The Albums We Don't Want You To Know About
by Benjamin Marlin
Discord & Rhyme is a podcast where we discuss our favorite albums, song by song. That said, we don't discuss all of our favorite albums. In our travels, we've discovered that some albums carry an episode better than others do.
The podcasting format lends itself to albums that are conceptually rich, lyrically dense, and musically varied. Think Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds. Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life. The Yes Album. Each contains songs in different styles, and passages that provoke different moods. Each features lyrics that, for better or worse, are more complex than your standard moon/June love song.
These albums give us a lot to talk about. If we want to take a deep dive into any one element, we can, but it's not for fear of running out of other elements to discuss. These albums offer something new and interesting in every nook and cranny.
Conversely, some albums we love may not be able to support an hour-and-a-half discussion. Often, these are albums that sustain one emotional tone for 45 minutes - however brilliantly they do it. Frank Sinatra's 1950s concept albums for Capitol are high-quality from start to finish; but they maintain a single mood throughout, be it the sprightly joy of Songs For Swingin' Lovers or the late-night melancholy of In The Wee Small Hours. The resonance lingers, but the topics for discussion dry up quickly.
As much as it kills me, this is also true of Elvis Presley's 1969 classic From Elvis In Memphis. Elvis and the crack studio band blow through 12 country, soul, and pop numbers with an emotional force that barely flags for a moment. Still, Elvis nut that I am, I'm reluctant to bring it to the show. The songs sound similar to one another. Each reaches for - and finds - a sweet spot within the same narrow range. The emotion is the point. But it's hard to talk about emotion for too long. And even if each co-host likes each song, hearing the same basic conclusion 48 times may not make for thrilling podcast listening.
There are entire genres that some of us love, but that we're not certain how to approach on Discord & Rhyme. Classical music is one. Jazz is another. A few of us can get blissfully lost in John Coltrane's A Love Supreme or Miles Davis's Bitches' Brew. But while a discussion about A Love Supreme is probably possible, it would certainly require a different approach from one about, say, Wasps' Nests by the 6ths. Both are fantastic albums. But Wasps' Nests offers 16 distinct songs to discuss and 16 different singers to profile, compare, and contrast. A Love Supreme is a mostly wordless suite, performed on four instruments, and only nominally broken up into three tracks. There is a great discussion to be had about A Love Supreme, but it's possible that we're not there.....yet.
I dig John Coltrane way more than I do Yes. But I can acknowledge that Coltrane is a challenging podcast topic, whereas Yes is absolutely perfect. Each moment of Yes's music has about four distinct musical elements happening at once, making for a nearly endless source of discussion topics. Sure, one of those elements is usually dumb, another is usually shrill, and the other two usually don't belong on the same song as each other; but - oh boy, here come my co-hosts with pitchforks. This blogger is outta here.