Kendrick Lamar: Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City
Darren Scott, March 2019
Listen to why I picked this Kendrick Lamar album. It is actually more like a film. The album was meant to be played in order and tells the story of a young Kendrick on the streets of L.A. Does the influence stand up, does the album still sound relevant? Listen for yourself and then join us at the beginning of next month for our review.
Please read and listen to Scott Gregory’s pick for Fleetwood Mac: Rumours before reading and listening to our reviews below.
Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Rumours’: 10 Things You Didn’t Know: Rolling Stone
The story behind Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Rumours’: Timeout.com
Quick Summary:
Review of Fleetwood Mac: Rumours
For February 2019 Sonic member Alain Dupuis picked this popular soft rock album. He had not really heard it before. Will he like it, will the album stand the test of time? Give a listen and let us know. If you haven’t heard the back story of this album, you really must. We’ve added some links below that will expend on the details of our review and rediscovery of this album but a few things you will learn in this review are:
Join us and listen to how we dissect this album and how it stands up like a champ.
The Sonic Collective
Please read and listen to Scott Gregory’s pick for ABBA: Arrival before reading and listening to our reviews below.
Quick Summary:
Our Individual Review Scores
Scott Gregory:
Overall opinion: 3
Would I recommend?: 3
Influenced my tastes: 3
Alain DuPuis:
Overall opinion: 3
Would I recommend?: 4
Influenced my tastes: 3
Scott Coates:
Overall opinion: 2.5
Would I recommend?: 4
Influenced my tastes: 2
Darren Scott:
Overall opinion: 2
Would I recommend?: 3.5
Influenced my tastes: 2
We all know that around the holiday season there is nothing better than watching a good movie. It also is a great way to avoid that weird uncle with bad breath, ha ha.
Sonic Collective member Scott Coates suggested we all pick a movie soundtrack that we really felt made the movie better. A great movie soundtrack can create an emotional connection to the characters, the environment and the story. Though there are many to pick from, listed below are the four our experts say you need to watch and listen to. We will all spend December watching and listening and then we will release our podcast that will allow our experts to tell you why the movie and soundtrack blended together so nicely. Happy holidays and enjoy the movies and music.
Listen to our podcast and check out the details below.
Selected by Scott Coates
Released July 9, 1996
Few movies have made as strong an impact and stuck with me as Trainspotting has. While it’s an incredible movie, the soundtrack plays an indelible role in cementing the film. Songs I didn’t know before and some I did, came together to elevate mood and moments in a manner rarely achieved. The songs and movie are the better for it. Truly one of the best curated soundtracks that works in complete symbiosis.
Track Listing
Wikipedia Page
iTunes
Spotify
Amazon
Selected by Scott Gregory
Released 1996
The Romeo + Juliet movie attempted to update the classic story for a 90s audience, and the soundtrack called upon quintessential 90s artists to set help set the stage. It’s a great blend of existing songs and ones written just for this album. It went triple-platinum, reaching #2 on the Billboard 200 Album charts.
Track Listing
Selected by Alain DuPuis
Released December 2017
The Greatest Showman original soundtrack accompanies the movie of the same name, recanting a very creatively liberal musical interpretation of the story of P. T. Barnum’s creation of the Barnum & Bailey Circus. Stars Hugh Jackman, Zac Effron, Michelle Williams, Rebecca Ferguson, and Zendaya all lend their singing voices as well as acting chops to their roles. While I’m not personally a big fan of musicals or long, elaborately choreographed dance numbers at the best of times, I’ve gotta admit, this movie is really damn good. Particularly when the cast starts singing their songs. Holy shit, these people have serious talent. Most of the songs from this album are really catchy, and have found a home in my permanent playlists on Spotify. That’s how good I think the soundtrack is. And maybe by the end of the month, you’ll find yourself agreeing with me!
My recommendation: watch the movie! The songs will make way more sense in context of the story, and then the emotion will really shine through.
Track Listing
Selected by Darren Scott
Released December 2017
I’ve always liked a wide variety of music and I love the Soul and Funk. Though I had heard some of the music before by Curtis Mayfield from the movie it wasn’t until I saw Super Fly at one point in the early 2000s that I understood what an awesome soundtrack can do for a movie. It was funky, awesome, hilarious and sometimes cheesy to me but I ate it up. Released in 1972, this was Curtis Mayfield’s 4th album and is very recognized for the history it made. It is one of the few soundtrack albums that actually outsold the movie box office earnings. Ranked by Rolling Stone as the 69th album in their Top 500 of All Time List I invite you to listen to this funky gem and watch the movie with us this month. I hope the rest of the group and our listeners love it as much as I do.
Track Listing
This month, the group took a slightly different approach to the format. Darren came up with the idea of asking us to pick a recording artist that other music fans may not have heard of (but really should). As we picked our selected artists independently, it turned out some of the picks were new to our fellow group members as well.
Tune in to find out what we thought of eachother’s selections, so you can too can discover which of these four artists we thought had humerous lyrics, which sounded like a Led Zeppelin cover band, and which one may or may not use a ping-pong ball as an instrument.
Here are the picks from our expert panel:
Artist: Ron Gallo
Chosen by: Darren Scott
Artist: The Kills
Chosen by: Scott Coates
Artist: Greta Van Fleet
Chosen by: Alain Dupuis
Artist: Jenny Lewis
Chosen by: Scott Gregory
My favourite part of being a huge music fan is discovering new music. As life gets busier it can become harder and harder to make time to listen to new music. Keep in mind that ‘new’ music is oftentimes old music. I find it just as exciting to discover new bands like Royal Blood as I do to uncover and rediscover bands of that past, like The 13th Floor Elevators.
As our four Sonic Collective members all have amazing taste in music, obviously, I thought it would be fun to ask the group who they thought was a recording artist that other music fans should listen to. We each picked these artists independently so many of these picks are new to the group as well.
On November 1st our show will be available on the website. Each of our Collective members will educate the listeners about the band they chose, tell you which albums and songs to listen to and give you some cool facts about these bands.
Here are the the bands picked by our expert panel.
Artist: Ron Gallo
Chosen by: Darren Scott
Artist: The Kills
Chosen by: Scott Coates
Artist: Greta Van Fleet
Chosen by: Alain Dupuis
Artist: Jenny Lewis
Chosen by: Scott Gregory
Please read and listen to Scott Gregory’s pick for Blink-182: The Mark, Tom and Travis Show before reading and listening to our reviews below.
Quick Summary:
Our Individual Review Scores
Scott Gregory:
Overall opinion: 4
Would I recommend?: 4
Influenced my tastes: 4
Alain DuPuis:
Overall opinion: 3
Would I recommend?: 3
Influenced my tastes: 3
Scott Coates:
Overall opinion: 2
Would I recommend?: 2
Influenced my tastes: 3
Darren Scott:
Overall opinion: 3
Would I recommend?: This album 2, others 4
Influenced my tastes: 3.5
Please read and listen to Alain DuPuis’s pick for Eric Clapton: Unplugged before reading and listening to our reviews below.
Quick Summary:
Review of Eric Clapton: Unplugged
Alain DuPuis, the best at back-flipping of all The Sonic Collective members, decide that it was time to pay respect to legendary blues/rock guitarist Eric Clapton. Unplugged was all the rage in the early 90s and this album along with Nirvana: Unplugged really catapulted the genre forward.
An album full of blues standards as well as some epic Clapton hits made this the best selling live album of all time. Listen to The Sonic Collective members as they let you know how this album stands up.
Here is a few things you’ll find out by listening this month:
• Pro: Everyone loves this album Con: Everyone loves this album
• What other world famous guitarist almost joined Clapton’s band
• How much Clapton sold one of the 2 guitars he used to record this
Listen up and please leave us a comment.
The Sonic Collective
Please read and listen to Scott Coates’s pick for The Allman Brothers Band: Live at Fillmore East before reading and listening to our reviews below.
Quick Summary:
Review of The Allman Brothers Band: Live at Fillmore East
The second pick of our second live album round was made by member Scott Coates for this July 2018. We were definitely all over the place on this selection and how we felt about it. We definitely dig agree that the sound quality of the album as well as the musicianship was incredible. Duane Allman at the age of only 25 had a mastery of his guitar like no other. As this album was historically touted as one of the best live rock albums of all time we had to see how it stood up in 2018.
We discovered many interesting things about this album so listen to our stories and opinions and be sure to listen along with us as we relive classic albums just like this.
Here is a few things you’ll find out by listening this month:
• 2 Sonic Collective members really liked it and the other 2…? Not so much.
• Which other great guitarist almost had Duane Allman join his band.
• How this album tied into the movie Almost Famous.
Listen up and please leave us a comment.
The Sonic Collective
Please read and listen to Darren Scott’s pick for Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense before reading and listening to our reviews below.
Quick Summary:
Review of Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense
Let the live album round begin! I (Darren) was quite excited to pick The Talking Heads to start us off on our live album round. In 1984 the Talking Heads were really starting to attract a large audience after collaborating with Brian Eno on the 3 previous albums leading up to this concert. The movie was shot, and the album recorded, over the course of three nights at Hollywood’s Pantages Theater in December 1983, as the group was touring to promote their new album Speaking in Tongues.
We discovered many interesting things about this album so listen to our stories and opinions and be sure to listen along with us as we relive classic albums just like this.
Here is a few things you’ll find out by listening this month:
• Why the Tom Tom Club songs are played on this album.
• Brian Eno is not Canadian!
• Typical books don’t talk.
Listen up and please leave us a comment.
The Sonic Collective