El Camino - The Black Keys

Too soon?

El Camino, The Black Key's 7th album from 2011, has turned them into rock and roll superstars. This is not their only album in the basket, but it has a pulse and energy that has made it one of our favourite albums of the last few years.

We can't remember finding music this exciting in a long time. It's as energising as Aha Shake Heartbreak or Is This It. A great soundtrack for driving, parties, Sunday mornings and anytime you want to feel alive.

Lonely Boy is electric, with a riff that punches you in the chest and then knees you in the balls. It rocketed to number 2 in last year's Hottest 100. While we like Gotye, Lonely Boy would get Somebody I Used to Know drunk on whiskey and have its way with her. When B came up with it in the sweep at the annual Hottest 100 party, he was made to dance on top of a slippery esky while being sprayed with - and spraying others - with cheap sparkling. While the clip is sweet, this would have made for an even better video.  L wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry.

While The Black Keys are a two-piece and have recorded albums as such, make no mistake that there's a whole lot of instruments and production on this album. Even though it's tighter and more polished than some of their previous albums, thanks to producer, Danger Mouse, this is no Kings of Leon-style move into the pop sphere. It's pure, in-your-face rhythm and blues. El Camino may have made The Black Keys the hottest rock band in the world, there is no need for backlash from the fans. This album would be big whatever decade it was recorded in.

The strongest songs include Gold on the Ceiling, Money Maker and Sister. Bugger it, they're all brilliant. 

If you've got somewhere to drive to tomorrow, stick Run Right Back in the car stereo and hope there's no double demerit points. The wailing guitar will have your foot pumping the accelerator. The only disconcerting part of this song is that the bridge sounds exactly like Spirit in the Sky by Norman Greenbaum. Good song and all, but it takes B back right back to his christian youth group days.

Drinkify said we should be drinking Canadian Club, lime juice and rum, fucking, rum. Instead, we're celebrating with our newest favourite drink - gin, Campari and sweet vermouth. Doesn't matter, as long as El Camino is playing loud.

Otis Redding Sings Soul - Otis Redding

Prepare for some gushing. We love Otis Redding and have ceded our (yet to exist) first child's name to his honour. Every song on this album is pants-wettingly brilliant.

Singling out an Otis album is difficult. His whole catalogue is outstanding and fits together seamlessly. Our preferred method of listening is to stick his albums on back to back to back etc and enjoy it all. From the funky dance numbers to the aching blues pieces. Soul is an odd genre - it encompasses a range of styles from rhythm and blues to funk to gospel. Who cares what we call it. Otis spans the full spectrum on this album and listening to it is a pure, joyful, celebration.

The riff to Ole Man Trouble is a offbeat welcome to the album. Otis' raspy holler pleads for some respite from the troubles in his life and even though we have none, we too plead for ole man trouble to get off our backs.

Otis' Respect and A Change is Gonna Come are not the definitive versions of these songs but they're probably our favourites. The lyrics to Respect are the same, but the music is completely different to Aretha's version. It's almost a big band number, with some sweet brass riffs. Respect is Otis asking his girl, to whom he's about to give all his money, to show him just a little respect. Ain't too much to ask is it?

A Change is Gonna Come is not as plaintive or polished as Sam Cooke's. Otis injects jazz arrangements to the song, giving it a rhythm and energy that the original lacked.

While Otis' voice is unequalled, the rhythm section on the album is extraordinary, producing some of the tightest, subtlest rhythm and blues you'll ever have the privilege to hear. We didn't realise till tonight that it was Booker T and the MGs, so now it makes a lot more sense. They pull back and let Otis wail, and then they take over and ignite the song. While we're not experts on production, the quality of the sound and the mixing on this album is excellent, beyond what you would expect to hear on a 1965 recording. The talent behind the album is exceptional - Isaac Hayes and Steve Cropper produced.

My favourite moment is Satisfaction. The Stones broke in the UK on the strength of covering rhythm and blues and soul numbers written by artists like Otis. Here Otis reciprocates, covering one of the first original songs the Stones finally got around to writing. Again, it's a completely different arrangement, with less of the dirty aggression of the original and more seduction.

No matter that it's a cliche, My Girl is a great and beautiful song. And then you hear Wonderful World  and it's funkier and more beautiful - pure ecstasy.

When god invented music, he had Otis in mind.

It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back - Public Enemy

We didn't own this album until today. I know, I know we should be ashamed and we are. This is the greatest hip hop album of all time. Public Enemy's second album of 1988, It Takes a Nation of Millions... is an unrelenting masterpiece. We really don't have a right to blog about this after two listens, let alone the fact that we are white, middle class, public servants in Australia, however that's never stopped wangs on the internet before. And we're drinking prosecco with campari - ha!

This album is intense, cutting and political. Chuck D's lyrics are aggressive and challenging and still uncomfortable - "They could not understand that I'm a black man And I could never be a veteran". And he doesn't let up for 16 tracks. Flavor adds a randomness to it that doesn't leave you completely alienated from the album. We can only imagine how these sorts of lyrics revolutionised hip hop. Gangsta rappers claimed to be inspired by PE - you can't help but think that Chuck D would have been embarrassed by the violent, cowardly misogyny of the worst of west coast rap.

And the music is simply brilliant. Sonically it more than matches Chuck D's lyrical prowess. The tense, in-your-face beats don't relent for the entire album - each song fits seamlessly into the next without being repetitive. You want to dance but also thrash your head. Somehow Terminator X, Eric 'Vietnam' Sadler and Hank Shocklee bring together a crap load of samples to form a entirely new and never beaten sound.

Don't Believe The Hype is the quintessential track.  Chuck D's flow is rythmic, fluid and resonant, while Flavor chimes in with the rousing chant. The beats are undeniable and exhausting, like you're in the middle or a riot with sirens blaring and drums thumping. Like all the tracks, the music is tense, wired and antagonistic.

Chuck D spits on love songs on Caught, Can I Get a Witness: "You singers are spineless. As you sing your senseless song to the mindless. Your general subject love is minimal. It's sex for profit."
So I wonder how he feels about Flavor Flav's ridiculous Flavor of Love...or appearance on Celebrity Wife Swap? Though he's always been a wack-job. I guess sex for profit always wins in the end.

This album remains hugely influential. Its a call to arms that hasn't really been beaten and it marks an era of rappers long gone. It's never too late to get on the bandwagon.

Dummy - Portishead

Everyone our age has this album in their collection. And if they don't, they either didn't have any taste or made it through the nineties without trying to impress a girl.

Rolling Stone call it a bizarre love triangle between a girl, a guy and a sampler. Spot on, but doesn't quite explain the haunting sexiness of Beth Gittons' voice or the slow funky beats of Geoff Barrow. Portishead's debut album from 1994 is simply beautiful. It's hard to write about this album without resorting to cliches. Like their Bristol counterparts Massive Attack, Portishead revolutionalised British music mostly for the better, but you must also admit, oftentimes for the worse. Who knows what came first? Cafes or cafe music.

The album is a slow grind of hip hop beats, combined with smooth jazz and soaring vocals. It's funky and contagious and it gets at you in a quiet, but compelling way.

There are definitely highlight tracks, such as Wandering Star and Numb, but this album is far more than the sum of its parts. I'm not sure anyone has ever listened to the tracks individually. It was always the album that you put on at the end of the night when most people had left the party and those who hadn't were draining any remaining bottles lying around the house. Or when you got home and frantically searched through the CD stack for an album that would aid your seduction efforts. This was always a safe bet because girls love it.

Although the risk is that when you get to a song like Roads, which is a tortured song of regret with exquisite vocals from Beth, you both end up feeling sad and raking over memories and disappointments.

The final track, Glory Box is the pinnacle of woe is woman, why don't boys appreciate me for who I am, only my girlfriends understand me etc etc... And many a time it has been ruined by young girls screeching in their bedroom, straining, yet failing, to reach Gitton's voice. Lemon stollies, you have a lot to answer for.

This album sounds as delicate, dark and edgy as it did back when you listened to it every weekend. Pour a glass of heavy red, dim the lights and let it wash over you.