Last 10 Years

Yesterdays post about Fenech-Soler brought back memories of other music I was listening to when I first discovered them. Basically I didn't think I was old enough to reach the 'better in the old days' stage of my life and made an effort to keep my music tastes current.

One thing I did was pick my 25 favourite albums. It was a very biased list favouring the more recent albums though, 17 of them were from the 21st century and the other 8 were from the 90s. It also included an album which had only just come out at the time.

Nowadays I'm at a point where I'm not even up to date with a lot of artists I've liked in years gone by. Some went to to make some truly dreadful music and others I just forgot about. I do sometimes seek out new music from an artist if I'm going to see them in concert, but many don't really bother making new music anymore and stick to the classics.

It got me thinking, what albums have the 25 artists of those albums I picked released in the last 10 years. Well here's the answer:

2 Many DJs - No albums

Norman Jay - 2 albums: Skank & Boogie (2015), Mister Good Times (2017)

Portishead - No albums

Massive Attack - No albums

High Contrast - 2 albums: Night Gallery (2017), Notes from the Underground (2020)

Plump DJs - No albums

Jacques Lu Cont - No albums

Erol Alkan - 1 album: Fabriclive 77 (2014)

Spiritcatcher - No albums

Various Artists - N/A

DJ Shadow - 2 albums: The Mountain Will Fall (2016), Our Pathetic Age (2019)

Tiga - 1 album: No Fantasy Required  (2016)

Air - No albums

Fatboy Slim - No albums

Sander Kleinenberg - No albums

Snoop Dogg - 6 albums: Bush (2015), Coolaid (2016), Neva Left (2017), Bible of Love (2018), I Wanna Thank Me (2019), From tha Streets 2 tha Suites (2021), BODR (2022)

Jurassic 5 - No albums

Kruder & Dorfmeister - 1 album: Johnson (2022)

Zero 7 - No albums

Mylo - No albums

Digitalism - 2 albums: Mirage (2016), JPEG (2019)

Underworld - 2 albums: Barbara Barbara, We Face a Shining Future (2016), Drift Series 1 (2019)

LCD Soundsystem - 1 album: American Dream (2017)

London Elektricity - 2 albums: Are We There Yet? (2015), Building Better Worlds (2019)

Propellerheads - No albums

Just 11 of the artists have released an album in the last 10 years and only 3 of them have released one in the decade so far. Only Snoop Dogg has been prolific with none of the others managing more than 2 albums in a decade.

This leads to another question, are these albums any good?

Just one way to find out. I'm going to give each of those albums a listen and post what I think of them here.

My 25 Favourite Albums: 2 Many DJs - As Heard on Radio Soulwax pt 2

10 years ago I picked my 25 favourite albums in no particular order. After realising it's now been 10 years I thought maybe I could write a post for each one throughout out the year. This reflects my own personal taste so you won't find albums like "Dark Side of the Moon" or "Thriller" in the list, partly because it doesn't need to be enjoyed by millions to be amongst my favourite and partly because I don't own either of those examples so they're clearly nowhere near my favourite.

The first of these albums is "As Heard on Radio Soulwax pt 2" by 2 Many DJs. The way I first came across 2 Many DJs was when I kept hearing their name on the line up of various Dance music events. I then came across this album in the record shop and looked at the track listing and saw Emerson Lake & Palmer, 10CC and Dolly Parton amongst others on the track list. How was this Dance music I asked myself?

I then learned that 2 Many DJs were best known for doing mash-ups i.e. playing 2 or more records at the same time to create a new sound. I was still a little sceptical about it but thought I'd give it a listen when I was next in the record shop and on listening I found it just somehow worked.

The story of 2 Many DJs isn't your usual turning up to clubs and giving promoters tapes type story. They hail from Belgium and started off as members of a Rock band called Soulwax in the 90s who had a minor hit in 2000 with a song called "Too Many DJs". They then started DJing on the side before making a name for themselves with their mash-ups. The name Soulwax is now more associated with the Dance music scene thanks to the albums and remixes they have done since.

They started Radio Soulwax on their official website around 2001 which is where the title comes from. There are several "As Heard on Radio Soulwax" albums but this is the only official one and being mash-ups meant a lot of samples needed to be cleared.

When pressing play and rewinding the CD you get the Soulwax Elektronik mix of "Can't Get You Out Of My Head" before the album begins. Quite possibly because of this feature, the CD won't play in my car stereo.

All in all there are 30 tracks and it lasts just over an hour, so even if there is a bit you don't like it doesn't last very long. It's one of those albums you really need to listen to from beginning to end to appreciate, it's difficult to pick a highlight of the album particularly as it features tunes which I don't like in their original form.

I guess this is what makes this album so good. On paper it should be rubbish, but the best thing to do is to forget the track list, forget the fact none of it is original material and just give it a listen and some of you will no doubt be amazed at just how good it is.