Briggs' Music Blog: January 2016

Monday, January 18, 2016

Favorite Metal Albums

Godflesh: Streetcleaner (1989) Industrial Metal

How To Dress Well: Love Remains

Pyrrhon: The Mother Of Virtues

Kendrick Lamar: To Pimp A Butterfly

Fucked Up: David Comes To Life

Mastery: Valis

Tears of Aladdin: Carnivore Abandoned Fragility

Alameda 5: Duch Tornada

Rob Mazurek / Exploding Star Orchestra: Galactic Parables: Volume 1

Flying Lotus: Cosmogramma

John Luther Adams: Become Ocean

Richard Dawson: Nothing Important

Julia Holter: Tragedy

Destroyer: Kaputt

Parquet Courts: Light Up Gold

Dawn Of Midi: Dsynomia

Neko Case: The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You

Favorite Country Albums

One of my major pet-peeves is when music lovers will say: "I like pretty much everything, except country". What I think they mean is: I'm a liberal and all country singers are ignorant redneck republicans. Or: I only listened to country radio with my dad in the car a few times as a child and refused to examine the genre further. Or worst of all: I'm intimidated by people with the first two opinions and want them to think I have good musical taste. All of which are much more ill-informed and downright stupid than decent country music has ever been. Yes, that music industry manufactured douchebag with the album cover-art close-up of his perfectly manicured goatee and cowboy hat, flip open the sleeve to see a sepia bail of hay, truck, and boots is the worst (as are most music industry robots in any other genre). One-Direction and Stephin Merritt both made "pop" albums, Creed and Van Morrison both made "rock" albums, Billy Ray Cyrus and John Prine both made "country" albums. Genres have their posers and their artists. Don't judge a genre if you've only heard the posers, right?