Prince - "Sign o' the Times" (1987)

Many great artists have left us recently, and of these Prince's depart must have been the most unexpected. The spontaneous feeling when I heard the news was "can this really be true?". If I felt more emotionally affected by Lemmy's death, Prince's death was a more surreal event, in that it really came from nowhere.

Prince has not been a big part of my musical life as an adult. In my teenage years his records were played more regularly, but over the years they have increasingly ended up in a retired state in the record shelf. When I now listened to Sign o' the Times, it was the first time in maybe 20 years.

Sign o' the Times is considered by many to be his greatest work. Initially it was supposed to be a triple album, but the record company slimmed it down to "only" a double. It was Prince's first album after he got rid of the backing band The Revolution. In various lists in magazines and the internet on the topic "Best album ever", "Best album of the '80s" and so on, Sign o' the Times is ranked very high. This was not reflected in the sales numbers, though, that couldn't be compared to the sales of e.g. Purple Rain, although the critics already then loved the album.

I have the greatest respect for the Prince as an artist and musician, there are not many in the industry who can match him in knowledge. But his music is not really my thing. Sign o' the Times is a rather eclectic album with many different styles - funk, psychedelia, pop, ballads. But it's often a quite dry and minimalist production that is not really to my taste. Also, I have never been a funk guy, and then it can be difficult to love Prince's music.

On some of the songs we hear his alter ego from this time, Camille, where his voice is sped up and therefore considerably brighter / more feminine. My personal favorite on the album is The Cross, perhaps the least Prince-ish song on the album, which I guess proves that this is not really my thing anymore. If you only going to have one Prince album, this could however be the record to own. Here you get the most of what Prince had to offer.


Tracklist

Side A
1. Sign o' the Times 4:57
2. Play in the Sunshine 5:05
3. Housquake 4:42
4. The Ballad of Dorothy Parker 4:01

Side B
1. It 5:09
2. Starfish and Coffee 2:50
3. Slow Love 4:22
4. Hot Thing 5:39
5. Forever in My Life 3:30

Side C
1. U Got the Look 3:47
2. If I Was Your Girlfriend 5:01
3. Strange Relationship 4:01
4. I Could Never Take the Place of Yout Man 6:29

Side D
1. The Cross 4:48
2. It's Gonna Be a Beautiful Night 9:01
3. Adore 6:30

Motörhead - "Bad Magic" (2015)

I've never been a huge Motörhead fan, listening to the band is like being run over by a truck. But I've always been a Lemmy fan. I've seen him as one of the coolest persons in the music industry, and that under the somewhat unpolished surface there was a gentle and funny guy. Someone I can identify with. I have admired his ability to withstand the surrounding's expectations and just do his thing (although, of course, after a while this exactly becomes the expectations). As a man who is an obeying part in society's machinery, I wished that I too would have more of the ability of liberty and go my own way. Lemmy lived the life I would want to live. He was a hard tocking rebel with a kind heart.

So when Lemmy passed away about six months ago, I became more emotionally touched than usual when a celebrity you've never met dies. The world lost a really nice guy. So to somehow honor the memory of him, I immediately went out and bought Motörhead's latest and of course last studio album, their 22nd.

In my record collection there's a couple of other Motörhead albums and a number of Hawkwind records, the band Lemmy played in before he formed Motörhead. But as mentioned, I'm no great knower of their music, Generally the album received positive reviews when it was released, in which a thread was that it sounds like Motörhead always does. No greater variation between the 22 albums the band has done. Lemmy insisted that they didn't play metal, they played rock'n'roll. Hard rock'n'roll, I would say. It's fast, quite aggressively in my ears, and in punk circles Motörhead has always been a popular band,

One must respect bands that are trios. You can't hide behind someone else. Here Motörhead is in the fine company of bands like The Police and Rush. Lemmy has said that his distinctive bass playing comes from that he plays bass as if it's a guitar, since he started his musical career as a guitarist. I myself am an old hobby bassist, at the lowest level, and can only say I respect anyone who can play the bass and sing at the same time.

Lemmy's autobiography, White Line Fever, can be recommended, in which his adventurous life journey is described. Bad Magic is probably as good as any of Motörheads albums, but of course not everyone will appreciate the rock monster Motörhead. Inside the LP box, some good stuff await the owner. In addition to the (almost) mandatory mp3 download, you'll get the CD, a cool patch to sew on your jacket's shoulder, a back patch for the same jacket and finally a Bad Magic poster. Very appriciated. The last song on the album is a cover of the Stones Sympathy for the Devil, which became the final words of Lemmy and Motörhead.

Tracklist

Side A
1. Victory Or Die 3:09
2. Thunder & Lightning 3:05
3. Firestorm Hotel 3:34
4. Shoot Out All Of Your Lights 3:14
5. The Devil 2:53
6. Electricity 2:17
7. Evil Eye 2:20

Side B
1. Teach Them How To Bleed 3:11
2. The End 4:05
3. Tell Me Who To Kill 2:57
4. Choking On Your Screams 3:33
5. When The Sky Comes Looking For You 2:55
6. Sympathy For The Devil 5:18

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-

Sufjan Stevens - "Carrie & Lowell" (2015)

When I was young and more often part of the night life, when the awaiting night was an adventure with an unknown end, when the feeling of freedom permeated life and led the way forward, then Sufjan Stevens latest album wouldn't have been played on the pre-party. Then you wanted to hear fast-paced, energetic music that gave the spirits momentum. Carrie & Lowell would not have found a place there.

Today I'm almost never out with the night crowds, I don't remember the last pre-party I was a part of. The phenomenon "pre-party" doesn't even exist in my life anymore. I think that's good and age appropriate, but I'm not sure. Have I lost something on the way?

Carrie & Lowell is a fairly low-key, sparsely arranged record, where a large part of the inspiration comes from Sufjan's mother's death, in 2012. With this as its main inspiration it's not surprising that the album is sad, quiet and beautiful. It allows me to get into a melancholy mood far from the young years' pre-parties. Yes, rather the opposite. I like the album. Many believe it's Sufjan's best and that it was the best album of 2015. I haven't heard enough albums from 2015, so I can't have an opinion, all I can say it's a really good record.

Sufjan had a complicated relationship with his mother. She suffered from mental disorders and a substance abuse, she abandoned him as a child and was a figure that only occasionally appeared and disappeared again in his life. It made her death a bit more complicated to relate to, I'm guessing. It's beautiful, fragile creations on the album, which fit well on a cloudy day, when you feel alone, you realize how you get older, and the earlier, more adventurous years increasingly fade to a memory. Ah, sweet melancholy.

So I can definitely recommend the album. Should I be somewhat critical, it may be that not a lot of variety is offered. The songs keep the same pace, the same sort of arrangements and convey the same mood. But that's OK, it makes you stay in a calmer mindstate.

As 20 years younger, I would also have liked this album. But then it had probably been played the day after, when the night, which always ended the same way - you went home alone, wondering what you did wrong - and in the morning you kept thinking about what you really wanted to do with your life. A question that is still unanswered, by the way.

Tracklist

Side A
1. Death with Dignity 3:59
2. Should Have Known Better 5:07
3. All of Me Wants All of You 3:41
4. Drawn to the Blood 3:18
5. Fourth of July 4:39

Side B
1. The Only Thing 4:44
2. Carrie & Lowell 3:14
3. Eugene 2:26
4. My Beloved John 5:04
5. No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross 2:40
6. Blue Bucket of Gold 4:43