Четверг 22 Янв 2009, 14:00

Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band - Safe As Milk

Woohoo! Are we on a winning streak? After the fantastic Buffalo Springfield album, we have here another superb one. Not one bad song can be found, in fact all songs are great to fantastic.

Captain Beefheart has a perfect blues voice (very low and rough), and sometimes there are excellent guitar parts (Ry Cooder also did his thing on this album). I was actually really surprised when I heard this album. It wasn't weird at all! Captain Beefheart's voice is very similar to Frank Zappa's, but the Mothers Of Invention are waaaay weirder on their album. These are almost "ordinary" pop songs! But my surprise is easily explained: I have already heard Trout Mask Replica. My brother has this album and finds it absolutely fantastic, which results in him complaining to me I should listen more to it. I did listen to it once and I was actually really glad when it was over, and to be honest I have no intention to ever listen to it again (but I will, it's in this list). Sometimes a song comes by on my Itunes shuffle, and then I won't skip it (I seldomly skip songs) but I am always glad when it's over. It's a lot of sounds, but music? A melody? Nah, the clue escapes me. However, I have only given it one listen, so that's not really fair. I know.

I read somewhere on a forum (more than once) that listening to Trout Mask Replica as the first Captain Beefheart album is good enough to give you an everlasting disgust of Captain Beefheart. People should start with Safe As Milk.

Somehow this makes sense, because Safe As Milk WAS first, but when I listened to this album I was really wondering how this album could help me appreciate Trout Mask Replica more. We'll see later if the miracle will indeed take place. Somehow I do not think this album will be the key.

Just because it is not weird enough! The music is in the beginning of the album quite poppy, and becomes a bit weirder by the end. A bit, but not much really. The album would probably have been even better had Captain Beefheart started the strangeness from the beginning. The first half of the album is great, the second half (starting from Electricity) is fantastic. A song like Plastic Factory for instance is completely my cup of tea. See you at Trout Mask Replica, Captain!

(Aiai moeilijke keuzes: Plastic Factory, Yellow Brick Road, Dropout Boogie, Abba Zaba)