This was a busy and particularly stressful week, so I had less time to listen to music and found myself retreating into the comforts of old favorites. Let's jump in!
- David Bowie, Lodger - I have a deep, overriding love of David Bowie, whose music has been a big part of my life for over a decade, and I revisited a handful of his albums this week. Lodger was released smack-dab in the middle of Bowie’s creative peak and is oft-considered to be a weaker effort than the albums that immediately preceded it. While I probably agree with that assessment, its status as a red-headed stepchild belies how good it actually is. It contains a handful of his best and most underappreciated songs, including opener "Fantastic Voyage" and "Boys Keep Swinging", a cutting satire of masculine privilege, and is a delight all the way through. It's not as boldly experimental as Low and "Heroes" are, but it still has Bowie's avant-garde edge and stands as a fantastic album.
- This Mortal Coil, It'll End in Tears - 4AD Label boss Ivo Watts-Russell formed This Mortal Coil as a mix-and-match musical collective of artists on the label and outside collaborators. Their first LP, 1984's It'll End in Tears, is one of my favorite albums, an ethereal-wave classic that arguably serves as the definitive document of the "4AD Sound". The covers are perfectly chosen, from Elizabeth Fraser's iconic, definitive take on Tim Buckley's "Song of the Siren" to Big Star's "Kangaroo" and "Holocaust", but the originals, like Lisa Gerrard's extremely-Lisa-Gerrard "Dreams Made Flesh" and lovely closer "A Single Wish", performed by Cindy Sharp (who came out as a trans woman later on in her career), are no slouch either.
- The Stone Roses, The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses is oft-regarded as one of the greatest Manchester albums of all time and it was so good that it basically destroyed the band. I’ve seen this described as an album consisting exclusively of “monster singles” and that is accurate. The fact that this manages to kick off with the incredible one-two punch of “I Wanna Be Adored” and “She Bangs the Drums” and somehow keeps the momentum going all the way until closer “I Am the Resurrection”, the album’s best song, is shocking. I return to this album every few months and I never get tired of it