MOT'S PERSONAL COLLECTION

TMBG is my favorite band of all time, hands down. they're fun, they're creative, they're weird, and they embody everything i love about the art of music. John Henry is probably their most normal album, but it's so jam-packed with jazzy bangers that i really don't mind. it was their first album as a full group, as opposed to a duo, and they use that new man-power to its fullest extent. the horns are in full force here, and it's their only album that completely leans into jazz as a genre, and it's awesome. some standout tracks are No One Knows My Plan, A Self Called Nowhere, I Should Be Allowed To Think and Thermostat. if you're big on jazz and wanna hear TMBG's funky and unique take on it, i can't recommend John Henry enough, and it's earned its place as my favorite album of all time.

one of TMBG's most critically acclaimed albums, Apollo 18 deserves its praise. it was the last album they did as a duo, and was immediately succeeded by John Henry, which i just talked about. the album is a great sampler of the duo in their early days, with catchy rock tunes like See the Constellation, weird and funny tracks like Spider, and the creative masterpiece that is Fingertips. if you ask me, Fingertips is the centerpiece of Apollo 18. it's a collection of 21 tracks, ranging from five to thirty seconds in length, all with a single idea that they execute perfectly and then immediately move on. it's great, and it's the epitome of the creativity TMBG always employs.

red vox's latest and greatest, Visions is part of a double release, and i'll be talking about each in their own entries here. of the two, Visions is more down to earth in its compositions, and i think it's Red Vox at its objective peak. i still think i like WCGW more for sentimental reasons, but i can't deny the fact that VAA is excellent all the way through. i can't think of a single song i don't like on the album, and some of my favorites are The Temple for its dire tone, Choking on the Spite for how, well... spiteful it sounds, Elessar for the quiet, pondering atmosphere, and Winning the Most for its exceedingly catchy guitar lead. whenever vinny hears his music on stream, he's always so self conscious and hypercritical. and while i do totally understand that feeling, (i HATE hearing people read my writing aloud, it drives me nuts) i think he should be a little less hard on himself, because every album Red Vox has put out has been magnificent in their own ways. (one day i'll get around to talking about Kerosene...)

Enon is one of my favorite bands of all time, that's no secret, and High Society is the perfect sampler of what they're all about. they hit you with their weird synths and rockin' guitars, then get you with Toko Yasuda's unique vocals to bring it all together. and even when Yasuda isn't the one singing, John Schmersal knows how to make a vocal performance that would be boring by anyone else and make it his own. Native Numb is the perfect example of this, with the robotic filter on Schmersal's backing track, while the leading vocals are soft and controlled. and not to mention Matt Schulz's harsh drum beats that really pull the whole song together. High Society has so many tracks like this, and they're all fuckin awesome.

as i said in the High Society entry, Enon is a recent love of mine. GGCC was their last album, released in 2007, and it really does feel like a full realization of their musical stylings. you open with an intense track right off the bat with Mirror on You, which immediately goes into Colette, a bass-heavy track lead by Toko Yasuda's unique vocal sound. the whole album is hit after hit after hit, it never stops being good. if im being honest with myself, the best track is Paperweights, but i just can't help but put Those Who Don't Blink as my favorite. it's fast, non-stop noise rock action with that track, and i love Yasuda's vocals there. if you like High Society but want even more action, GGCC is exactly that and so much more.

my dad was the one who introduced me to R.E.M., and ever since i've had a special attachment to them. that, coupled with them hailing from my hometown, lead to me buying a whopping 4 R.E.M. CDs this year. i want to talk about all of them at some point, but the specific one we're talking about today is Eponymous. this is my dad's favorite and is one that he had when he was younger, so i've had it recommended to me quite a few times. it's a greatest hit album, but like, the lineup here is REALLY good. opening with Radio Free Europe and Gardening at Night is an excellent choice, and things only get better from there. Don't Go Back To Rockville has a super catchy hook, Can't Get There From Here is one of their best songs ever in my opinion, and by far my favorite track has to be Romance. it's pretty laid back, which i usually don't like, but it works really well in this context with their style, and i find the vocals especially to be great here. something i had to realize over the past years is that country isn't all slow, boring, acoustic slop. if you find yourself avoiding country a lot due to the bad rep it has, i'd say give R.E.M. a shot, it's a great example of how unique artists can get with it.

the Chemical Brothers are one of the most prolific electronic artists of all time, and they have a lot of phenomenal albums to choose to be a favorite. so why did i choose Dig Your Own Hole? well, DYOH is a "all killer, no filler" kind of album. i don't skip a single song here, because they're all awesome. they just keep the bangers coming, and nowhere is that more apparent than with Get Up On It Like This. it's full of punchy drums, hits, scratches and slices, and all comes together to be one of if not my absolute favorite electronic tracks ever. and near the end they wind down into a more psychedelic style, which works astonishingly well. try listening to The Private Psychedelic Reel on a nighttime car ride home, it's an unforgettable experience.

let it be known, talking heads is one of my favorite bands of all time. i love a lot of their music, i think my dad put it best when he said "it sounds like a bunch of people who don't know how to play their instruments all that well, but are just making music for the love of it" and that's kind of what i like about them. now that i've said that, i should let you know that i don't really like Naked all that much. this was a pick from a thrift store on a roadtrip, and i bought it because "oooh i love talking heads!" and it didn't go much deeper than that. actually, there is one song on the album that i really like, and that's Sax & Violins. back when i first found TH, that was one of the songs i really latched onto. it's got this ethereal atmosphere to it, and always reminded me of this one song from Yume Nikki, of all things. and it isn't even on this version of the album!! Sax & Violins was only on the 2005 rerelease of Naked, and the version i got was the original 1988 CD. damn, dude. actually wait, there is one other one i like, Nothing but Flowers. other than that, this was kind of a dud album for me, not to mention it was the last album before TH broke up, which is pretty sad.

Brainiac is such a cool ass band man. i found them through their association with Enon, and while they're almost entirely different beasts, Brainiac still kicks ass. the filters they use lead to some of the most violent and painful sounding vocals ive ever heard, and that just makes me love them even more. it sounds like the vocalist is struggling to even speak at times, which is definitely on purpose and it fucking rocks. Smack Bunny Baby is the most aggressive you can get, and that's why i love it.

Barenaked Ladies is most well known for a lot of things. doing the theme song for the Big Bang Theory (which is a banger) being the geniuses behind One Week, creating Pinch Me, aka the best song about depression. but one album i feel gets completely overlooked all the time is Everything to Everyone, which is a damn shame. it's filled top to bottom with INSANELY catchy bangers, has those classic BnL fast rhymes, and pretty much every track is some sort of commentary on capitalism. and i know, you're probably groaning at that listing of Country in the genre section. but believe me when i say, i do NOT like country. i'm surrounded by it and constantly have to hear it, so i am not biased towards it at all when i say that BnL does it right. it doesn't get boring, and it's all in the vocal performances. please, i implore you, just give E2E a shot, it's amazing.

the only other BnL album i have, Maroon is the origin of one of their most popular songs, Pinch Me. and while Pinch Me is phenomenal and one of the best songs about depression (in my opinion) i think far too many people overlook the rest of the album, and that's a damn shame. BnL's balance of fast rhymes, upbeat tunes and more down to earth tracks is really good here, at least in the first 2/3rds or so. Too Little Too Late, Never Do Anything, The Humor of the Situation and Go Home are all super fun and catchy, Sell Sell Sell almost feels like an Everything to Everyone track with its critiques of capitalism, and i kinda really like the atmosphere Conventioneers has. yeah, an atmospheric BnL song, super weird and out of left field but that's what i like about it. everything after track 8, however, just feels a little whatever to me. Baby Seat is alright, i recall liking Off The Hook, and i can't even remember what Helicopters or Tonight Is The Night I Fall Asleep At The Wheel sound like. even so, it's absolutely worth it to check out Maroon, if only for that first 2/3rds.

being the only album English electronic duo Propellerheads ever made, Decksanddrumsandrockandroll has big shoes to fill. i mean, how do you make just one album and then end up in every piece of media there was at the time? ill tell you how, you make one of the best damn electronic albums of all time. Decks is full of back to back insanely good bangers, while still mixing in lots of other flavors, such as hip-hop, big beat and spyjazz. especially that last one, so much so that they've made several songs that are homages to James Bond, and even made it into a 007 movie at one point. im telling you, they were everywhere. my favorite track on the album is Bang On! which was featured in Wipeout 64, and go listen to it and TELL me it's not the most banger electronic track you've ever heard in your life. that's right, you can't. Decks is awesome, and an essential listening experience if you're wanting to get into electronic.

everyone knows Cake for The Distance, it's a great song and deserves to be loved as much as it does. but there's always more to a band than just one song, and i wanted to take a look at what else they had under their belt. so where else to start but the album The Distance is from? and man, what an album. Cake really has their own flavor (ha) that no one else can get, and i honestly had a hard time deciding on what to put in the Genre category for this album. it's definitely got aspects of funk, but it's also some form of rock too. and it also dips its toes into country at times? it's a hard thing to quantify. well no matter the genre, Cake is the kind of band that isn't afraid to come up with some truly bold lyrics. (see Race Car Ya-Yas, Nugget and Italian Leather Sofa) they also just snuck an awesome cover of I Will Survive into this album for some reason, and while it's super unexpected, it also goes insanely hard. go check out this album if you like unique vocal performances, funky bass and lots of trumpet, it'll totally be up your alley.

i tend to categorize the Go-Gos in my head under the same category i put bands like Plumtree, Tiger Trap and Gaze in. they're upbeat, all girls, and have tons of banger tracks. what sets them apart from those bands for me, however, is that The Go-Gos were the first to actually do music of this kind. as such, they have a more distinct 80's flair that the later 90's bands don't really have. i really like the harmonized vocals on tracks like Skidmarks on my Heart, it's super fun and almost makes me think of the vocal harmonies Queen is well known for. the album also just sort of... sounds more 80's, i can't describe it. that could just be because i have the album on cassette and listen to it that way for the most part, i dunno. either way, if you like the other pop bands that i've recommended like Plumtree or Tiger Trap, i think you'll really dig the Go-Gos and their debut album, it's awesome.

another pick from my thrift store of choice, i'd definitely heard of Underworld before picking this up, but the only song i'd heard by them was Push Upstairs. but hey, i love that song, so i was willing to give their other stuff a shot. and man, i'm glad i did. the best way i can describe Dubnobass (shortened for convenience) is rain techno. it's so gloomy and atmospheric, i just imagine gray city streets stretching on forever, the only thing to keep you company being the pulsating beats Underworld provides. the city imagery could probably come from the second track on the album, Mmm... Skyscraper I Love You, which clocks in at a colossal 13 minutes and 11 seconds. any which way, Dubnobass is an excellent listen on a rainy day, and i'm glad i picked it out of the record bins.

Fat Beets is one of my favorite thrift store finds i've ever come across, it's completely homemade and super jank, but also full of back to back jazz hits. i'll be honest, going into this one i fully expected it to be one of three things. hardcore electronic, country bumpkin, or metal as fuck, and it was none of those. its all jazz, and is coated in this weird static on all the tracks, but it's kind of a cool effect.

the docs are in the house, and are prescribing us with cuts, scratches, breaks and beats. Import This is awesome and extremely underrated, i was not expecting it to be as good as it was. it's got tons of unique vocal samples, which is pretty much my favorite thing any electronic artist can do. and it only gets better in the sequel album!

take everything i said in the description for Import This, and apply it here. favorite tracks have got to be Beatbox Rocker and Don't Stop The Beat + Numbers. the latter has these super cool robotic voices that are by far my favorite part of the song.

this one's weird, don't get me wrong the track lineup here is phenomenal, it's just that... i don't actually know the names of all the tracks. there was no documentation included in the case, there's no tracklist anywhere, hell, the CD is just straight up a blank verbatim CD-R. this is COMPLETELY homemade, but that's kinda what i like about it. hell, the tracks arent even separated on the disk, it's all one big track. makes playing this in my car a bitch. but every song here is awesome, so i don't really mind.

now this one rocks. this is a sampler of tracks put together by Red Distribution, a record label that does a lot of electronic stuff. and their selections here are awesome, props to them for picking Ken Ishii. Junkie XL's Billy Club has to be my favorite track though, it's got those punchy drums that i love so much. one of my favorite parts of the album, though, is that the inside of the paper sleeve it comes in has these little blurbs for each song, and its as if a radio DJ is hyping up each track as it's about to play. its a really cool touch, and i had to include it in my upload of the album online.