Nate Mendel & William Goldsmith. Not just tight, but inventive with the way they approach their parts. Hasn’t been a rhythm section like them in rock since The Who, and I am hard-pressed to think of one since.
I am choosing their more underrated release with Sunny Day Real Estate, commonly known as LP2.
Otis Redding with Booker T. & The MG’s and The Mar-Keys - Captured Live at the Monterey International Pop Festival
Booker T. & The MG’s were the guys who created the Stax sound. Their opening set on this record is great, and they do a fantastic job backing Otis during his set!
My faulty ankle made a liar of me: Breaking my ankle brace afforded me some time to play catch up early, so here goes:
Day 1: I'm a hip-hop head, first and foremost. I grew up in the 80s/90s and loved listening to my walkman at night. Midnight Marauders is still one of my gold standards for hip-hop albums.
The Universal is my favorite Blur song (End of a Century is a very close second place)
I love the strings at the beginning of The Universal and the Kubrickian video is awesome.
Day 5 - String Theory
Play an album with a string section featured in at least one song.
I came up with a lot of songs that had string sections but wanted to dig a little deeper. Classical was too easy so I went way back to old school Electric Light Orchestra.
A lot of folks only know Electric Light Orchestra as their latter day ELO self via records like A New World Record & Out Of The Blue.
In actuality, Electric Light Orchestra began as some crazy amalgam of rock and classical that ended up sounding like psychedelic chamber music. Their first few LPs walk this path before detouring down a more formulaic, commercial one.
Coheed and Cambria - Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Vol. 1: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness
This record doesn't sound amazing, but it was one of my absolute favourites in high school so it's nice to have. The first track is a string version of the "theme" or leitmotif they used throughout their first four (I think) records.