The Urban 1000 (ish)

May as well start it then

Link to the first 100... http://www.musicbanter.com/showthread.php?t=9727

Anyway , the first 5 or so here are ones that would have been in the original 100 but i`d not heard them until after the majority of the list was done.


The first time I heard this I was shocked at just how modern this album sounded.This album is at least 15 years ahead of it`s time. In fact the album sounds like Talking Heads if Aphex Twin & DJ Shadow were in the band. David Byrne no singing on this album. All of the lyrics are made up from samples of tv/radio news reports , movies , speeches , chanting .. even an exorcism .Tracks like America Is Waiting & Regiment are pure funk. Help Me goes one step further by being funk with African percussion. The Jezebel Spirit features the above mentioned exorcism ,sounding like it`s being performed at a James Brown gig given the background music.The album then takes a arabic flavour with tracks like The Carrier , The Secret Life & Qu`ran (taken off some versions of the album & replaced by another track called Very Very Hungry), before going back into full on electronica with Come With Us. The final track Mountain Of Needles has a kind of Hare Krisna feel with bells ringing & chanting. This really is a fascinating album it`s almost like there`s something for everybody who`s prepared to be broad minded & take a few new things on board.I`ve never met one person who`s heard this album dislike it.

Favourite Tracks - America Is Waiting , Regiment , The Jezebel Spirit , The Carrier




Hawkwind`s last hurrah. This album is a big two fingers to the people who said Hawkwind would lose the plot after Lemmy was fired from the band.I mean they did , but at least the put this out first before it all went downhill. This is probably the most professional line up of the band.In previous years there was very much an attitude of just letting anyone who was around do things, they didn`t have a frontman of any description , that being shared by Lemmy , Bob Calvert & Nik Turner.By the time this album was released Calvert returned to the band after a couple of years off & actually became 'The Singer' , they also had a proper keyboard player in Simon House rather than just someone making weird spacy effects, and also two drummers.The main way that this differs from the usual Hawkwind album is how direct the songs are , almost as if they`d taken a leaf out of punk. Even the 10 minute long 'Steppenwolf' has a solid riff going the whole way through the song backed up with some structured keybords & sax , something totally unheard of when it comes to Hawkwind usually.
'City Of Lagoons' an instrumental , sounds like it could have come straight off a Pink Floyd album , a slow bluesy riff layered in high pitched keyboards. I`ve never really understood why people consider Hawkwind prog rock , but hearing this it wouldn`t surprise me.'The Aubergine That Ate Rangoon' could almost be considered Jazz / funk , a total departure but interesting. The album also contains 3 great 'singles' in Reefer Madness , Kerb Crawler & Kadu Flyer which are all flat out rock n roll.The album ends with Chronoglide Skyway which again tries to sound like it should have been put on Dark Side Of The Moon.
I was led to beleive that Hawkwind post Lemmy were crap , I`m so glad I gave this album a chance. Didn`t last mind you, by the time they`d finished touring for this album they were down to a trio of Dave Brock , Robert Calvert & Simon King .......oh well.

Favourite Tracks - Reefer Madness , Steppenwolf , Kerb Crawler , Chronoglide Skyway

Locksmith
travesti