Apparently, I buy too many records

My wife Helen, like every other woman i've ever lived with, believes that I buy too many records.

Which, as every record-buying man knows, is a ridiculous belief.

I will concede, however, that I do indeed buy a lot of records and that I don't afford them the same amount of listens and attention that I did 20 or 30 years ago.

To this end, I have decided to blog about the records that I buy, in order to help my appreciation of them - and perhaps to show Helen that I don't buy that many records after all.

Because i'm crap with deadlines the blog posts will be sporadic and probably be about a month or 2 behind but that's just the way i am! The posts will not necessarily be actual reviews (most likely comments, at best) and will generally be pretty damn short due to the reasons outlined above. As a writer in a previous existence i have decided not to worry about writing as art in the pieces but, instead, to attempt to convey feeling over semantic (and often grammatic) perfection.

And 'OCRB'? It stands for 'Obsessive Compulsive Record Buying' - a little known mental health affliction that is potentially damaging to the bank account but ultimately life-affirming. It is sad.......but a nice form of sad.

Thursday, 27 January 2011

Sufjan Stevens: The Age of Adz (Asthmatic Kitty)

Near the end of side 3 he sings "I'm not fucking around" ad infinitum whilst all manner of electronic stylings and backing vocal inflections go on around him and........i'm not so sure - i think he may well be fucking around. After the almost classic  majesty of 'Illinois' (and i'm still pissed off at him for reneging on his '50 states' project) and numerous bizarre interludes, he comes up with this - his first proper album in 6 years. And it's all over the place. I can honestly say that this is the first record i own that utilises auto tune and he really really REALLY doesn't fucking need to. Albeit that he only uses it on one track (the 20+ minute 'Impossible soul' - which starts off like a Neil Young track dragged into the post hip hop generation and ends up as a bizarre harmonic hymn to loss) but it comes over as merely a stylistic addition as opposed to an artistic one. I really don't know what i think about this album - it's brave and it's very interesting and it's occasionally outstanding ('Versuvious' for example) but is all too often confounding and, well, all over the fucking place. I think that it is probably great and that i'll add to this piece in the coming days/weeks but for the minute i'm gonna say that it's singular lack of          
musical coherence from one that normally has his eye firmly on the ball is distracting at best and negatively challenging at worst.
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