With the exception of Tyler, the Creator's "Yonkers", this is the first exposure I've really had to the Odd Future phenomenon. MellowHype, composed of Hodgy Beats, who despite his name is the MC and not the producer, and Left Brain, who is. Given Odd Future's rep, which comes mainly from Tyler and Earl and their often ultraviolent lyrics, I was surprised at how relatively laid back and benign Hodgy is, lyrically. He's got a relaxed delivery that feels pretty effortless. At the same time, he doesn't really stand out all that much.When Tyler and Earl show up for verses in the latter half of the album, you immediately realize that Hodgy lacks the charisma that great MCs have. It's not necessarily a bad thing, since Odd Future is a collective, but as the focal point, he isn't particularly lustrous. Fortunately, Left Brain's production is so good - and strange, in some cases - that BlackenedWhite is still a remarkably good album throughout.
Blacklisted by Neko Case
It's no secret that I have an undying admiration for Neko Case's voice. Shortly after her most recent album, Middle Cyclone, came out, a good friend of mine drove for 5 hours, from here to Burlington, Vermont, to see her because it was the closest opportunity we had. Naturally, the show was entrancing. Blacklisted was my first exposure to Neko's solo work. I remember picking it up from a great, but now defunct, blog by the name of Regnyouth Archives, back in... maybe 2005? after I really started listening to The New Pornographers. Though I have never had much of a taste for country (because let's be honest, most of it is fucking terrible), the tinges and twangs of Blacklisted were, and still are, beautiful compliments to Neko's formidable pipes. I'm not sure I can come up with sufficient superlatives for her voice, really. Instead, why don't you listen to one of my favorite tracks, "Deep Red Bells"
I have seen the Murphys live something like seven times now (yes, enough that I've lost count), and without fail, they play between four and six songs from this album every show, regardless of what the most recent album they have out at the time is. That is by far the most from any album in the back catalog, and it's well-earned - Blackout is their most complete album (excepting, perhaps, the brand new Going Out in Style, which I have not yet spent ample time with. But more on that later). They cover a lot of familiar ground, from the blue collar punk of "Worker's Song" and "Buried Alive", to the barroom classics "The Dirty Glass" and perennial set-closer "Kiss Me, I'm Shitfaced", along with a touch of traditional Irish folk in the form of "Black Velvet Band", along with a couple earnest songs about life, including what is perhaps my favorite Murphys song, "Bastards on Parade". It's hard to write about this album in a way that could be helpful to anyone, so I'll leave you with this: If you like the Dropkick Murphys, Flogging Molly, or the Pogues, you either love this album or would love this album. If you don't, you won't.
Blakroc by The Black Keys
As many of you know, The Black Keys are pretty awesome. Those of you who don't know will get a great look later in the B's, when I get to their superb album Brothers. This particular album is a strange creature - it is the Black Keys providing backing beats for a variety MCs, including Mos Def, Q-Tip, and Raekwon, among others. It sounds like it could be a good idea. The bluesy stylings of The Black Keys could certainly have made for some great tracks. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite come out that way, partially because the selection of rappers isn't great, but also because they all seem to rein it in to fit within the style of the Black Keys. Rae and Mos each turn in brilliant performances, as do Q-Tip and, surprisingly, Nicole Wray, but did we really need Jim Jones? Two RZA appearances? Billy Danze? No, probably not.
It is exceptionally difficult to make a great hip hop album that is longer than an hour. Production, verses, guest spots - all have to be on their A-game at the same time for it to happen. At nearly 75 minutes, Blazing Arrow, the second album by Blackalicious, is bordering on flawless. DJ/producer Chief XCel (with assists from ?uestlove and Ben Harper) creates a beautiful, lush sonic canvas. Live horns pop up throughout the album, giving Blazing Arrow a wonderful summer feel, the sort of music you put on when you're out driving, windows rolled down. Gift of Gab, over the course of the album, flexes his lyrical muscle, delivering lines that most other MCs can't even repeat, much less create on their own. Guest spots from Chali 2na, Lateef, and Jaguar Wright hit all the right notes, and at the right times. If you claim to be a fan of hip-hop and don't have this, you need to reevaluate your musical interests.
Blood Mountain by Mastodon
Blood Mountain, more so than any of Mastodon's other releases, is an unrelenting freight train of an album. As will be the case every time anyone ever writes about a Mastodon album, the obligatory lead - Brann Dailor's drumming is just ridiculous. The bombast, the complexity, the fucking drum fills. Jesus. That out of the way, Blood Mountain also has perhaps the strongest performances from every other member of the band. The guitar lines tread carefully the line between Convergesque surgical precision and Sabbathian crunch, and it works to great effect. From cover to cover (well, maybe excepting Josh Homme's goofy fan letter in the dead air of the last track), this is a strong, strong album, and likely Mastodon's best yet.
Blood Pressures by The Kills
This is another odd intersection of alphabet and calendar. As I write this, Blood Pressures has been out just over a month. Blood Pressures is good. But it could have been great. It is a distinct improvement over their previous release, Midnight Boom, which didn't really feel like a Kills album at all. The blues is back, definitely, and Hince's riff-writing is perhaps sharper than ever. A bit of The Dead Weather has definitely seeped in. You can hear it, particularly in the first half of the album, which is undeniably the strongest portion of the album. It opens with a great threesome of "Future Starts Slow", "Satellite" and "Heart is a Beating Drum", the last of which might be my favorite Kills track yet. Where the album hits a snag is in the last four tracks. Number eight, "The Last Goodbye" is a wonderful song, truly, but where it is situated on the album, it is like running headlong into quicksand. It should be the last track, with the actual 9-10-11 serving as the slowdown. Well, maybe the actual nine and eleven - track ten, "You Don't Own the Road" feels out of place.
Blood Sugar Sex Magik by Red Hot Chili Peppers
Most people regard this album as a classic. Many are likely to call it the best album the Chili Peppers have made or will make. I personally disagree - Blood Sugar Sex Magik is fourth for me - and that is why it's not a highlighted album in this post. That said, it is still a great album. It may sound strange, given how volatile the band was during their peak, but I think that BSSM represents them at their most cohesive. John Frusciante hadn't yet outgrown the band, musically. Flea had honed his bass playing to a certain level of refinement, knowing when to thunder along and when to pull back. The band as a group reined in the distortion, and started to incorporate some really splendid melodies. They brought in Rick Rubin to produce, and he did a magnificent job (one that would catapult him to superstardom). While it might not be my favorite work of theirs, it is almost undeniably their most balanced effort as a group, which is no doubt why it has experienced such success, even twenty years on.
Blow by Blow by Jeff Beck
Even more so than writing about Miles Davis or Charles Mingus, I find it very difficult to write about Jeff Beck. Blow by Blow is a beautiful album, undoubtedly, but I find myself unsure of what to say about it. Beck is a virtuoso with an axe, turning covers of songs we know like The Beatles' "She's a Woman" and Stevie Wonder's "Cause We've Ended as Lovers" into brilliant displays of finger-callousing fretwork. Undoubtedly, the features here worth noting are "You Know What I Mean" and "Scatterbrain", which open and close Side A, respectively. Both were written by Beck and his cohort, Max Middleton, and are stunning displays of both Beck's chops and his composition.
I'm pretty sure there is a law somewhere on the books that says that everyone from Massachusetts is obligated to have a copy of this album. It's a live double album, the third major one of 1976, behind Frampton Comes Alive and Live Bullet. For some reason we'll never know, Blow Your Face Out, despite being every bit equal to those albums, never launched The J. Geils Band into stardom along side Peter Frampton and Bob Seger. This is an album filled with gems, from the Janis Joplin favorite "Raise Your Hand" to the Motown favorite "Where Did Our Love Go?" to a blues-rock take on country standard "Truck Drivin' Man" to about a dozen of J. Geils classics. It's a fantastic collection of tracks, recorded at the Boston Garden and at Detroit's Cobo Hall. The band's energy is electric, and contagious - the crowd and the band seem to be competing to see who is having the most fun. That's what a live album should be like, and that's why Blow Your Face Out belongs in the pantheon of live albums.
