Suedehead's Top 20 'Banshees' Albums

[cwej]

Is Tracy Chapman top 10?

[Suedehead]

GET OUT

[Gavin]

So have you included Dummy or have you CORRECTLY decided that it isn't a 'banshee' album?

[ameraal]

i'm actually a bit surprised sinead is that low

i'm clueless about this nico person and liz phair is just a name for me

[ameraal]

oh and would you call GRACE a banshee?

[Suedehead]

oh and would you call GRACE a banshee?

I didn't, no.

[Homes Place]

Do we get the rest of them today - wonder if Aimee's going to get it?

[Molicious]

MORE PLEASE!

[Suedehead]

Well I'm doing the rest of this alternately with the rest of my 2005 top 40. I'm aiming to get both over and done with before the new year... tomorrow I'll finish this one off. I have to. Perhaps someone can threaten to ban me if I don't or something..

[Molicious]

Well I'm doing the rest of this alternately with the rest of my 2005 top 40. I'm aiming to get both over and done with before the new year... tomorrow I'll finish this one off. I have to. Perhaps someone can threaten to ban me if I don't or something..

Please do! You've already given me good some ideas for forthcoming banshee puchases...

[Suedehead]

Ooh, wonderful!

You probably have quite a few in the top 9 anyway though... at least 3, I'd say!

[Molicious]

Ooh, wonderful!

You probably have quite a few in the top 9 anyway though... at least 3, I'd say!

I'm sure I will...but I am curious as to what they are...

My CD collection is quite pitiful in truth.. However it must be said that 'banshees' make up a large percentage of it!

Good news is I am wealthy post Christmas though so I will be going on a BANSHEE SPREE to get all those essential albums I don't yet own. Hurrah!

[ameraal]

my predictions?

rid of me (or dry)
from the choirgirl
homogenic (or maybe vespertine?)
lost in space
hounds of love (possibly the dreaming)

[Suedehead]

9. Patti Smith – Horses
1975

"Jesus died for somebody's sins – but not mine". And so it begins.

Some records are all about context and timing, and this case is perfectly exemplified by Patti Smith's seminal debut album Horses. Whereas male singer songwriters like Dylan, Bowie, etc. were beginning to branch out, female songwriters were still very much confined to the classic 'demure' image (despite stellar work from Joni Mitchell which no doubt paved the way for the likes of Patti Smith).

And then she arrived. Everything about Horses completely changed the face of pop music – from the androgynous cover image to the controversial subjects to the minimalist musical production that singlehandedly invented punk. Perhaps I'm pushing it a bit too far there, but I simply can't emphasise just how influential and groundbreaking a record Horses was, and continues to be, only on every female performer (everyone from Chrissie Hynde to Madonna to PJ Harvey) as she introdced the idea of expressing femaleness rather than femininity.

Now, onto the album. Musically speaking, it isn't rocket science – simple guitar chord progressions, haunting piano pieces but sonically at least, it was no Low or Dark Side of the Moon. What you must keep in mind, though, is that Patti Smith is first and foremost a poet rather than a songwriter. And like Dylan, she possesses that rare talent where her words can be stripped of music, typed onto a sheet of paper and still give the reader something to marvel at. And on Horses she created a perfect environment for those words: the violent story of a male rape (on the epic title-track) makes for the album's harrowing centrepiece.

Horses is one of those rare albums where I can say that no self-respecting record collection is complete without. If you're thinking of picking it up, then you're in luck as a deluxe reissue has just been released to celebrate its 30th anniversary. If you want to enjoy the record to full effect, though. I'd skip her live version of "My Generation" that has been tagged onto the CD format of the album: nothing wrong with the version per se, but if you're a purist like me and you like to listen to albums the way they were intended to, then you'll see my point.

B.M.S. - 10 out of 10

Standout Banshee Moment - I'll go the contrary route this time and go for the tenderness of "Free Money".

[Suedehead]

8. Portishead – Dummy
1994

You know, apparently this is the ultimate stoner album. Strangely enough I have never listened to this record with the aid of any kind of chemical substance (not even alcohol), and I never felt the need to either. It does its job rather nicely on its own.

I was 15 at the time, completely fixated with the undeniably fun but ultimately inconsequential Britpop explosion, and then I heard "Glory Box" on the radio and something jarred with me. It was just so… different. Over 10 years later, and it still is – and so is everything else on Dummy. It's just one of those albums that come once in a lifetime, for as good as their eponymous follow-up was, it just suffered the burden of following up an album that can only be described as otherworldly.

I honestly wouldn't know how to describe it. I could go on about the jazzy elements, the haunting strings, the ambient bits, or even try and insult the album by categorising it merely as a 'trip-hop' masterpiece – for it is something that truly defies pointless musical pigeonholding. And then, of course, there's Beth Gibbons – owner of a voice that can reduce a grown man to nothing as she intones an impossible kaleidoscope of emotions with each word. Suffice to say, all of these elements combine to create something that is truly special and will probably never be equaled by anyone, even Portishead themselves.

B.M.S. – 8 out of 10

Standout Banshee Moment – That brief bit where the music stops and kicks back in "Glory Box". Either that or every microsecond in "Roads".

[bruce5433]

I predict:
Boys For Pele
Hounds Of Love
Rid Of Me
When The Pawn...
Lost In Space
Blue
Homogenic

[Suedehead]

7. Joni Mitchell – Blue
1971

An album so pivotal that it has become the touchstone for almost every major post-breakup emotional rollercoaster of an album that is ever released by a female singer songwriter – apparently Is This Desire was PJ Harvey's Blue; Boys for Pele was Tori's and so on. And when you listen to this album, then it comes as no surprise. No nonsense, no frills – this is Joni Mitchell pouring the contents of her heart against a sparse background of guitar and piano. It's very intimate – she sings of regret, lost love, giving her daughter away.. the title sums it up perfectly. Her distinctive voice demands your attention as it glides over the speakers and into your soul: "Songs are like tattoos", she sings in the title-track. And she's right – listening to Blue once is enough to have it permanently etched in your heart.

The bulk of the record was written when she was living in Europe in the aftermath of the dissolution of her relationship with Graham Nash, and songs like "My Old Man" offer a more romantic reflection whereas "River" aims right at your heartstrings with its melancholic "Jingle Bells" piano lines and her sorrowful intonation, "I made my baby cry"; then there's "A Case of You", quite possibly the most heartwrenching break-up song ever written and album closer "The Last Time I Saw Richard" with its allusions to 'dark café's and that haunting line, "It's only a dark cocoon before I spread my gorgeous wings and fly away".

At just over half an hour, Blue isn't one of those self-indulgent overlong female angst albums (more of that to come later), and it isn't the most experimental album in her canon either (if you want to hear Joni letting go, then simply pick up the brilliantly jazzy Hissing of Summer Lawns that effortlessly shattered the 'folk chick' tag) – it is, quite simply, the sound of a woman going through a difficult time and turning her sorrow into something astoundingly beautiful.

B.M.S. – 6 out of 10

Standout Banshee Moment - "I could drink a case of you, and I'd still be on my feet.

[ABMB]

Finally I know some of these! All absolutley grand choices and great commentary for each of them.

Has anyone picked up the rerelease of horses? Apparently it includes the live version of the album too[?] I really should have put in my Christmas list

[Quandary]

The last three entrances will all be 'records that changed my life' !

I can understand the critic for "My Generation (live)". They could've at least made the gap longer, I even find it hard to press the stopbutton after "Elegie". However, it's a perfect bonustrack and I can't think of a better closure than the "we created it, let's take it over" line. It really reflects the time and power she then had. What's your favourite track btw? Will eventually get the deluxe edition. I thought there was a limited version with a DVD? That's the one I would pay 20 bucks for..I've heard too much live recordings by her that I'm content with the original remaster for now.

[VoR]

nevermind

[ameraal]

do go on then

[Xanthie]

YAY for Version 2.0! Also it's the only one I own from your list (so far).

[cwej]

WHERE'S TRACY?

[Suedehead]

Ugh, I kind of lost of track of this as I gave prority to the 2005 albums list.. I'll finisht his off, eventually... unless it gets sidetracked by my revised top 100 albums ever.. pfft..

[ABMB]

[Suedehead]

I'm just really busy.. seriously..

[Dr Lecter]

[ABMB]

I'm just really busy.. seriously..

suspicious

[Karvel]

[Molicious]

[Beverley]

[funky]

Lovely to see Paula Cole and Sarah McLachlan... and on a completely different level, Portishead too...

One thing for Sarah though - I disagree her commerciality made her records any less impressive. I do agree it makes her less 'banshee' - but I just think she evolved from dark to uplifting over the course of a few albums. I think "Afterglow" is glorious, albeit for completely different reasons than FTE.

All in all though, fab write-ups

[Suedehead]

I put it on hold to do my year-end albums thing and I just completely forgot about this.. I will finish it off I promise.. but I'm very busy with work these days.

Perhaps it'll inspire ABMB to come back.

[Suedehead]

And I absolutely love Afterglow as well...

[Quandary]

Perhaps it'll inspire ABMB to come back.

Where the hell is she !? Did she REALLY quit Moopy for some reason?

[Molicious]

FINISH THIS

[Homes Place]

Where the hell is she !? Did she REALLY quit Moopy for some reason?

She PMd Dr L saying she wasn't coming back for the 'forseeable future'... no one knows why.

She left the same time as Mike W - double bansheedom loss..

[loomer]

I hope you'll find a space for:

[VoR]

I'm SO buying that....

[ameraal]

the thread with most replies in the banshees forum is currently NERINA PARROT related
how EMBARRASSING

*bumps*