Welcome to the Album Nerds podcast with your hosts Andy, Don, and Dude.
Hello lovers. It is I, Dude. This is the Album Nerds podcast. Got Andy and Don with me. Andy,
are you ready to talk about your love?
Are you inviting me into the hot tub, man?
Yeah, I'm a little worried about this episode. We've got
album picks from our lovers. I'm a little concerned we're going to offend some people
in the process here. Yes, but passion comes from anger and anger turns to love.
You feeling the love over there, though? Are you alone? Because you've got my interest.
Oh, gosh. Oh my gosh. Was that on like a little
candy heart or something? Are you French? Because I fell for you. Oh, this is chat GPT all day long.
Do you like raisins? How do you feel about a date? Oh, God. Oh my gosh. Okay.
So this is the Album Nerd's podcast. We love albums, the album format and terrible jokes.
Today we've got a great show for you. We're going to be talking about our lovers collection. So
albums that are special someone's love. Then Don's going to ask us a deep question.
And we're going to have some shout outs to some other albums or album related items that we're
digging. And then we're going to spin that wheel of musical discovery to find out what we'll be
talking about next time. But this week it's all about our lovers. Who else wants to talk about
their lover? That's what I'm talking about. So a romantic relationship is not just the union
of souls. It can also be a combining of music collections. Exploring a spouse's album collection
can be an enlightening journey through their tastes and experiences. You can find both treasures
and trash. And today each of us will present an album from our romantic partners collections.
We all have trash in our collections.
Yeah. So it's always an interesting conversation with your partner, wife, husband, lover,
whatever about your music collection, what you used to love, what you do love now, and finding
that common ground. And so this is the interesting journey of just saying, Hey, you know, what's an
album that really sticks out to you as important or great or that you enjoyed when you were young.
So this is fun to try and look at it from that perspective. And so I'm sure these conversations
led to several potential album picks. What other albums did you think about for the show before
making your final choice? Yeah. Yeah. We talked long, long into the night about potential records
to go over. Strawberries and whipped cream, champagne. Of course. Every conversation we have
includes those things. If you mentioned a couple that I was not super familiar with, the other one
that I didn't pick was Sublime's 40 Aunts of Freedom. Thank God. I know that you had some
reservations about that record, dude. The debut album for that ska punk group, very popular,
her being on the radio, quite a few singles from that record. Apparently one of the most successful
independent releases of the era. Didn't know that. Yeah, that's a cool sound. I mean,
that's a good gateway to reggae, I think, that album and that band perhaps. How about you, Don?
Well, probably my wife's favorite artist is Keith Urban, but we did one of his albums not too long
ago. Another one I considered was Blake Shelton. His album from 2016, if I'm honest, actually came
out not long after his divorce from Miranda Lambert. That's actually there in the record.
There's some breakup songs on there that are kind of fun.
Yeah, sounds juicy. That guy has so many hits. It's ridiculous.
He just has a charming way about him. Yeah.
Every man vibe even though he's like not at this point.
Right. Yeah. How about you, dude?
Toto. Toto IV is an album my wife had when she was a kid. I guess she got it as a birthday or
Christmas present at one point. It was released in April of 82. It was their fourth studio album,
thus Toto IV. It features that polished blend of rock, pop and jazz and had Africa on it,
which was famously recently covered by Weezer. Rosanna, which is another really well known
track. Toto also was involved in a lot of other projects, including Michael Jackson's thriller,
but it's just so clean and fun to listen to. I wanted to go with something that maybe went a
little deeper lyrically. No Toto this time, folks. Sorry. All right. Why don't we get into our
choo choo choo choices? You choo choo choose me?
All right. For my lovers collection selection.
We're going with the ODB, old dirty bastard. That's romantic.
Nothing more romantic than ODB. Going with his debut album, returned to the 36 chambers,
the dirty version. Let's hear second single and the second cut. Shimi Shimi Ya.
There's of course the old dirty bastard himself there with production by RZA. This was the
second in the series of solo Wu Tang albums that came out after their big debut a couple of years
prior. This is the follow up to Method Man's Tikal, which was in 1994. Yeah. I'm this record
kind of making a pretty big splash when I was in school. I remember the album art quite
prevently being around my high school. So my wife grew up listening to this record in high school.
Wu Tang was big in her with her friend group and she can rap the first eight tracks, I would say,
pretty much straight through without hesitation. Yeah. It's dangerous putting this all on at the
house because she will just tear into it pretty quickly. Wow. Yeah. I mean, you guys could have
one of those nice moments when you're sitting at the piano and you can start going ding, ding, ding,
ding, ding, ding, ding. She could shimmy shimmy ya for you. She could just chime in. Yeah.
I'm definitely the RZA of the relationship, I would say.
Next clickbait headline for returned to the 36 chambers is ODB takes the wheel and immediately
jumps the curb, runs through a fruit stand and parks in the middle of a fountain.
And this is a pretty unhinged record as you probably would expect if you know anything about
ODB. He's a pretty messy, energetic, creative figure. And this record, I think, captures his
essence pretty well, the good and the bad of his personality. There's some great moments on here,
I think, that do rival there, the Wu Tang's debut, especially towards the beginning of the record.
But in all, now it's a pin as the record goes on, it kind of falls apart more and more. And
there's just so many odd skits and singing and ODB has this kind of odd singing voice he uses
a lot of times when they're in the record. I feel like there had to be 50 people in the
room trying to keep him on track. Like, hey man, you got to do this verse now. You got to get
something on tape today. You can feel it even throughout the album. That's just my feeling.
Yeah. I know the album took over two years to produce, I guess, which is even back then,
that's a long time to make a record. Let's jump in here and play. This is track four.
I believe this is also a single off the album. This is Brooklyn Zoo.
I'm the one man army, hey Sean. I never been tooken out. I keep MCs looking out.
I drop signs like cross, be dropping babies. Another mech, another mech, another mech.
So yeah, Brooklyn Zoo seems to be kind of a tirade against some unknown adversary. One of the
potential origin stories is that it was born out of an argument he had with members of the group,
Brooklyn Zoo, who I guess he hung out with a lot. According to Brooklyn Zoo member Buddha Monk,
ODB channeled the energy and anger from this dispute into the recording booth and used some
of the words and phrases from that argument to craft the track. So something like a musical
equivalent of a lover's quarrel. Yeah. He's like, are we getting Chinese? Are we getting pizza?
But kind of typical of the record, it's kind of simple backing, just that piano,
that little piano melody that they use quite a bit. Actually, he uses the line,
shame on you when you step through the old dirty bastard Brooklyn Zoo. He basically says the same
thing in Protect Your Neck on the Wu Tang record. All right, so my clickbait headline is ODB Reminds
Album Nerd Why He Was Never Into Hip Hop. That's not really a diss.
Don't say that. That's not really a diss.
That's not a diss.
It's just so crass and crude. I think it's probably intentionally off putting, but it's just so,
there's that word, sophomoric again and juvenile. It feels like my friends and I used to record
ourselves just saying nonsense and it sounds like something we would have recorded for each other.
But on the other hand, I do think there's some magic here. I think his sort of
sing songy rap style is kind of interesting. I'm not really sure who else does that. Maybe Busta
Rhymes kind of has something like that, maybe Biz Markie, but yeah, it seems to be unique.
And I like the way he raps. I think the backing tracks are perfect in sort of eerie feel,
which somehow works with his weird nature, just this thing that can't be contained.
Well, I mean, this is like the anti-intellectual album compared to other things we've listened to
recently. Yeah, sure. Compared to that Tribe record last week is kind of the opposite.
Yeah. But on the other hand, I get the sense that maybe he plays sort of a buffoon,
but I bet he's actually a genius. That's a different guy. That's the jizzle.
Oh, right. Oops. But yeah, I mean, he's a character, and I think he's sort of crafting
his character. I don't know. I feel like there's more to him.
Yeah. You wonder how much of this is like a character he's putting on, or a persona versus
who he actually is. Or was.
Right. Just the first time ever you sucked my d***.
Oh, geez. Is that the name of the song?
That was in the intro, right? I think so.
Oh, the five minute intro track. Yeah.
I do feel like, yeah, it is very immature on purpose.
Yeah. And I think your point about
playing a character to some degree is probably true. I mean, because Wu-Tang Clan was not only a
rap collective, they're also a group of friends. And everyone kind of plays their role in a group
of friends. And if he was the doing crazy stuff, saying crazy stuff guy, then that personality has
to be amplified for the performative side of things. And I agree that sometimes I feel like
it goes too far. There are moments when I was made to feel uncomfortable, but that's the point.
And I think the people who really loved this album, those were the moments that intrigued
them the most. They kind of embrace that it makes a lot of people uncomfortable.
Yeah. Let's jump in here and play another cut from the record. This is track three, Baby Come On.
I like that moment in that song, probably among the best besides Shime Shime Ya, just because
it feels the most like a track that would have potentially been on a Wu-Tang album.
It feels a little more focused and in control. But yeah, I mean, again, braggadocious lyrics,
minimalist, grimy beats. And I guess it really exemplifies this album as a whole personality
driven hip hop and rap, as opposed to lyrical meaning, painting pictures of the landscape
around them or whatever. This is about this guy's personality. It's definitely on display here.
My clickbait headline to describe Return to the 36 Chambers. Is there a clean version?
There's not a clean version.
Old Dirty Bastard took the Wu-Tang Clan's raw energy and embraces the madness.
Yeah. I think he just probably even lived that way in that universe, I guess. So unpredictable.
I read that the RZA had to piece together verses from random studio recordings to make
some of the tracks. I believe it.
Sort of a no rules approach to rapping, whether it be with what you say or with the way that
flows happen, the disruption in a flow, the change of cadence.
It's so wild to hear ODB rap verse and then hear someone like Method Man who was pretty on the beat
and understand what he's saying, go back to back.
That's part of the problem too, is losing any kind of threads throughout. That's why the songs that
work best are the ones with a raise your hands in the air moment, like the saying Wu-Tang or
Shimmy Shimmy, something that you can grab onto, even if it's nonsense.
Yeah. Bring it all back together.
Yeah. This is not for everyone. I don't think even hip hop heads, its inconsistency and its length.
An album this long being unfocused makes it a challenge at times. I do feel that his unique
style and personality worked better in the group setting.
Yeah. I agree.
Because then it's a flavor in the overall recipe.
Yeah. You need some meat and potatoes in there too. You can't just have all flavor.
Yeah. Just drinking a bottle of hot sauce is what it's like listening to this record.
Yeah. Seriously.
But I mean, I do think this album is a classic in that it captures his unique talent and he
is a hip hop pioneer, warts and all. And this is at the peak of his creativity, even though it
needed a little help from his friends. But this character that exists now in hip hop history
exists because this album so effectively showcased it, even though sometimes it's hard to keep your
eye on the ball. Yeah. I think he has a little bit of a mythology around him now. He's kind of a
larger than life character, especially after he was passing away about 10 years after this album.
All right. Well, that is my wife's selection there. I got ODB, Return 36 Chambers, the Dirty
Version. Definitely an interesting little capsule from that mid-90s hip hop. If you're not familiar
with what was going on with Wu Tang, it's a great place to jump in.
Before we continue on our love us journey, why don't we hear from our friend Jess from Music
Notes with Jess. Hi, I'm Jessica Ann Katina. I've always loved music and surround myself with it
every day. I've sung in choirs, took digital musical classes in college and used to work in
radio. To further share my knowledge and experience with others, I created this podcast, Music Notes
with Jess in 2019. I'm so fortunate of the listener growth and hearing back from some of the celebs I
discussed in past episodes. That's why now I'm ready to expand. So let's have fun taking weekly
music notes of throwbacks, modern hips and media. Thank you. Talk to you soon on Music Notes with
Jess. Go check out Music Notes with Jess wherever you get your podcasts after you listen to ours.
So my pick for my lovers collection comes from Night Rangers, Midnight Madness from 1983. This
is the second album by the rock band formed in San Francisco in 1979. The band's lineup at the time
was bassist and vocalist Jack Blades, guitarist Brad Gillis, drummer, vocalist Kelly Keighy,
guitarist Jeff Watson and keyboardist Alan Fitzgerald. It was in the band Montrose with
Sammy Hagar. Oh, Sammy Hagar, nice. So my wife, she and her friends in college, I guess, really
latched on to Night Ranger and they were really big fans and I've actually seen them live a bunch
of times with them. Well, Jack Blades a good looking dude too. Oh yeah, yep. I'm sure that was
part of it. Of course. Well, let's hear the biggest hit from this album. It's Sister Christian.
Sister Christian, oh the time has come and you know that you're the only one.
All right. So Sister Christian was written and sung by drummer Kelly Keighy. It was inspired by
his younger sister, Christy, after visiting his hometown of Eugene, Oregon. He was struck by how
quickly she was growing up. She was 10 years younger than him. He wrote the song expressing
his feelings as a protective older brother. Apparently when he introduced this song to his
bandmates, he was actually saying Sister Christy, but they mistook it as Sister Christian and so they
stuck with that. It's got the term motoring in it. It's motoring.
Like I always wondered, so does that mean moving through life quickly, motoring?
Yeah. I mean, I think it was kind of a reference to sort of cruising around,
like young people do, but I think yeah, motoring is probably also moving through life as you say.
Not young people cruise around, but mostly in Fortnite instead of in actual cars.
Yeah, true.
They scroll around more than anything.
Well, my clickbait headline for Midnight Madness is Night Ranger goes motoring down
Sentimental Street with melodic hooks. Sentimental Street was actually a hit that came
on their next album, Seven Witches, but yeah, I mean it's a lot of just sentimental lyrics,
lots of love and love lost kind of stuff. I mean, it's arena rock, I think more than it is
like glam rock. I think it has more in common with the journeys of the world.
Those things hadn't been completely defined yet. I think bands were struggling when they were
like hard rock bands. I preferred their first album, Dawn Patrol. It was a little edgier,
this one, the edges are smoothed off a little bit, but the name of the game was getting on MTV
and getting on the radio. And at that time, making devil horns and stuff wasn't going to get you
a number one hit.
Does Sister Christian have a good video?
Oh yeah.
Very cinematic.
Yeah, and the same girl that is in that is also in the When You Close Your Eyes video.
Yeah, I would say they have more in common probably with like Billy Joel than Judas Priest,
I think. I mean, these are just pop songs. Although, I mean, they're a bit more aggressive
than Journey and Foreigner, I think, because they got like the dual guitars. And I mean,
I think both guitarists in the group, Brad Gillis, who had played with Ozzy after Randy
Rhodes passed away, and Jeff Watson, I think they're both technically very good guitarists.
They seem to have some cred among musicians of that time, of that rock world,
but others have called them the air supply of heavy metal.
Yeah, I read that too. Anyway, well, let's hear more. Here's When You Close Your Eyes.
Yeah, so this is a power ballad about lost love and nostalgia. They were kind of kings of the
early power ballad. I'm not saying they were the first to do it, but they definitely were good at
it. These are well-crafted, well-written songs. Lyrically, they're interesting, I think, especially
for the time. But it's about the lingering feelings and memories of past relationship,
and then wondering if your former lover is still thinking about you, you know.
According to the video, the former lover is married to a chimp.
Oh, that's interesting.
Check that out. Lost my lover to a monkey.
Heart wants what the heart wants, right? Yeah, so there are soaring vocals on here.
Death Leopard-esque, like that part we played, you know, kind of feels a little bit like the
early Death Leopard stuff. It just doesn't take it up to 11. It keeps it down around seven,
and that's fine. I think it works for this song. My clickbait headline to describe the album,
not quite metal, not quite pop. Midnight Madness proves Night Ranger was the ultimate 80s rock
tweener. As, you know, we kind of got to, they're not quite Toto Journey Sticks, REO Speedway,
Speedwagon, or, and they're also not quite Death Leopard Quiet Riot Judas Priest.
They're somewhere in the middle, and I think that's a hard place to be moving forward.
At the time, it was the right place to be, like trying to hit all those angles and the fans of
all of those types of bands. Overall, I enjoyed it. I thought the vocalists sounded great. I think
the songwriting was above average. Sister Christian is like clearly a classic. Yeah, it's just an
awkward time in rock music and hard rock music and metal. The labeling had started to begin
of what subgenre you were a part of. Yeah, these guys got kind of left behind
once like the Bon Jovi's and the Poisons and, you know, all those groups that,
who have a lot in common with Night Ranger, I think. They do. They're very similar. I think
maybe the keyboard work may have sanded the edges off a little bit too much. Things are electrified,
and then it just gets really saturated with a little more sappiness, and the keyboard touches
were what was doing that for me, especially upon a headphone listen. I'd be kind of rocking along
to the Touch of Madness. It was an album highlight for me. That nursery rhyme intro is cool. It's
even more Def Leopardy, and those keys came in and kind of took away from the power of it for me,
but still I really enjoyed that track as well. Yeah, I think it suffers from sort of that early
and mid-80s production, and a lot of the hard rock and metal of that time, I think,
suffers because it's just very trebly, you know? And I don't think this has been remastered,
or at least like the versions I've found are not remastered, and it definitely sounds of its time
from a production standpoint. All right, let's hear another one. This is actually the opening
cut. You Can Still Rock in America. You know, thanks to this great country of ours,
you still can rock in America. Yeah, most people can. That was the first single from the album that
peaked at number 51 on the Billboard. It features Glenn Hughes on backing vocals.
Ah, nice. He was in Deep Purple and Black Sabbath. The Black Sabbath connection there, interesting.
Blades, who was the lead singer, one of the lead singers. Yeah. Blades said that he wrote the song
as a commentary on what he was seeing when he was out there, when everybody was saying rock was dead.
They're still saying it. Yeah, I know. I remember people saying that since like the 60s, I think.
My Click-Pay headline for Midnight Madness is Night Rager can cock the perfect midnight snack
filled with plenty of cheesy lyrics, a heavy dose of repetitive guitar, and a glaze of squeaky
production. Wow. Yeah, I definitely agree with Don's comment on the production there being very
treble focused and squeaky clean, which is not uncommon of the era by any means. I just have real
issue with this being labeled as like hard rock or heavy metal and having a keyboard doing the
primary rhythm for the group. It just sounds unlike any sort of rock I'm familiar with, I guess. It
just feels very pop-orientated, I guess, to me. I thought it was a bad thing, but I think positioning
it as rock for me feels like you're trying to package stuff as something it's not.
Yeah. Well, I think terminology changes. I mean, in the 50s, rock was Chuck Berry.
I think it's a slippery term of what hard rock is. In 1982 or three, this was more aggressive
guitar wise than say Huey Lewis and the News or something, or Billy Joel, or even REO Speedwagon
and Journey and some of those others we mentioned. This one, I feel like it borrows some sounds from
the New Wave of British heavy metal, dual guitar harmonies and things like that.
Guitar riffs, perhaps. Yeah. It just feels very watered down. Even the guitar riffs are interesting
at times. They're just very, very repetitive. I think after a few moments, you get the gist
of what they're going for here. Wow. I feel like this is a transitional
sound going mainstream essentially of some of those sounds.
Yeah. It does sound like a very mainstream version of that sound, I guess, which is fine.
Not for me, but that's okay. It's interesting, Andy, that you tend to reject pop from this era
for being commercial or too mainstream, but then you embrace the K-pop or more dance-oriented pop.
You seem to forgive the commercial nature and the poppiness of those genres, but not 80s rock.
Yeah. What up with that? Grab a napkin, homie. You just got served.
That's a fair point. I think, I don't know, 80s pop to me always feels like it's pretending to be
harder than it is. Whereas today's pop, I don't get that pretension from it at all. It feels like
more of a sugary package that's intended for that use. Whereas, I don't know, 80s pop,
maybe it's just the hair is being longer, makes me feel like it's trying to be metal or something.
It just doesn't have that low end. It's just not there in the 80s at all. That really bothers me.
It's not a low end era, unfortunately. All right. Well, for nine catchy pop hits
with a hard rock treatment, check out Night Rangers, Midnight Madness from 1983.
Excuse me. I'd like to ask you a few questions.
Okay. It's time again for Deep Questions by Don. All right. So, we've been introduced to
some different music by our partners. What other things has your partner introduced you to?
On my in-laws. I mean, there's a lot of things. Just looking back over,
we've been together for like 10 or 12 years now, 11 years.
You better know.
The first one that came to mind would be like gardening. We do a lot of different houseplants
and vegetables and whatnot. My wife is very knowledgeable about that. My wife was a massage
therapist for many years. So, she's taught me a lot about how the body works and different muscle
groups and how they all affect each other. She's been getting like Indian philosophies and religion.
So, I know a lot about that from her. I mean, I probably could go on for quite a while,
but those are the main things I could think of. Yeah, how about you, Don?
Well, the one thing that my wife introduced me to was vodka martinis. I had gin martinis before,
but never vodka martinis. But all sorts of things, obviously, but fatherhood and grand fatherhood.
When I married her, my stepdaughter was a teenager and she's grown up and has kids now. So,
experiencing the tail end of adolescence and crappy boyfriends and all that stuff,
that was eye-opening and grew me up quite a bit pretty quickly. So, yeah, just becoming a man
is what my wife introduced me to.
So, yeah, I guess one thing my wife introduced me to or introduced me to caring about is the
royal family and the British monarchy. My whole life, I just couldn't have given less of a shit
about any of that. I remember when Princess died and I was like, why do people care? But now,
I've just seen so many movies and documentaries, not just like the current royal family, but going
back to Henry VIII and stuff. It really is kind of fascinating, just that long legacy of rulers
and bad behavior. Just like, I guess, any kind of history. The history of the British monarchy is
pretty fascinating stuff.
Well, geez, you've become like a sleeper agent for the Redcoats, huh?
Damn.
I'm a monarchist.
It's the spine.
All right. Well, what did your partner introduce you to? Let us know on Instagram and Facebook,
or leave a comment on our website, albumnerds.com. From my lovers collection, I bring Sir Elton John,
born Reginald Kenneth Dwight, the renowned British singer, songwriter, pianist,
who has achieved much success throughout music and Broadway and blah, blah, blah. It's a long list.
I've heard of him.
His career includes chart-topping albums, singles contributions to musical films and theater and
probably Lion King being so important to so many people was because of Elton John.
But this album is Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy from May of 1975.
This is a concept that chronicles the autobiographical story of Elton John and
his writing partner, Bernie Taupin. Elton is Captain Fantastic. Bernie is the Brown Dirt Cowboy.
And there's themes of hardship, rejection, self-doubt, perseverance, all about their early
years up until this point in 1975. Why don't we jump into the opening track,
Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy.
So the track kind of opens is like an Americana, almost country western sort of vibe to it.
And then there's that subtle interplay between the electric piano and the acoustic guitar.
And it's really about their alter egos of these two starry-eyed young dreamers that met and
contributed to each other's musical journey. And then the song really changes throughout.
You get more of a funky rock and roll treatment later on in the song.
Bernie Taupin would write the lyrics. Elton John would compose around them.
And these lyrics are quite detailed and not pop songs per se. And Elton's ability to write music
and then find ways to phrase those words is very at the forefront for me of why this is a special
album. And my wife grew up loving the album, listening from start to finish over and over
again. I'd heard it before, but her story is about spending hours reading the liner notes and
exploring the album's art and lyrics. And she had a big crush on Bernie Taupin, not Elton John,
which I think that tells you something about someone when the poet, the lyric writers who
they're drawn to, much like me, I'm a deep soul. You attracted to Bernie as well.
So I clicked the headline to describe Captain Fantastic, proof that sometimes the nerdy kid
at the piano and the cowboy poet end up ruling the world. I mean, they were at their high point
here. And to look back on it and try to level set is a really interesting choice to make instead of
writing another album full of top 40 hits. So yeah, I think it's something special.
It's pretty interesting to take a moment in the middle of your career to look back like this.
I wonder what prompted them to take that moment. It's kind of odd.
I don't know if it has-
They've been working together for a long time up to this point, right?
Yeah, like a decade. So I don't know if it was just like a time of change and growth.
Music was changing by 1975. So maybe it was just an opportunity to try to put it all in perspective.
And these guys were grownups by this point and probably had gone through a lot.
All right. Why don't we continue our journey with Tell Me When the Whistle Blows?
Music playing.
Lousy track there about Bernie, who I guess grew up in the country,
kind of thinking about that life he had there. And I'm wondering if he could ever get back to it.
And if he lost his country soul. I like that idea.
CB. My clickbait headline for Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy is Elton and Bernie
Weave a Colorful Tapestry from Their Collective Talents and History. This does very much feel like
a two-hander like so many of Elton's records are. I guess you really can sense the camaraderie
between the guys here and just how deep their relationship is and how much they are dependent
on each other for their success. They're kind of tied together at the hip.
Like us.
Yeah. Pretty much exactly like us. We'd all be useless on our own.
I think what really struck me listening to this record, not being super familiar with Elton John's
career at all, his voice sounds fantastic on this record. Just very light and free and just moves
effortlessly through these tracks. Along with the arrangements too are super interesting and doesn't
like dude said, it's not really a pop record. It's more going on than just like a traditional
pop song. The structures are not that expected.
Yeah. Interestingly, I read that it was noticed by critics that his voice was a little rough
because they just come off a tour, but I think it sounds great too.
Yeah. Yeah, it really does.
It's got just the right timbre and energy and emotion.
Yeah. Not a lot of like anthems or hits sound here. I mean, there's like a couple that you
might recognize, but yeah, there's some cool string accompaniments and it feels more like
a Dylan record than like a pop Elton John record, I think in terms of the density and the poetic
qualities going on here. So yeah, I really enjoyed this. I thought it was quite good and
I'll probably come back to it in the future.
All right. So why don't we continue with probably the biggest hit and most recognizable song here,
Someone Saved My Life Tonight.
I spend a lot of good mornings with Sugar Bear, Sugar Crisp cereal.
Yeah, I'll hear Sugar Crisp cereal.
I thought that was a pet name for your wife.
All right. So yeah, Someone Saved My Life Tonight is of course written. The music is by Elton John
and lyrics are by Bernie Taupin. So the song concludes side one of the album, chronicles
their early history in finding their way in the music industry. So this refers to a time in 1968
when John was engaged to be married to his girlfriend, Linda Woodrow. So John and Woodrow
were sharing a flat with Taupin. John didn't love her and felt trapped by it. So he made a
sort of a half-assed attempt at suicide. He tried to asphyxiate himself with a gas oven,
but he left the windows open. So I mean, that's more a cry for a help.
I thought you were going to say he tried to exfoliate himself.
Yeah. So fortunately he wasn't successful and he took refuge in his friends. One of them was
Long John Baldry. And so he is supposedly Sugar Bear, who was this British singer and actor.
Porn star. That is a porn name if ever I heard.
Well, Sugar Bear convinced him to not get married and to sort of focus on his musical career.
Good advice.
Yeah.
The lyrics and butterflies are free to fly. It actually comes from Dickens,
Bleak House. The quote is, I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free. Mankind will surely
not deny Harold Skimpole what it concedes to the butterflies.
Will not deny Skimpole.
All right. So my clickbait headline for Captain Fantastic and the brown dirt cowboy is Captain
Fantastic. Out shines the brown dirt. So it's just, there's no dirt on this. I mean, it's just
a shiny album. Although not as shiny as other Elton John records.
I think that's what I like about it so much is it feels more grounded in reality and it's not
as performative.
Yeah. I agree with that. It's much easier to process than Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. I mean,
it's a great album, but it was just so many, it goes so many directions. And so this was just
easy to process for a concept album. And I tend to think of concept albums as being like these
big pieces. This album doesn't feel big. It just feels like a regular album that has a narrative
that goes throughout it. But I mean, it's a very accessible album, although not overtly poppy
other than someone saved my life tonight.
Yeah. One interesting thing I read was that this was the first album to debut at number one on
the billboard 200. Like no album had done that up to this point. The album cover created by
Alan Aldridge is so interesting. Inspired by Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights
Renaissance Painter. I guess it was one of the most expensive album covers ever commissioned.
I mean, the packaging is beautiful. The gatefold is beautiful. There's a huge booklet with tons
of details and pictures of them and throughout that first part of their history together.
And then Tower of Babel is a standout track that delves into rock and roll gospel with
biblical imagery, but critiquing the exploitive nature of the music industry. And got to get a
meal ticket describing the desperation of signing a contract just to survive in the music business.
Yeah. I'm surprised how funky that track was. There's some real funk moments on here I wasn't
expecting.
I think they were free at this point to just let it all go, do whatever.
Like butterflies.
Elton John himself has said that this is his finest work. And then we all fall in love sometimes,
which is kind of, it sounds like a romance, but it's about falling in love with the pursuit of
one's passion and this love between Bernie and Elton. It's not romantic in any way, but it's
that their passion, the passion they shared for music. And then Curtains closes it out. So nice.
I love this album. I've learned to love it because of my wife introducing it to me and
describing it the way she did. So I'm going to nominate this for the album, The Hotel of Fame.
I mean, the album tells a story. It resets what Elton John and Bernie Toppin were going to do
moving forward and looking back at what they had accomplished together. And just so beautifully
laid out, the music is great. The lyrics are great. Elton sounds amazing. And the fact that
my wife recognized something in this at a young age tells me a lot about the album and about
her being awesome. So it's a yes for me.
Well, I agree with all those things. For me, I just haven't listened to this record enough
to really have a strong opinion on it one way or the other, I don't think. But I do, I do,
I'm enjoying it so far. So I'm going to say maybe.
Maybe is a no folks.
All right. Well, I think Elton John and Bernie Toppin are just one of the great songwriting
duos. And I think it makes sense that we would have at least one Elton John record in our Hall
of Fame. And this might be my favorite one. As I'm trying to think about it now, I think it's
probably the best listen from front to back. So yeah, I'll say yes.
Well, two's not enough. We need you, audience.
I guess it'll be a pretty easy audience vote, but let them have their voice. Go to our website,
Elbnerds.com to cast your ballot for Mr. John and Mr. Toppin. And of course, look us up on the
socials, Instagram and Facebook to cast your vote there as well.
All right. So we need your help people. That was Elton John with Captain Fantastic and the
Brown Dirt Cowboy. Check it out.
Can you dig it?
All right. Well, did you guys have an opportunity to stop going through your spouse's things
and collection to find anything else that you're digging?
Yeah. I got a couple of things here in my little heart-shaped clutch.
Start with, started up in Norway, the group called Krokofont. It's a three-piece progressive
jazz group. They have a new album out called Six to play the opening cut.
That's what I think the noise in Andy's brain sounds like.
Just a constant stream of that. Yeah, very funky. Definitely more jazz than rock,
but pretty enjoyable, I would say. It's six tracks. Maybe that's why it's called Six.
All right. And the other one for me is a dance record by an artist by the name of Ella Minas.
The album is called Dia. That's her second studio album. She's from Columbia. This album
is made up of songs that seem to collectively ask where we go from here. Long after we've been
broken, but long before we intend to be broken forever. Let's play track five. She says it over
and over again. That's good. That's cool. It's like Star Wars. Yeah. She'd been digging on down.
Well, I actually, I was reading the New York Times, believe it or not.
Wow. And I read that this band, I think it's pronounced Simande. They're a British funk group
founded back in the 1970s. A lot of their songs ended up in a lot of early hip hop as samples.
Well, two of the original members anyway are back and they recorded an album called Renaissance.
Here's a song called Chasing an Empty Dream. Interesting. Yeah. I actually kind of went back
and I was listening to some of their earlier stuff. Pretty good. I've never really considered
British funk at all. I know. It sounds like just wouldn't work, but that sounds pretty cool.
Yeah. Cause I feel like funk requires some bad manners. Well, they actually have like
a kind of a Island sort of flavor. Okay. Nice. Another one I've been listening to, Lucy Dacus.
She has an album coming out, Forever is a Feeling comes out March 28th. This is her
fourth solo album. Here's a track called Ankles. She of course is in Boy Genius, who I think that
was my record of the year a couple of years ago. Yeah. I think she's my favorite member of that
group. I kind of like her vibe. Yeah. I like the song Elbows better than Ankles though.
What are you digging dude? All right. It has become painfully obvious to me. I've been spending too
much time with Don and his kind of music. Cause I've been all about the UK lately. Fontaine's DCE,
the Lambrini Girls, Dits from a couple of weeks ago, and now Wonder Horse, a English rock band
formed in 2020. Kind of grungy, a little more, dare I say, Heartland rock, bluesy than some of
the others. The 2024 album is Midas. Why don't we check out the title track?
I don't know about you guys, but there are moments here where I hear a little Warren Zevon,
a little... That's like a kind of Springsteen. Springsteen. Yeah. This one has some of those
touches where it sounds a little bit more of that raw rock sound. It's nice. I've been enjoying it.
So the next one up is Kal Akuma. The album is In the Mouth of Madness from 2021. It's a debut
album from this Bangladeshi death metal band and it's unrelenting, suffocating sounding,
but it also has some doomy elements to it. Let's check out a little bit of the title track In the
Mouth of Madness. Sounds like Sabbath. Yeah. It's kind of Sabbath meets Night Ranger.
I'm gonna keep one of them. There we go. Yeah. I picked this album up because I was on a record
website buying some stuff I wanted, Beach Boys and some other things, and I needed to get my
cart up to a certain amount for free shipping. This was like six bucks. I'd never heard it.
Album cover looked interesting. I didn't have anything like it in my collection. So even though
I could have cheated and listened on Spotify, I didn't until I got it and I enjoy it. I don't
spend it a lot, but still a fun find and something cool to have in my collection. I think that's
awesome. All right. Well, what are you digging? Let us know. Join us on the socials, Facebook,
Instagram, and threads. Also on our website, albumnerds.com. It will be a discovery of
extraordinary value. Well, it's about that time on the show and I'm reminded of a Hungarian-American
actress, Eva Gabor. Ah. So it's kind of a deep, deep cut here, guys. She was in Green Acres.
Of course. And she said darling or darling a lot, right? Darling, yes. I believe her sister was
Zsa Zsa Gabor. Yep. Or maybe a family member. Well, Eva had a very interesting quote on love
that I thought I would share. She said, love is a game that two can play and both win.
That's very true. I feel like we're all winners on today's episode.
True, true. With that in mind, let's bring out my friend in yours, Wodbot,
and see what we'll be talking about on next week's episode.
Some albums have the power to brighten even the coldest and darkest days. Next time, you will be
exploring records that lift spirits, shake off the winter blues, and remind us how music can be the
perfect antidote to sadness. Well, that's a heavy subject. Anti-depressants, finding albums that
bring you out of the doldrums. I thought we were doing methamphetamines.
I certainly have. That probably put you deeper into depression.
What do you listen to to break the winter doldrums? What else are you listening to?
Email us at podcast at albumnerds.com. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and threads. And blue sky
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Thanks for listening, everybody. See you then.
You're motoring. What's your price for flight?
That is my price for flight. I'm out of here.
I'm out of here. I haven't got the chorus.
Happy Valentine's.