Welcome to a collaboration post about the thing that makes us tap our feet and jiggle our arses. That’s right! It’s music! We’ve reshuffled some categories and are starting to provide you with our terrible music opinions. Not to worry, as we’re going to try our very best to back them up to the fullest. Let’s get started with our favourite albums, we’ve asked everyone what album they keep coming back to. Was it one with an amazing track list? Maybe a very deep and artistic album? Let’s see what everyone’s got to say.
Josef – Plastic Beach (Gorillaz)
While there will always be so many albums that I listen to all amazing in their own right. Plastic Beach by Gorillaz always pulls me back at some point during the year. Songs like Melancholy Hill, Superfast Jellyfish, Rhinestone Eyes and Stylo are songs that I could play for any occasion. I’ve always appreciated Damon Allbrand Cereal to make a blend of political statements and upbeat dance music. The theme of Plastic Beach being very much an environmental stance rather than your typical “fuck the government” stance. While overall there are individual songs from other artists I do like more overall, this as an album has always set the right tone of emotion and good music for me.
Will- Humanz
So, last year Josef proved himself as the ‘World’s Cutest Human™’ by surprising me with tickets to see Gorillaz live in Manchester. And Jesus Christ, if it wasn’t the best concert I’ve been to in my life. Naturally, the tour was focused on their latest Album, ‘Humanz’, and I’d like to talk about that album a little bit, since it’s been controversial to say the least.
‘Humanz’ follows the story of a party taking place in a penthouse apartment, celebrating the fact that the world is coming to an end as a great evil seeps in from outside. This is, of course, an allegory for Donald Trump. He’s even directly the subject of two songs- Hallalujah Money, which is a beautiful and soulful tune that satirises Trump’s obsession with his own wealth, and ‘The Apprentice’, which highlights how Damon Albarn views trump- a tyrant dressing himself up as a protector of those in need by convincing them not to care.
I could go through the entire album, talking about how masterfully each song participates in the overall story- starting as a party, evil seeping in and controlling the partygoers through technology, until eventually confetti emerges from the elephant’s trunk to signify that Trump has been victorious, and the world has ended. But, in one lats hoorah, we realise that We’ve got the power to be loving each other, no matter what happens.
Expect me to write that article at some point.
William – Common Dreads (Enter Shikari)
Little known fact. I was an emo in school. Or I wanted to be anyway and i tried so hard to fit in with the misfits (the irony is not lost on me) so for years my musical tastes were rooted in scremo and floppy fringes. It wasn’t until a friend introduced me to Enter Shikari did i realize how much i could actually enjoy music for more than just some noise. Shikari’s second album Common Dreads will always be my favorite album as it more or less lead me to understand who i am fundamentally! building on their unique style introduced in their breakout Take To The Skies. This record cemented them as one of the best alternative rock bands out there! Highlight track for me? Hectic!
Luke – Rumours (Fleetwood Mac)
My favourite album (Much like my favourite film) changes depending on the week you catch me and this week I have Rumours by Fleetwood Mac on repeat every day. Then when I get home from work I put the vinyl on and listen to it through again. Rumours is one of those albums that I always come back to time and time again listening right from Second Hand News right through to Gold Dust Woman and back through again.
I think it stems from my parents as this was one of my mum’s favourite albums growing up so it’s one that always makes me feel like I am at home no matter where I am.
Also – Anything by the Smiths reaches my favourite album on a regular basis.
Ben – Melancolia Hymns (Arcane Roots)
I have one of the widest ranges of music tase on the planet, pulling music from the metalcore scene all the way to Australian Folk and everything inbetween. With that said, its hard as fuck to choose one singular album over all of the other ones available to me. But I digress. I have liked Arcane Roots for a long time now, the style of masive guitars, beautiful harmonies and high vocals come together in a way that just can’t be described. While that statement does partialy cover this album, theres a little more focus on synths in the backing of the tracks which bring a new layer out that only makes the music all that much better. It may not mean its the heaviest album the band has ever produced but, that doesn’t stop you wanting to headbang and throw yourself into a pit.
(Bonus) – Mans Not Hot (We Butter The Bread With Butter)
This is not an album but a single but having reconnected with this band after forgetting about them for a long time, I went and looked at what was recently released… I found this. You may remember the track that Big Shaq did while on BBC Radio 1 that exploded over the internet… It’s a cover of that, and its surprisingly good. Give it a look Here.
Javier – Vol 3. The subliminal verses
This is a massively loaded question for me. I’m not a man of diverse music taste or anything and there are 2 genres I tend to stick to, heavy metal or EDM. First off for me though was metal, and this is the album that i’d say primarily got me into proper heavy metal (despite it perhaps being one of the least heavy albums). Before this I had only really listened to Nickleback, alien ant farm and Limp Bizkit, once i’d listened to, and got absorbed into this I never looked back. It completely changed my thoughts that they were a bunch of weirdos who only weirdos listened to!
I can always listen to any slipknot album, especially this one. Every track is an absolute banger and listening to it makes me feel young, reminds me of school and seeing them at Download.
Salman – 10,000 Days (Tool)
My musical cherry was popped one fine day when I recently bought a new Guitar Hero set. Now, Guitar Hero did one of two things for me. It inspired me to learn music and play the drums and it showed me way too much good music to count. One song in particular was so fun and addictive I just couldn’t stop listening to it and that was Vicarious. Soon after that I started hearing a whole lot more Tool here and there and I eventually just had to fall down a deep hole where I listened to their entire discography in about a day. 10,000 Days probably has some of my favorite songs out of Tools discog. such as Vicarious and Parabola. It even has Wings for Marie and the titular track 10,000 which go together as a two-parter, an emotional and intense pair of tracks that I listen to every now and again for some good sad times. Oh and later I found about the cool shit they did with the album like how if you play a couple of tracks at the same time they sync up perfectly and all that cool stuff. But yea, Tool is probably my favorite band of all time too and I know that’s a bold claim but they’re the only ones I see myself going back to time and time again. Maybe I’ll go further into most of my favorite albums at a later time 😉
Tom – Equivalency
I can never make my mind up about what my favourite album is. It really depends on what I’m really in to at the time! But at the moment I’ve really been enjoying the album Equivalency by Hotel Books. It’s kinda a love-it-or-hate-it. This ambient, spoken work, emo rock album from a guy named Cam Smith. Its quite thought provoking, and the lyrics are really good! A lot of it is spoken but he does practice his vocal chops on the song ”Celebration”. But my favourite song on the album is “Van Nuys”. It gets pretty deep, but I find it really easy to listen to. The way that the music lifts the mood and influences the effectiveness of the poetry is genius. It takes me back to the young 15 year old emo that I used to be, in this kind of cringey but fun way.
Joe – Asking Alexandria (Asking Alexandria)
There was a period of time where, throughout 2017, I seemed to have been falling out of all my musical interests… Rock, metal, anime OSTs, game OSTs… Whatever it was, I was growing bored of it… That was until Asking Alexandria released their sort of “revival” album, Asking Alexandria (Yes, that’s the title of the Album); featuring a large number of extremely addicting songs, from Eve, Vultures, Into the Fire, Where Did It Go and I Am the One, Asking Alexandria was one of the rare occurrences where I enjoyed nearly every song on the LP. It brought me out of a dark place near the end of 2017, and totally rejuvenated my enjoyment for rock and metal in general.