So the final post in this series – that’s been my most enthusiastic project on this blog – has been written! I’ve spent almost four weeks on this project, with 2-8 hours of music listening, reading lyrics and moving albums up and down every day, but what an amazing journey it has been! I’ve always dreamt of doing this, and now it’s done.
The hardest part was to stay true to the rules. The Best Album, not just an album with 5 good tracks with 3 bad ones; the full album was what counted.
In retrospective I think that Sixx A.M should change place with Toto. Heroin Diaries is an amazing album that no one should miss. Since it’s also a true story, with such a good purpose it may even be higher up. I also placed both Keane and Journey on a shared number 1-place, but I think that Journey is the true number 1. It’s almost silly how perfect that album is. Every single note is so good, on all instruments and the vocals from Steve Perry are truly amazing.
So, do I miss any albums on the list? Yes I think that Simply Red, Magnum, Don Henley, Frank Ocean, Iron Maiden and The Hooters should be somewhere on the list, but I’m not sure where. The lack of full albums without a track that you just want to skip is hard to find with those artists. Maybe Magnum is closest?
Thank you all that have followed this top-list. It’s been a pleasure to hear your thoughts both in person, on the blog and in e-mail.
I leave this series with a great track that actually wasn’t on the list; Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey
I hope you all get a good start of your week.
P.S If you want to go back in the series, there is a new menu at the top of this blog where you can find all the posts D.S
So, we’re getting close to the top. So far we’ve covered places 40-11, and it’s time to enter top 10. It’s almost impossible to compare the albums so close to the top but I’ll give it a go.
So, this will be an outsider. But an awesome outsider…
First out, in the top 10:s is the album Red Eden, by Sara Isaksson.
If Stephen Simmonds is a well-kept secret internationally in the category male singers, Sara Isaksson is almost an even more kept secret in the female singers category.
The album Red Eden is a quite low-key album where Sara:s incredible voice truly has the ability to shine. This will never be the album to listen to before a night out on town, but a great album to listen to when you get back home.
I guess in some sense it’s an album for musicians, but on the other hand it’s just an easy listening country, singer/song-writer album put together for everyone.
I couldn’t find any YouTube tracks from this particular album so I settle with the Spotify playlist.
Oh, now things are heating up. Thirteen albums left, and I think every one of them are totally awesome. At 13:th place I’ve placed an album, that I think I’ve said in every post, could/would’ve been placed higher up. This album is one of those that I return to every now and then, in short a real goldie, literally; the album Gold from the Swedish Music Collective, Blacknuss.
Blacknuss plays a combination of RnB, Soul and Jazz in a great mix, and among the musicians you find many of the Swedish elite. Only one person have played on all albums, the drummer Martin Jonsson.
I’ve been fortunate to watch Blacknuss live at Mosebacke in Stockholm, and when it comes to rhythmic experiences, and “people just can’t be standing still”-experiences, that’s still my nr. 1.
It’s hard to point out some favorites, since all tracks has its place on this awesome album, but if I should try, you shouldn’t miss Thinking Of You, Rising To The Top (with the amazing Lisa Nilsson on vocals), Dinah, Last Night a DJ Saved My Life, It Should Have Been You… or… just listen to the album. This is one of those albums, that after a few plays will stay in your library forever and really hasn’t any big weaknesses.
Nikki Sixx (Frank Ferrana), Vince Neil (Vince Neil Warton), Mick Mars (Robert Allen Bippus) and Tomme Lee (Tomme Lee Bass) may be the band that have lived the rock’n roll life to its absolute maximum. Success, fame, glam, women and party on one hand. Drugs, jail, trash, crash, burn and even dead band members. Nikki Six was in an academic way dead for two minutes before found by Slash in his hotel room 1987, and the injected with adrenalin in the heart and survived. This was actually the background for the track “Kickstart my heart” on the Dr Feelgood album.
Back to the album. This is after all a “Best album of all times”-list. Shout at Devil was released in 1983 and was Mötley Crües biggest hit at the time. The sound, with its roots in Blues, and old school rock n’ roll, played on speed became part of the beginning of a new era in the hard rock / heavy metal scene; Glam rock.
Many parents in Sweden were really afraid of Mötley Crüe and other bands at the time (especially W.A.S.P), and even Swedish Television arranged a talk show around this matter (Swedish), and even though Nikki Sixx tried his best to explain the lyrics in a more down to earth way, the parents hated the album, which always is a good reason for the teenagers to do the opposite. “What a crock of shit! There was nothing demonic about Shout at the Devil. All we were saying was that everyone should stand up and shout at those people who are holding them down, whether it’s their parents, their teachers, or their bosses.” Nikki Sixx (source: nikkisixx.tv).
The highlights on the record, except for the title track is, in my mind “Looks that kill”, “Helter Skelter” (Beatles Cover) and “Too young to fall in love”.
I really like the full sound of Mötley Crüe at this stage in their career, with the crisp guitar, the always amazing drums, Nikki Sixx (as the most frequent writer of the tracks) bass lines and of course the falsetto voice of Vince Neil.
Some other facts:
Nikki Six played with Slash and Izzy Stradlin (later part of Gun’s n Roses) before forming Mötley Crüe
Vince Neil appeared in the MTV-show “The remake of Vince Neil” which was aimed at getting Vince Neil back in form after years of food abuse
11:th of June 2008, Coldplay released the Brian Eno produced album “Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends”. For me, this album was the first time I really started to enjoy Coldplay. As often when I come across new artists it takes a little while to get used to the sound, the atmosphere and of course the lyrics. What really makes this album complete, is the fulfillment of all those categories.
In short, the album covers the aspects of life, death, war and love. Not the typical “easy going topics”, to say the least.
The album starts off with Life in Technicolor, which is a long intro to the rest of the album. In my opinion this intro works perfectly as an atmosphere leveler.
Cemeteries of London; a typical track about the topics of the album, was recorded in a Barcelona church, and if you listen closely you can hear some spanish “clapping” in the song, while “Bass player Guy Berryman told Entertainment Weekly: When I imagine the song in my head, I see London in 1850. A hell of a lot of rain and men in top hats.” (reference Entertainment Weekly)
Lost! is really well described by “Floridaguy” on song meanings:
This was one of the first songs Coldplay worked on for the record. The band were originally inspired by the song “Sing” by Blur, which they were listening to in their dressing room before performing in a gig in Detroit. They tried to write a song like it and it ended up evolving in various ways with lots of different versions before the final recorded rendering. Chris Martin explained to MTV News: “That’s often how we write, is we listen to something and we think it’s incredible, and we feel stupid for not having anything as good as that, so we go and try to play it. And then, of course, because we don’t know how to do that, we often come up with something new.”
42 is a quite melancholic track with many of the big life questions asked. So far in this review I’ve kept much focus on the lyrics, but the album musically is really amazing. What’s different with this track is that it doesn’t contain a chorus. Instead it’s divided into three parts.
Lovers in Japan. When asked about the development of the song, during a track-by-track reveal, drummer Will Champion said:
We were in a studio in New York, this place called the Magic Shop, and it had this thing called a tack piano there, which sounds like an old honky-tonk piano, where you put little tacks in the hammers, so it sounds like more of a harpsichord almost. And so we wanted to use that kind of sound, but we didn’t have a tack piano, so rather than sample it, we went and bought an old piano from the shop up the road from our studio, and we bought a load of tacks, and me and Guy and Jon spent a couple of hours pushing tacks into the piano hammers. (Source Wikipedia)
Yes: As many of the tracks on this album, this track also have it’s completely own identity. The vocals by Chris Martin are really low.
Viva La Vida is the big top hit from this album reaching the top in both the UK singles chars as Billboard Hot 100. I guess almost everyone who reads this blog at least have heard the typical strings intro. The lyrics carry many biblical references but seems to be more aimed at the conflict between people and government, and especially around war.
Violet Hill. Also a track about a soldier going into battle. The first rows in the lyrics are truly amazing, and gives the rest of the track its atmosphere.
Was a long and dark December
From the rooftops I remember
There was snow
White snow
I really like the contrast in this song (which I may write about almost all the tracks on this album)
Strawberry Swing is a low-key track with african drums, a guitar melody that almost runs throughout the track as a thread.
The last track, Death And All His Friends somehow share some identity with the Swedish pop band Kent.
In the later part of the track the summarize the album beautifully with the sound of “Life in Technicolor”
As I think I’ve written in all my posts, this album should’ve ended up higher in this list, and I begin to feel that I will have a correction post afterwards where I will rearrange all albums. This album is truly great!
Aldo Nova, a Canadian artist became a huge success in the early-/mid 80:s with his albums “Aldo Nova” and “Subject..”.
Even though the first two albums are really good, I think Twitch is the one that’s the most complete, and keeps a certain atmosphere through the whole album with its 80’s Gary Moore influenced guitars and easy straight rock in the flavor of Bryan Adams, and maybe also Bon Jovi. If I’ve read the facts right this album was not a huge success in the world, but in Sweden it became the most successful one when it was launched in 1985.
As mentioned earlier the album is really solid, and if there is one song that lacks behind it may be the title song – Twitch. Other than that it’s an album that can be kept on replay a number of times.
On the other side it’s harder to pick a favorite, which often is the case with “Best albums”.
Aldo Nova has also been a successful song writer to a number of artists such as Jon Bon Jovi, Céline Dion, Blue Öyster Cult, Chantal and Clay Aiken’s “This Is the Night” (co-written with Chris Braide and Gary Burr), which in the U.S. was a number one hit and the best selling single of 2003. (Source: Wikipedia)
@ Pedro Hansson – Stockholm skyline – Completely out of topic
In Sweden we have an expression called “I-landsproblem”. If I should try to explain it, it’s like a problem that’s only a problem when everything else is okay. For instance, your nearest store have changed the place of the Coca-Colas, your new Ferrari only comes with 18″ wheels, or that your planned washing time at your house is occupied 5 minutes longer than you expected. They are all “i-landsproblem”.
This post will probably hit one of those marks where “i-Landsproblem” almost won’t cut it, but still I find this topic a little fascinating since it’s all apart of our new society, and about Social Media. This phenomena (Social Media) that’s not even 10 years old but everyone knows all about it… or?
This topic is about those people who are commenting or “liking” friends posts that are “public”. You know with the “Tellus-symbol” attached to it. This means that the posts that your “friend”, “colleague” or just “facebook acquaintance” have posted is “all out there” for everyone to see. (1)
So what’s the big fuzz? What’s the problem with that?
Before I explain my thoughts around this matter; let me give a short insight to all of those who might not be aware of how Facebook friend categories work. If you know all about it.. -> Skip to “Continue here”
Everytime you post something on Facebook you will have the choice to choose who will see your message.
The main categories are:
Friends – Your facebook friends
Friends, without acquaintances – Which means all of your friends, except the ones you’ve marked as “acquaintances”
A friend list of your choice, which means that you put together only the people who you wan’t to distribute your message to, and the status mentioned above
Friends of your choice – you handpick every single one that will see the post
Public, which is basically a setting that will allow all people on your friend list AND everyone else who will google you in the future to see your post
Except the categories above, you can also categorize your friends in the category “limited”, which means that they will not see anyone of your posts, except the ones that are posted as “public”.
Continue here…
So, my question is, why do people click or comment, on friends “public” postings (except if the friend has a “higher” purpose of some kind like sending an important message or aiming at getting something important widely spread)? (1)
So, why shouldn’t you click on your friends public posts?
1) Your friend has maybe put you on their “limited” list, which means that you only see these posts that they’ve chosen to be public, which means that you’re maybe not so good friends after all.
2) When you click that public post, everyone of your friends, not just their friends… ALL of your friends will also see it. This will also mean that your digital foot print will be left entirely in their hands. Not in yours.
3) Except for the above; when you click a public post you will also “spam” your friends with the same message that most of them probably won’t care about, since they probably don’t know this person. Maybe not a big issue if you have 50 “friends”, but certainly if you have 500 or more.
So my tip to you “social media people”; think about where you’re putting your digital foot print, and make sure that you can control your own digital foot prints by yourself, instead of handing that choice over to somebody else who may keep it in public forever.
We’re living in a new era where we all are trying to keep up with these new media types, and I guess many of us (including myself) aren’t paying enough attention to what we are leaving as footprint forever.
So, in short, “like” and “comment” only posts that you know that you can control in the future.
A last short tip. When did you last clean your Facebook page, and made all your previous posts just visible to yourself? That’s a real good functionality within Facebook that many people don’t know about. Summer cleaning?
… and to all of you posting in public; remember that these posts will be public for your next employer, your friends friends (also in the future), the government and of course your children’s / parents friends.
(1) The information above isn’t applicable when you change profile picture or wall picture since those are (in most cases) public by default
One of the things I enjoy most with Photo is that an area might look awful if we just look at it as a whole, but when we start to look more closely we’ll find those small details that can be absolutely amazing. With cropping, it’s exactly the same.
This is the same photography as I posted a few days back “Flowers against wall”, but this is the cropped version of the flowers at the bottom. I actually think that this image works better because I had the focus on that specific area at the time and I think the image in itself works better with those flowers trying to hang on with the snows heavier weight on them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
– Albert Einstein
As an experiment I’ve set up a page on Facebook. The page will be a way to be noticed when there are new things published on this blog. It may also be a better way to share thoughts and ideas in a better way?
Currently we’re receiving a lot of snow here in Stockholm. The airport is closed, the public transportation system is out, but the roads are still pretty ok.
It may sound strange but I kind of like these situations (as long as nobody gets hurt), because it brings people together. Everybody is friendly, and starts to talk to each other without anything more to talk about than the current weather. Maybe that explains why Londonders and Dubliners are among the most friendly people in the world (due to all rain)?! 🙂
This is a pic from the early stages of the snowfall, and it actually snows even more right now. But as long it’s possible to stay inside there is no reason for complaining.
“I love snow for the same reason I love Christmas: It brings people together while time stands still. Cozy couples lazily meandered the streets and children trudged sleds and chased snowballs. No one seemed to be in a rush to experience anything other than the glory of the day, whenever and however it happened”
@Pedro Hansson – Winter morning Norra Mälarstrand, Stockholm – Nikon D7000
“A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.”
― Steve Martin
The first snow has arrived in Stockholm just in time for Advent.
Cold days like this are super for a morning stroll, and when it comes to many photographers best time of the day, “The Golden Hour”, it’s great for us Swedes that we easily can combine a good long sleep and still enjoy those early moments. At least in Winter….
I’ve always enjoyed different forms, and I guess there are always nice things to search for while we’re enjoying our lives.
This photo is taken in Spain from the restaurant in a hotel where we stayed during some days, for playing golf. I think the proportions came out pretty well.
This little story was sent to me by a friend of mine. I think it’s a really telling story of how things can turn out when you just go ahead with something, and never stops for a minute to reflect, train or think.
The photo is taken in a national park just outside Stockholm. This photo suffers a bit from Chromatic Aberration (look at the purple around the edges) which I will soon make a new blog post about, and how you can clean it up. Other than that I think the framing and composition in the photo went pretty well.
I hope you will have a good day
Busy
Once upon a time a very strong woodcutter ask for a job in a timber merchant, and he got it. The paid was really good and so were the work conditions. For that reason, the woodcutter was determined to do his best.
His boss gave him an axe and showed him the area where he was supposed to work.
The first day, the woodcutter brought 18 trees
“Congratulations,” the boss said. “Go on that way!”
Very motivated for the boss’ words, the woodcutter try harder the next day, but he only could bring 15 trees. The third day he try even harder, but he only could bring 10 trees.Day after day he was bringing less and less trees.
“I must be losing my strength”, the woodcutter thought. He went to the boss and apologized, saying that he could not understand what was going on.
“When was the last time you sharpened your axe?” the boss asked.
“Sharpen? I had no time to sharpen my axe. I have been very busy trying to cut trees…”
– Stephen Covey
Yesterday, our small harbor had its closing time for the year which means that the club is closing down and start to prepare for the winter. Since the seasons in Sweden are pretty sharp, in the sense that we really have them all, this also comes with a meaning, that the winter is soon here.
While cleaning up I took a few pictures.
I hope you all have a great start of your working week
Yesterday I made a short trip to Ekerö, a small island west of Stockholm City. On my way back I made a stop at the royal castle Drottningholm, which is typically amazing this time of the year.
As the readers of this blog might know from last year, I truly enjoy this season of the year; the Autumn.
Isn’t it strange that sometimes the most ridiculously small task can feel like moving a mountain, but another really heavy one just feels like a swift? Some years back I had a CEO that always told me the quote in the subject of this post, because he was so sure, that if you’re not really enjoy your work you can’t be really good at it.
Of course there are many degrees of that saying, but I think it actually makes a lot of sense. This quote (in the picture) is almost the same one. But I think this quote is more focused on actually finding what we believe in, and through that find interest and energy, both in our professional life, as in our private dito.
I hope you all have a great Wednesday, a day that’s sometimes called “little Saturday”in Sweden.
@ Pedro Hansson – Leafs over our open roof while going on a sightseeing tour in Barcelona – Nikon D7000
Almost every time I visit other towns I choose one day to get up really early in the morning to experience that particular town waking up.
Last week I was in Barcelona for work and I decided to try to portrait two areas that felt extra important in these hard economic times for Spain; people that we might not see otherwise during our hectic days, those that live their lives in the dark and have nowhere to go. The other topic was to show the town getting ready for a new day.
The first photo is from the first category. This is a woman I came about while walking over Plaça de Catalunya, and I really felt for her. A woman, without almost anything besides her stroller; but still she quietly stood there and shared her bread with the birds.
The moment really did have a mix of emotions. Sadness for her situation, compassion for her willing to give but also calmness since she, a few moments after this pic was taken carefully smiled at me and then continued to feed the birds. But most of all she made think of how she ended up there.
I couldn’t imagine how it must be, to have a life like that, and moments like this always brings perspective of the differences in the world. I’m really thankful of how Sweden have tackled this recession that has hit southern Europe so badly (even though there are things that also can and must be improved in Sweden as well).
We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.
– Marian Wright Edelman
My favorite time of the year is here, the autumn. The colors are all there, the air is crisp and (at least I) have no expectations other than to be right here, right now.
Today I took a walk in one of Stockholms hidden treasures Bergianska Trädgården (just north of Stockholm for those who haven’t been there)…. what a great place to spend an afternoon!
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This morning I took a really long walk. At the moment it’s pretty cold in Sweden (-20 degrees in the morning and around -12 degrees Celsius in the day), but it’s also so beautiful. I’ve always loved winter and these clear blue days together with the snowy scenery is so great and it’s almost like you don’t wanna go inside again, even though it’s pretty cold.
So I got up early, stopped by at 7-11 and bought myself a big Latte and off I went. What a great way to start a weekend.
Two photos from today that started cloudy but around noon, it was clear blue skies.
In Sweden we have a tradition called Julbord (Christmas table). Almost every company as well as all the familys meet up to have “a Julbord”. This is a tradition that goes on from first of Advent until Christmas day, and is a “must have” on Christmas eve. A typical julbord consists of Herring, ham, meatballs, salmon and many many more dishes. It’s almost like Spanish tapas but served in the middle of the room where all pic up their food.
Yesterday I had a Julbord at an old ship called Mälardrottningen. The weather wasn’t typical Swedish since we still have no ice (!!) and just a little snow, but we have plenty of clouds and rain 🙂
This is a pic that’s taken from the ship towards the southern parts of Stockholm. The reason for the pic is the lights that I suspect comes from Zinkensdamm.
Saarimner.com 