(June 2021) Episode 334 of the “opus project” is EYEHATEGOD. Sludge metal band from New Orleans. It’s raw and misanthropic early on, evolving to a somewhat slicker but no less misanthropic tone more recently.
Favorite album: Dopesick
Favorite song: Dixie Whiskey
Compared to expectations: ↓
(May 2021) Episode 333 is the BEE GEES. I divide their music into four phases: (1) 60s baroque/psychedelic pop, (2) early-70s soft rock, (3) late-70s disco, and (4) 80s-90s pop. It is unfair to dismiss them as a flash-in-the plan disco outfit because of the breadth of their long recording and performing career, and their songwriting and harmonizing talents. Plus, they did disco really well. My favorite is the late 60s stuff.
Favorite album: Bee Gees’ 1st
Favorite song: Every Christian Lion Hearted Man Will Show You
Best overall album: Odessa
Best soft rock period album: To Whom It May Concern
Best disco period album: Saturday Night Fever soundtrack
Favorite disco period song: Nights on Broadway
Best pop period album: This Is Where I Came In
Compared to expectations: same
(May 2021) Episode 332 is CORROSION OF CONFORMITY. They started in the 1980s as a kickin’ hardcore puck band with awesome album covers that crossed over into a kickin’ heavy metal band in the 1990s with forgettable album covers, continuing in the 00s and 10s amidst lineup changes with mixed results.
Favorite album: Eye for An Eye
Favorite song: Positive Outlook
Favorite metal period album: Wiseblood
Favorite metal period song: Bottom Feeder (El Que Come Abajo)
Compared to expectations: same
(May 2021) Episode 331 is KAIJA SAARIAHO. Saariaho is kind of a throwback, composing in conventional classical forms with conventional instruments, earning commissions and premiering at esteemed venues, rather than venturing into film soundtracks or cross-genre collaborations. Her music, though, is very modern, with polyrhythms, dissonance and rich masses of sounds.
Favorite piece: Circle Map
Favorite concerto: Graal théâtre
Favorite chamber piece: Neiges
Favorite opera: L’Amour de loin
Compared to expectations: same
(April 2021) Episode 330 is SUNN O))). If you prefer melody and beat in your music, avoid this band. But if you like beautiful noise like I do, I strongly recommend Sunn O))). It’s drone metal: slow, loud, deep, distorted guitars repeatedly being slow, loud, deep and distorted. They sometimes add experimental elements, like monk-like chants, percussion, electronics, and are big on collaborations.
Favorite album: Flight of the Behemoth
Favorite song: Black Wedding
Compared to expectations: ↑
(April 2021) Episode 329 is HILDUR GUÐNADÓTTIR, a contemporary cellist and composer from Iceland. Her neo-minimalist solo works are my favorite, but she is a frequent collaborator with a wide range of artists from electro-pop to drone metal. Guðnadóttir has focused on soundtracks recently, such as the Chernobyl miniseries and Joker (for which she won an Oscar). One constant is that most everything in her music seems to resonate off the sober deep tone of a cello.
Favorite solo piece: Leyfðu Ljósinu
Favorite collaborative album: In Transmediale (with Angel)
Favorite soundtrack: Chernobyl
Compared to expectations: same
(April 2021) Episode 328 is SAM COOKE. There’s a reason they call him the King of Soul. It starts with that glorious voice, and continues with catchy tunes that bridged appeal across Black and White audiences (not to mention his civil rights activism). It’s a tragedy that we never got to see what he could do as soul music got more gritty, socially-conscious and funky in the later 1960s.
Favorite album: Night Beat
Favorite song: Lost and Lookin’
Compared to expectations: same
(April 2021) Episode 327 is WOODY GUTHRIE. It’s hard to overstate his importance and influence, not only musically and politically for the 1960s folk revival, but for country, roots and rock music beyond. The fact that “This Land Is Your Land” subversively became a children’s standard still makes me smile.
Favorite song: Hard Travelin’
Best compilation: the 4-volume Asch recordings
Compared to expectations: same
(March 2021) Episode 326 is LAURIE SPIEGEL. Combining a music education with computer engineering, she helped design computerized sounds and composed electronic music with them, as well as created a popular algorithmic computer software program.
Favorite album: The Expanding Universe
Favorite song: Patchwork
Compared to expectations: same
(March 2021) Episode 325 is THE BAND. Nobody doesn’t love The Band. They brought stories of the working man and the downtrodden — long at the heart of the blues, country and folk — into an unadorned rock format, synthesized into what we now call American roots rock (or more accurately North American roots rock, given that 4/5th were Canadian). Go watch The Last Waltz too.
Favorite album: The Band
Favorite song: Up On Cripple Creek
Favorite Ballad: It Makes No Difference
Compared to expectations: same
Opus Project 