I have a conflicted relationship with compilation albums. On the one hand they are a cheap way to introduce oneself to a bunch of new bands, and as a result have played a key role in the creation of genres since genre creation was a thing that happened. Since the advent of home recording, first on audio cassettes and now on CDs and playlists, amateur compilations have, in particular, had a subversive quality, and their consumption was often a direct attack upon the mainstream recording industry and the marketing machine that powers it. For indie record labels, a yearly compilation of their best acts was a key way of letting their fans know what was out there.
During the birth of the non-rock derived underground genres, Rap, Hip-Hop, Electronica and all its varied spawn, the mix tape was a key feature. Given the shady legal ground on which sample-heavy art-forms stand, those creating without the resources of a legal department often had no way to bring their creations to the public without staying under the legal radar. As modern fans of Danger Mouse and Girl Talk can attest, a lot of the best sample-based music is still created under the legal radar, since the current sampling legal structure tends to stifle creativity, though that is a discussion for another album.
So I understand the need for compilations, and I can appreciate much of what they have stood for historically. But they also go against everything I look for in an album. Often made cheaply with little attention payed even to the song order, comps give me nothing to sink my teeth into. One song is not enough to determine much about a band, a fact that explains a lot about why I do not listen to the radio anymore. Instead compilations flit from one artists to the next, often with a bare connection between them. There is often no explanation of why these artists were chosen for the album.
Today’s album was released by Lakeshore Records, the musical arm of Lakeshore Entertainement, that paragon of modern film culture that brought us such classics of our time as “The Runaway Bride” and the Underworld Franchise. I bought it because it has a song by Alien Crime Syndicate on it, and I thought maybe they might be ok. As sometimes happens at Princeton Record Exchange, the liner notes had been removed. If your expectations are low that is about how I felt about the album as soon as I got it home, thus my not listening to it for over a decade.
So this is an over-glossy compilation by a faux-independent record label that was created to self release sound tracks. Perhaps that is why they named this with a reference to the film, Almost Famous, even though this is not a soundtrack for that film, which was also not released by Lakeshore Entertainment. From what I can tell this album was created as a promo for the label, which sought to snooker people into buying it by including songs by more famous bands from other labels. It is kind of a sad day when you use an Alien Crime Syndicate song to trick someone. But that’s the level of sophistication we are dealing with here.
The funny thing is that the Alien Crime Syndicate song on here is way better than the stuff on their album. This makes me think I will have to buy some of their other albums. Still selling that piece of shit back. Also selling this one back (spoiler alert!). the music on here is. Well its not bad. It is by and large decent rock music. If you find this somewhere and you want decent rock music and it is in the one to two dollar range, go ahead. Nothing about this makes me want to look up any of these bands. Most of it is pretty middle of the road post-grunge, with one or two nice chick rock highlights. I will say that the music on here is better than most of what was on the radio in 2002 when this came out. But my cat had a run of explosive diarrhea that was more sonically pleasing than most of the radio in 2002.
No comments:
Post a Comment