Review of MC5: Kick out the Jams

Get ready for a thrilling ride through music history! In the last four episodes, we’ve been grooving to the catchy tunes of one-hit wonders. But now, hold on to your seats because we’re shifting gears. Our very own music aficionado and Sonic Collective member, Darren Scott, has taken us on a journey back to the world of influential albums.

This time, we’re diving headfirst into the debut album of the incomparable Tracy Chapman. Picture this: soul-stirring lyrics, mesmerizing melodies, and a voice that’ll give you goosebumps. We’ve gathered around to dissect this musical masterpiece and explore how it still holds up today.

October 2023 saw us dive into the very first punk album of all time. It’s so the first that it wasn’t even classified as punk at the time. MC5 recorded this, their first album live and we all felt the sound recording and quality was pretty darn good considering how long ago this was done. It stands up.

But when we really got into the music, things took a bit of a turn. We enjoyed a few of the sounds, notably the title track, but found overall this album just became noisy after a couple of tracks and started to down-right irritate some of us. Scott G enjoyed it the most but the rest of us found getting through in one listen a bit of work.

That said, we’re glad we had the experience, as this was really the beginnings of punk and an entirely new sound to the world. We’ve widened our musical knowledge and scope.

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Jay-Z – The Black Album

Jay-Z's The Black Album

The Sonic Collective Podcast is back for their September 2023 pick. Darren Scott dives into why he chose this album for a full review. After completing our past four episodes based on 1-hit wonders, this is a great way to show an artist that was huge after one album but mainstream success never followed. Do you remember this album from 1988, or are you just hearing Luke Combs version and thinking that is a beautiful song. Listen along to the original and see if this entire album stands the test of time and what Sonic Collective members think of this.For more media, photos, videos and more reviews, please follow us on your favourite podcast platform and check out thesoniccollective.com

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Review of Tracy Chapman: Self-titled

Tracy Chapman Album Review

Get ready for a thrilling ride through music history! In the last four episodes, we’ve been grooving to the catchy tunes of one-hit wonders. But now, hold on to your seats because we’re shifting gears. Our very own music aficionado and Sonic Collective member, Darren Scott, has taken us on a journey back to the world of influential albums.

This time, we’re diving headfirst into the debut album of the incomparable Tracy Chapman. Picture this: soul-stirring lyrics, mesmerizing melodies, and a voice that’ll give you goosebumps. We’ve gathered around to dissect this musical masterpiece and explore how it still holds up today.

But here’s the twist – while we found ourselves nodding in agreement on some aspects, our opinions and passion for this album couldn’t be more diverse. Is Tracy Chapman an artist worth your precious listening time? Well, there’s only one way to find out: tune in and join the conversation with Darren at The Sonic Collective! 🎵🔊

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MC5 – Kick Out the Jams

This month we’re tackling an album I’ve been aware of for a long time, never listened to, but the time has come.

Kick Out the Jams by MC5 was released in February 1969 and has been classified as proto-punk. While the band formed in 1963, it took a few years for their debut album to come into form, and uniquely, it was recorded live over two nights at Detroit’s Grande Ballroom in 1968. Typically bands release a live album well into their career but MC5 uniquely opted to do so out of the gates.

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One Hit Wonder or Not? The Wallflowers – Bringing Down the Horse

In last round of our “One Hit Wonder” series, we gave a listen to Bringing Down the Horse by The Wallflowers. Overall the album was generally liked with some differences of opinion on some of the positives and negatives of the album. We also mature and share our reasoning of what qualifies as a one hit wonder and decide if this band qualifies based off the performance of “One Headlight” and the rest of the slbum. Tune in to the episode to see what we thought of it.

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Tracy Chapman – Self Titled

Tracy Chapman

The Sonic Collective Podcast is back for their September 2023 pick. Darren Scott dives into why he chose this album for a full review. After completing our past four episodes based on 1-hit wonders, this is a great way to show an artist that was huge after one album but mainstream success never followed. Do you remember this album from 1988, or are you just hearing Luke Combs version and thinking that is a beautiful song. Listen along to the original and see if this entire album stands the test of time and what Sonic Collective members think of this.For more media, photos, videos and more reviews, please follow us on your favourite podcast platform and check out thesoniccollective.com

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One Hit Wonders: The Wallflowers – Bringing Down the Horse

This is the last of our four podcast episodes reviewing what are considered to be one-hit wonders. Loosely meaning that the album had one or so big singles, then we likely never really heard from the band again. Jakob Dylan and The Wallflowers had a monster second album based off the strength of One Headlight, a single that led to two Grammy wins for them. Is that all they had in the tank? Are we set yet on the measures we used to judge? Tune in and find out.

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One Hit Wonder or Not? Blu Cantrell – So Blu

Album review: Blu Cantrell - So Blu

In the third installment of our One Hit Wonders round, we listened to Blu Cantrell’s debut album, So Blu.
The album was released in 2001 and featured the very famous and very awesome song “Hit em’ up Style (Oops!)”.
But what about the rest of the album? Equally awesome? Well, that’s what we endeavored to find out this month as we dissected So Blu. Does Blu Cantrell deserve to be better known for her body of work? Was she done dirty? We seemed to be aligned for the most part. Tune in to the episode to see what we thought of it.

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One Hit Wonder or Not? New Radicals’ Maybe You’ve Been Brainwashed Too

New Radicals

So here, it is, the second review of our One Hit Wonders round, this time listening to New Radicals’ Maybe You’ve Been Brainwashed Too. If you haven’t listened to/read about why we picked it, check that out first.

The album was released October 16, 1998, and is essentially an album by lead singer, Gregg Alexander, who is the only person to play on all the album’s tracks. He enlisted a swath of session musicians (28) to play instruments while recording, really making this an album of hired guns. The very successful You Get What You Give charted high on most Top 40 lists around the world, then the band broke up in 1999. A second single, Someday We’ll Know, was released shortly after the band called it quits and the rest is history.

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One Hit Wonders: Blu Cantrell – So Blu

Blu Cantrell - So Blu

For the next four podcast episodes we will be reviewing what are considered to be one-hit wonders. Here we are on our second of four picks with our One Hit Wonders series, looking at artists and albums that were One Hit Wonders – loosely meaning that the album had one or so big singles, then we likely never really heard from the band again. I’ve always liked the song You Get What You Give by New Radicals, bought the album when it came out, but don’t remember listening to it beyond the single, and have been listening to that single a lot recently. Then the Foo Fighters announced Josh Freese as their new drummer in May 2023, and while reading about him, I noticed he drummed on two songs from Maybe You’ve Been Brainwashed Too by New Radicals, and decided to make this my pick for the month. – Scott Coates @ The Sonic Collective

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