It's about time I actually give my impressions of the Umfum CDs. I'll start with the Twant, Violence, and Chicken one since I shamefully only listened to it for the first time yesterday.
Here are the ones that I thought were worthy of note to mention in one way or another:
02 The Autmun Wind - This was hilarious. I'm not sure I would listen to the song itself on its own merits, but it's pretty funny regardless.
04 Delia's Gone - See, I like this song not just because it's a funny song about killing a spiteful woman, but because the first time I heard it was on an episode of Beavis and Butthead when they were watching the video. See, things that remind me of Beavis and Butthead give me the warm fuzzies... another song that reminds me of it is God of Emptiness, by Morbid Angel.
06 Violet - evil_d and I are the same age. This also takes me back to high school. Argh! No! It's actually a really good song, but the memories involved aren't particularly great.
07 Henry Lee - Okay, I've only heard little bits of Nick Cave in passing before, and because of the circumstances under which I have heard them and the resulting situation, the name "Nick Cave" has a few negative associations that tinge any song it's attatched to. Having said that, It's a very good song. I love the music, vocals, lyrics.... but I don't like it. :p If I'm lucky I will get over this some day.
09 Bodies - I so did not like this song when it was on the radio, and I can't say I'm any fonder of it on this CD. The fact that half the people I knew would repeat the chorus out of nowhere made me cringe even more.
10 Drawing Flies - You know, it's not a bad song but were it up to me it's the last song on the album I'd have considered for this disc. It's short and it fits the theme I guess, but Soundgarden did so much better work than this. I guess this accusation could be leveled at me in my video game mix that people will be recieving soon... assuming any of them have every heard anything by the bands to compare it with. Which I doubt many have. Ha-HA! Victory is mine!
12 & 13 - Okay, I love weird little miscelaneous tracks like this. Sadly, you won't be hearing anything of them on the packages I send out because they really don't fit my theme. Like I said before.
16 Goodbye Earl - I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that I kinda liked the song a bit... after all, I also kinda sorta liked the one song by the Dixie Chicks that they tortured me with at work at least once an hour on the hour via Country Music Radio. I'll be honest here and say I don't care for country really. I don't even like it "in theory." It's very much one of those styles where I hear rare exceptions to the general rule of vileness.
17 - I distinctly didn't like this one very much. I know this may sound extremely weird coming from me but I genrally don't like atonal singing and sparse melody, UNLESS it's accompanied by a super powerful or catchy percussion section. This really had none of that.
18 The Gift - Oh man, this was really cool! Now this is atonal vocals, sparse melody, and catchy percussion done right! Hypnotic and trance inducing music is really more my thing.
21 Cocaine Blues - You know, I actually liked this one. The crowd noise ws an added bonus.
23 Knoxville Girl - You know, what I like about this song is the contrast between the subject matter and the tone of the music. It sounds so upbeat and happy, and the song is just so gruesome. I like that sort of thing. I'm personally waiting for a death metal band that sings about fuzzy kitties and candle lit dinners. That would honestly make my lifetime.
Those are really the songs that stood out for good or ill on that CD. In my next post, I examine Rapestry, which based just on the title should be fuck's favorite album if it weren't for all the songs about women getting shot and beaten on this particular CD.
