Let’s discuss any and all music here. Got a new artist who’s rocking your boat that you want to talk about? Post a video! Found out about that unearthed Coltrane album that has the jazz freak in you losing your mind? Lay it out for us! Have a theory about what your favorite band might do for their next album? Let’s hear it! Anything and everything music-related goes here.
This week’s discussion prompt comes courtesy of The Avocado’s very own Prighlofone:
What are some albums where you think the second half is better than the first?
If this week’s prompt seems a tad familiar, it might be because we have previously discussed albums where we prefer one side over the other. And we’ve also discussed albums that start out really strong before. But we have yet to focus exclusively on the “side twos”, or back halves of albums that are particularly good. So with that in mind, what are your suggestions?
When Michael Rother and Klaus Dinger reunited after a few years in 1974 to work on what would become the third NEU! album, their musical styles had diverged. Rother was making music that was ambient and melodic – no doubt in part a continuation of the music he had been making with Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius (better known as Cluster) under the name Harmonia during NEU!’s hiatus. Meanwhile, Dinger had become interested in playing more aggressive, overtly rock-influenced music. Eventually they settled on a compromise, where side one would be softer and more melodic, and side two would be raucous and guitar-driven.
While I love the entire album, and rate “Seeland” in particular (the track above) among their best work, I have to say that I prefer side two. Opener “Hero” marries the trademark “motorik” beat most strongly associated with krautrock (given extra power here due to Dinger enlisting both his brother Thomas and Hans Lampe to play drums simultaneously) to driving guitar and phased-out keyboards, along with Dinger’s snarling pre-punk vocals.
“E-Musik” continues in this vein, with the keyboards becoming more prominent and the beat becoming more relentless, which evokes the feeling of being chased by a train yet is also hypnotic.
Finally, after a brief bit of calm near the end of “E Musik” (which concludes with a callback to “Seeland” from the first side) “After Eight” comes in almost like a victory lap, picking right up where the previous two tracks left off.
NEU! 75 would be released in 1975, and while the world at large wasn’t listening at the time, this album (as well as the band’s previous work) would go on to influence countless musicians in the years and decades that followed.
As always, any and all music-related posts are welcome. Have fun, and rock out with yr guac out!