Silent Alarm - Bloc Party

Our basket clearly isn't a fan of older albums. This week it's Bloc Party's debut album from 2005. An album we loved at the time and have returned to sporadically. And each time we've had the same reaction - oh wow, this is still a great album.

Like Eating Glass is a kicking opening track. All drums and bass. And then Kele comes over the top, shouting "it's so cold in this house". It doesn't sound like a song that's been constructed, it sounds like four musicians running at you in a full frontal assault. Saw them at Splendour a few years ago. They opened with Like Eating Glass - one of the most intense and exiting openings to a concert I've ever seen. 

There is a sense of urgency to this album, an aggressive energy. This is protest music. Not in the acoustic guitar, whiney sense. More of the take to the streets, light cars on fire and smash in shop windows sense. 

One of the most exciting moments of the album comes in Positive Tension. The repetition of "why'd you have to get so hysterical" over the building drum and bass lines, then the climax of Kele shouting "so fucken useless". We defy you not to shout along with him. 

Banquet is just as fresh, brilliant and shocking as it was on the first listen six years ago. This was the track that had so many of us saying "who the hell are Bloc Party?!" The pumping drum beat and duelling, syncopated guitars. Makes you pump your fist in the air and slap your leg with the other hand.

This album doesn't let up. Even Blue Light, which starts moody and slowly builds into another thumping bridge.  She's Hearing Voices joins the exclusive club of songs with lyrics that everyone mis-hears. "white girl, pretty girl" is, apparently "red pill, blue pill". 

This Modern Love is the best track on the album. "Do you want to come over and kill some time? Throw your arms around me." It was 2005 and we fell in love to Bloc Party.

For some reason, at the time of its release, this album was compared to Franz Ferdinand. Huh? And it was pipped by Antony and the Johnsons for the Mercury Music Prize. Lame.

So Here We Are is a sweeping beautiful song and probably should be the final track. But no, there are three more songs to come! It's the first time this album goes down a notch, but even for a moody ballad, it has a full on drum beat and a triumphant, screaming coda.

Admittedly, by track 13, it feels a bit long and maybe even repetitive. Even though we've listened to this album hundreds of times this is probably only the fourth time we've heard Compliments. Not a bad song but by this point we felt pretty done.

This album is energetic and demanding. It's serious and angry. And it's just as strong as it was when it was released. Bloc Party could release this album today and it would be huge and relevant. This is not music to sit back and enjoy. This is music to make you think and act.

Pump - Aerosmith

Our cousin insisted we put Aerosmith's 1989 album Pump into the basket. We were dubious having been a little too young for the long-haired 80s (unless it was Janet Jackson). But soon after we found the album at a record fair for $12 and it was clear that it was meant to be. While we're familiar with the singles, we're embarrassed to have discovered how good this album is thirty years late.

Aerosmith is Sex. Rock. Gold.

Hair rock. Cock rock. Whatever you want to call it. This period isn't seen as one of the high points of 20th century music art. Overblown. Insubstantial. Maybe so. But play this on a Saturday night, do a shot of Jack with a beer chaser and have a real good time. And if listening to this album doesn't put your lady in the mood, ditch her and find a new one.

Young Lust breaks into your dad's liquor cabinet, smokes your weed and hits on your sister. The rocking opening track is followed up by F.I.N.E. Fucked up. Insecure. Neurotic. Emotional. Sounds like a mantra for today's emos. If only they wrote songs as good.

Love In An Elevator. The film clip is outrageous. Katy Perry and Lady Gaga have a lot to learn. The orgasmic screams of Steve Tyler are however, a little disconcerting. Janie's Got a Gun is still a tremendous, beautiful and haunting song.

Don't Get Mad, Get Even starts with a didgeridoo. Yes, that's right. It then proceeds into a swampy, southern rock verse before launching into a gigantic chorus, replete with screeching lead guitars, layered vocals and key changes. Sadly, the didgeridoo fails to make another appearance.

The final track, What it Takes is a great song. It's a soaring, catchy epic. Aerosmith may not have invented this genre of pop music, but this song demonstrates they sure as hell mastered it, maybe even perfected it. Go back and revisit their 1973 song Dream On. Eminem and even Glee recognise the brilliance.

There are barely any liner notes on the album sleeve - Aerosmith weren't interested in getting to know you or explaining themselves to you. You like this on the first listen or you don't. They're not the sort of band who sticks around to see sunrise or cook you breakfast.

While we love Radiohead and Wilco, this album reminds us of what rock is all about. Girls. And Sex. Preferably the later with the former. And getting drunk. Actually, probably best if all three are combined. There is no way you can look at Aerosmith, Steve Tyler, Joe Perry, the album artwork, or any of their clips without thinking about sex. Next week we promise to not to mention sex. It's getting uncomfortable for all of us.

Little Earthquakes - Tori Amos

One of us has a confession: I only discovered Tori Amos through 100% Hits Volume 11. Thankfully, this led me to seek out more than her smash hit Cornflake Girl, and find her brilliant debut album from 1992, Little Earthquakes.

Many people feel they owe Tori Amos a lot. The internet is full of 'Tori saved my life blogs'. Everyone thinks Tori is speaking to them which is demonstrative of the power of music - to heal; to comfort; to reassure yourself you are not alone.

It is easy to over analyse the seriousness of the lyrics, which cover religion, love, rape, sex. But Tori goes from morbid to biting wit - from the opening track Crucify, "got enough guilt to start my own religion" to Silent All These Years (which has some of the best lines) "so you found a girl who thinks really deep thoughts. What's so amazing about really deep thoughts? Boy you best pray that I bleed real soon. How's that thought for you?"

The production on Little Earthquakes is moody and dense. Not dissimilar to other rock albums of the time. It's not chick pop, it's not sweet. Listening to it after some years, and remembering it as an album whose principal audience was emotive girls, it's surprisingly aggressive. Tori Amos might be a chick with a great voice and a piano, but you wouldn't want to mess with her. Crucify and Precious Things are all thumping percussion, with the chorus of the latter closing with a savage, animal scream. Of course, there are the achingly beautiful piano ballads like Winter but, returning to this album, it's the force of the songs that strikes you.

Being at parties with adolescent girls who loved Tori Amos, this was their music. It was very clear that they felt boys weren't able to understand or be a part of it. Which is ok. Being a teenage girl is tough. But it was also a pity because these are really good songs and we could all find something in them. It's easy to hear why this album meant so much to so many girls. There are few coming of age albums which speak to girls with such brutal and confronting honesty. From Precious Things - "those Christian boys, so you can make me cum that doesn't make you Jesus."And from Girl - "she's been everyone else's girl maybe one day she'll be her own".

And then comes China. Which is a terrible song. Seriously it sounds like Celine Dion. But not as good.

Me and A Gun is still very uncomfortable to listen to. Nothing but her voice and her story which is heartbreaking. But it is also full of hope and resilience. "Me and a gun and a man on my back but I haven't seen Barbados so I must get our of this".

The uncomfortable silence then builds into the power of the final and title track Little Earthquakes. The drums and full reverb choir evoke images of Polynesian warriors preparing for a battle to defend their island (well, it does for us...). Tori was probably going more for a personal empowerment sort of vibe, but hey, it works.

This album is dark and evocative, but it's also light and fun. Amos has a broad imagination. Her lyrics are clever, witty, astonishing, shocking. This album more than stacks up twenty years down the track. All teenage girls and boys should still be listening to Tori Amos.

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy - Kanye West

The basket throws up a controversial album this week. Kanye West's fifth album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, which is not yet a year old. Is it too early to call this album a classic? No bloody way.

After a hiatus that was too long, this album was highly anticipated. But it surpassed all expectations and then some. It even fulfilled Kanye's own hyperbole (which is no small thing). In the weeks following its release, we started most conversations with "have you heard Kanye's new album yet?" When someone answered in the affirmative, it was like finding a fellow believer, because no one who had heard it thought it was anything less than brilliant and groundbreaking. For those who hadn't, they immediately received orders to buy it on threat of excommunication.

MBDTF is an album of killer one-liners, killer beats and killer songs. And to give credit where it's due, in the same way we couldn't have had Obama without Bush, we couldn't have MBDTF without 808s and Heartbreaks. While it was widely viewed as an ill-conceived travesty, the production he experimented with on that album enabled him to create the most sophisticated hip-hop compositions of his career (and perhaps of the genre) on MBDTF. No one has made a hip hop album like this before. These songs weren't written, they were crafted. Painstakingly. And its not just that the songs are intricate, they are provocative, original and have a development arc which is rare in pop music. This could be hip hop's Kid A (and thank god, because the genre needs someone to push it forward).

Beyond the production, Kanye's themes are more interesting than any other rapper. He is knowing, arrogant, cunning and much smarter than you give him credit for (and when he stepped off the reservation at the MTV video awards, we all seemed to lose sight of the key point - he was right). Hip hop is often provocative, but it's less often compelling. Kanye turns a spotlight on misogynism in rap music. He's not so obvious as to rap about misogynism in rap music, but he turns it up to 11 in what becomes almost a brutal, disturbing satire (watch the clip for Monster for an example).

This is a complete event album, musically and thematically. Everything on the album is over the top. All of the Lights begins with a beautiful one minute violin introduction, overwhelmed by a choral entrance that leads into a pumping beat and a sing-a-long, reverb-filled chorus. He has constructed a song with the sole purpose of blowing you away. (And don't watch the film clip if your eyes are feeling sensitive).

Which brings us to Monster, possibly the highlight of the album, with an unusual but brilliant chorus (which will translate incredibly to a live performance). Hip hop is more competitive than any other genre, with rappers trying to outdo one another with better rhymes and better flow. Nicky Minaj comes in after Kanye and Jay-Z and shits all over them. The film clip is incredible and a great feminist outrage. But view it as the statement that it is and he gets away with it. Just.

Track 8 Devil in a New Dress is practically an interlude. Although it's an outstanding track, you find yourself having a break after the sonic assaults of Monster, Power and All of the Lights. Then the album starts all over again with a single, repeated piano note. Even the Neptunes are listening to the start of Runaway and saying "wow, that's austere". Runaway is brutally honest and sad, expressing all of Kanye's self-loathing with the warning "run away from me, baby". (Although coming in at 9:07 minutes, the journey sure does drag on).

Two songs later is Blame Game, a heart wrenching take on two people in a relationship turning on each other. Hip hop does a lot of emotions, but heart wrenching is rare. The Chris Rock coda is strange, offensive and fascinating. And it leads into the glorious, joyous dance anthem of Lost in the World. A hundred listens later and the lyrics remain unclear but that doesn't stop us singing along (and playing drums on the steering wheel if we're driving).

What makes Kanye stand out from most rappers is that he's self-aware and self-critical. Not in an angry Eminem way, but in a way that acknowledges his disappointment in himself. But he is also hysterically funny - "I sent this girl a picture of my dick. I don't know what it is with females. But I'm not too good at that shit". 

Kanye doesn't write raps and find a beat to pair them with - he constructs songs. Glorious, challenging songs that we will be listening in twenty years. And he pairs them with bold, stylish and relevant videos. Sure, he may not have the best flow or technique out there but he is a complete artist in a way that other, better, rappers are not. This album is a throw-down to everyone else in the game, and if there's anyone out there who can match it with Kanye, they are yet to show themselves.