. I'll give you this though...the songs go together well, the disc has cohesiveness going for it!

Good effort though, and I loved the first disc.
 
I forgot to mention how happy I was to see Strychnine on IWB's list. The Sonics are a lot of fun. The Witch is probably my favorite track by them.
 
strychnine is truly one of my all-time favorite songs. and totally get what you're saying about the whole ahead of its time thing, or mabye it's more a timeless quality.
 
Laz

and the Beach Boys track, on which Brian Wilson has never sounded more like Stevie Wonder. I mean, I was convinced for a few moments that Stevie was guesting on the track or something.


It's funny you should say that, because it's not Brian Wilson! In the early 70s the Beach Boys brought in Blondie Chaplin and Ricky Fataar, two South African musicians who contributed by playing, singing, writing, and producing some of the tracks. They appear on the albums Holland (where Sail On Sailor comes from) and Carl & The Passions - "So Tough". Seems like an odd move for such a whitebread band, but there you have it.

And Chaplin actually has the lead vocal on Sail On Sailor.

Holland is really worth checking out, it's quite a unique album in their discography:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holland_(album)
 
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