UncleJam23

I've been racking my brain trying to think of something insightful or interesting to say about this album. My username and profile pic is, after all, a Funkadelic reference. But I got nothing. I've been listening to this album ever since my dad played it in the car when I was in lower school, I've got a t shirt of the album cover I wear regularly, I love every second of it, and I don't really know where I would begin.

The only new thing for me is that over the years, this album kinda fell in my estimation because I've spent more time listening to the Funkadelic side of things. But then when I relistened to this last Tuesday night, I thought, "Wait a minute, this is the best shit ever."

Actually another thing: The spaceship from the album cover is on display at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in DC, which is where my family lives. I've had so many opportunities to see it but haven't out of sheer laziness and it's a source of great shame for me.

But yeah. It's Mothership Connection. Love it to death.

Favorite Songs: "P-Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)" "Mothership Connection (Star Child)" "Night of the Thumpasorus Peoples"

Duders! Welcome to the 59th edition of the Unofficial Giant Bomb Album Club! Last week, we danced while trying desperately not to think about the murders and chaos all around us with Big Fish Theory by Vince Staples. This week, funk. The P-funk. The uncut funk. The bomb. Our album this week is Mothership Connection by Parliament! This album was selected by our good friend @redwing42, and you can listen with the links below:

Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/album/4q1HNSka8CzuLvC8ydcsD2

Apple Music:https://music.apple.com/ca/album/mothership-connection/1440837684

Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_k5BKg6aR7SkE69hOjKtbSTVMLYr-6AftU

And that does it for this cycle! If you want to get in on the next one, come join our Discord! We're going to take a few weeks off, but we'll be back!

It took me a while to come around to Big Fish Theory when it first came out. I didn't like it at the time, essentially, because it wasn't his debut album Summertime '06.

Summertime '06 wears its heart and intentions on its sleeve. It doesn't really have a sonic gimmick or a distinctive production sound like Big Fish Theory. (Which isn't to say its production is bad by any means, just that the sound of Big Fish Theory is rooted in various electronic subgenres, whereas Summertime just sounds like dope hip hop beats. A bit reductive, but hopefully you get my point.) But you don't have to pay that much attention to understand what he's talking about. The mental toll of being black in America and growing up in poverty is clear from the moment he starts rapping on Summertime, and he never takes his foot off your throat.

When Big Fish Theory came out, it didn't hit me in the heart the same way. But it turns out I wasn't listening carefully enough.

There's a trick Vince has perfected over the years. He'll make you think you're listening to a banger or something to ride around to or something lowkey. Then you listen a little closer, and you realize that you could be listening to a song about unspeakable violence or suicidal ideation or existential dread or whatever horrors lurk in your subconscious. Or if not yours, then the national one. It's an intentional juxtaposition. You nod your head to the song. Then you think about what he's saying. Why the fuck were you nodding your head?

Big Fish Theory is the album where Vince will sharpen and perfect this skill. Maybe a little too well in certain regards. The problem, after all, with burying your message under a layer of gloss is that you're burying your message. Then again, that's also the brilliance of the album, at least on a conceptual level. You take a look at, say, Norf-- the North side of Long Beach, CA where Vince is from. What do you see? Plenty will say they see hell or worthless sprawl not worth caring about. But the people who live there and the ones who care about it see something different. Now take the opposite approach and apply it to this album. It sounds like a club record. It's really a cry of agony.

Yet it still knocks. Last year, when I was DJing at the picket line during the WGA/SAG-AFTRA strikes, I played "Big Fish" on a semi-regular basis. It hit hard every time. Maybe you can have your cake and eat it too.

Favorite Songs: "Big Figh" "Yeah Right" "Party People"

Duders! Welcome to the 58th edition of the Unofficial Giant Bomb Album Club! Last week, we used metal and bluegrass to explore the mania that fuels the treatment of labor and nature in the coal industry. This week, we're dancing while ignoring the pain, both internal and external, and the suffering all around us! Yaay! Our album this week is Big Fish Theory by Vince Staples! This album was selected by @thatpinguino, and you can listen with the links below:

Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/album/5h3WJG0aZjNOrayFu3MhCS?si=LunzemtLToq_Z_zl4-sIIA

Apple Music:https://music.apple.com/us/album/big-fish-theory/1440887126

Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_n98-iurWG5FdxK2pdV71vltAvY-fzrcHo

Here at the Unoffocial Giant Bomb Album Club, we made a pool of albums and we pick one every week to listen to and discuss! If you like your music in the album format, or just music in general, come on down to our discord where we make the pool and chill! Next week is the end of the cycle, but if you want in on the next one, that's where you want to be.

I've learned that I can appreciate metal thanks in large part to this club, and there was also a part of me that could appreciate bluegrass, folk, and country. (Sidenote: The new Beyoncé is very good.) Add on top of that a heavy dose of union songs (which I knew were coming because I looked at the tracklist before listening and I'm already familiar with "Come All Ye Coal Miners" and I've listened to Pete Seeger's version of "Which Side Are You On" about a trillion times). Particularly when it comes to songs from coal mining strikes because I did a bunch of research on the Colorado Coalfield War and the Ludlow Massacre for a project I was working on (I'm a screenwriter) and they're a subject that's become rather dear to me. So I was excited for this album and I was ready to love it.

And I did. At least for the first half to two-thirds.

The thing that worked for me the most was how the genres, metal and bluegrass/folk, were combined. Whereas most would find some way to combine the two, and there is some of that here, they're mostly kept separate. To me, this informs some of the subtext. As @justin258 said above, the lyrics primarily concern the depressingly typical inhumanity of the treatment of union workers in this country and the ecological catastrophe that is coal mining. Bluegrass evokes the long tradition of both and how they're forever entwined into American history. (And I'm not just talking about greenhouse gases, there's a coal seam fire under Centralia, Pennsylvania that's been burning for 60+ years and will continue to burn for a few more centuries.) But there's a madness festering under both that takes the form of insatiable greed and violent apathy. There's a tonality you'd need to express how much rage this madness can bring out in you, and that's where the metal comes in. The bluegrass informs the history. The metal informs the emotion.

Because of that, I was digging this album pretty hard. But then it got a little long in the tooth for me, and moreover, those mixing issues Justin brought up bothered me a lot as well. One of them less so because I recognized it from Harlan County U.S.A. (one of the greatest docs ever made, go watch it), but I had much more trouble with the others. And even I could understand them perfectly, the decision to essentially bury the message of your album in the mix strikes me as utterly bizarre. Screamed vocals, yeah, I'm at peace with the fact that metal's gonna metal. But at a certain point, it takes me out of the experience and makes me wonder if the content is merely window dressing.

Still, my general feelings on Kentucky are positive. It goes a little off the rails and the execution's flawed. (Also I'm with Justin on the "Which Side Are You On?" cover.) But it's hard for me to thumb my nose at loud abrasive music about worker's rights. Union strong.

Favorite Songs: "Bodies Under the Falls" "Come All Ye Coalminers" "Black Soot and Red Blood"

Duders! Welcome to the 57th edition of the Unofficial Giant Bomb Album Club! Last week, we got into our very Canadian feelings with some various Canadian indie rock in the form of The Weakerthans. This week, it's time for some metal/bluegrass (metalgrass?) in coal country. That's right, this week's album is Kentucky by Panopticon! It was picked by our good friend @justin258, and you can listen along with the links below:

Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/album/41MBKLkhzs5dWsELkCW20x

Apple Music:https://music.apple.com/us/album/kentucky/1688787116

Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nEWrk7KObsz_WVUNLuvPXbfbbd9U69rnY

Hey. You fuck with music, specifically in the album format? Then come to the Unofficial Giant Bomb Album Club Discord! It's there where we built our pool of albums and pick one at random every week to listen to and discuss. If that sounds good, then come on down! We're wrapping up this cycle soon, but if you want in on the next one, that's where you want to be.

Yup, that is a Canadian indie rock ass Canadian indie rock album!

I don't know what makes certain sectors of indie rock so identifiably Canadian to me (other than the direct naming of Canadian cities and so on), but if I didn't already know where this band was from, I'm reasonably sure I'd be able to guess. I went to a liberal arts college. You don't leave that experience without being able to tell the nuances between indie/alt rock bands, even if they're only slight. (Also something about the lead singer's voice reminds me of Raycevick.)

I'll be honest, I wasn't particularly looking forward to this. Or rather, I was looking forward to listening to it as I always look forward to listening to club stuff, but I wasn't confident I was going to like it. Indie rock and I have a bumpy relationship. I'm capable of liking it. Even loving it. But I grew up, and the emotionality people who grew up loving rock-oriented sounds imbue into indie rock frequently flies over my head. Or if I'm grumpy, I just think it's boring (If we ever do a hot takes post again, I'll do some indie rock takes.)

Thankfully the latter's not the problem here, and I left this album feeling pretty positive on it. It didn't rock my world or anything like that. But it did have an injection of energy I typically don't associate with indie rock. Some punk influence here and some power pop there. A variety in both its sonic palette and influences that gave me something to hold on to that makes it stand out to me.

It can get repetitive, some of the lyrics struck me as clunky, and the lead singer's voice isn't always for me. However, and I know this is kind of a weird compliment, if I cut my teeth on indie rock I could 100% see this as being my shit. It finds a really good balance between exploring much of what indie rock has to offer while also feeling personal. It didn't change my life, but it's solid.

Favorite Songs: "The Reasons" "Plea From a Cat Called Virtue" "Uncorrected Proofs"

Duders! Welcome to the 56th edition of the Unofficial Giant Bomb Album Club! Last week, we got down to some proggy neo-soul with Hiatus Kaiyote. This week, we go from an Australian band to Canada for some indie rock with Reconstruction Site by The Weakerthans! This album was submitted by @galaxiid and you can listen with the links below:

Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/album/14gpuI6JNy9gekaT0p6m9N?si=tL3_UxTXQGmTnD75OUcNmg

Apple Music:https://music.apple.com/us/album/reconstruction-site/1485041719

Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcZMZxR9uxC87kV9jeVPlqAV85QVwO3Fm

The Unofficial Giant Bomb Album Club! You know what the fuck we did? We made a pool of albums in our Discord and pick one at random every week to listen to and discuss. This cycle will be wrapping up soon (finally), but if you want to get in on the next one, get down here. Now.

It was 2015. I was in my first year of living in Los Angeles, and I just bought a big ass lego set. (Specifically the modular movie theater. I was going to launch into my usual reasoning as to why I still like Lego, but then I remembered that this is a video game website and I don't need to feel insecure about my nerdy shit.) When it arrived, I decided to spend the day listening to albums I hadn't listened to before and building the set. I got 8 albums in that day, I built that entire theater in one sitting, and I honestly consider that day one of the best of my adult life. Or at least the most peaceful. Also by some miracle of probability, I really liked all 8 of the albums, and this was my favorite.

I love this album. I wrote a top 10 list of albums that year on my Facebook and I put it at number 2 under To Pimp a Butterfly. But to give an even more specific quantification of my love for this album, I listened to it so many times in the period after that fateful Lego day that the thought of listening to it again made me want to puke after a while. This is my first time listening to it in years.

Back in the day, I was a full 10/10. Now I would say I'm at a 9.5/10. Really more like a 9.98/10, but as long as we rate albums with numerical scores, I like my scales clean.

It's two things that have led to this ever-so-slight dip in my fervor for Choose Your Weapon. The first is that brain like it when band go very fast, and I think they slow things down ever so slightly too much in the middle portion of the album. The second is that now I live in a world where their third album Mood Valient exists, and in comparison, Choose Your Weapon doesn't seem as adventurous in hindsight.

But I still deeply love this album. In a lot of ways, this album's a bridge from the part of my brain that loves soul music to the other part that loves nerdy stuff. And not just because there's literally a song about Miyazaki and another that ends in a chiptune solo. I listen to this album and hear a bunch of people who are just as joyous about R&B as I am and can't contain it in their own work, and it just makes me feel like a kid all over again. It's a perfect marriage of the aesthetic of neo-soul and the compositional elements of prog, it's vibrant and soundlessly energetic but also achingly romantic, it's most of what I look for in music in one album. I just love it.

Also I disagree with @justin258 about Nai Palm's voice.

Favorite Songs: "Shaolin Monk Motherfunk" "Breathing Underwater" "Molasses"

P.S.,

The 8 albums I listened to on that Lego building day, in the order I listened to them (I keep a list of everything I listen to):

1. Vince Staples, Summertime ‘ 06 (A different Vince Staples album is coming later this cycle. Also I found that old top 10 albums of 2015 post I made and I put this at number 6.)
2. Hiatus Kaiyote, Choose Your Weapon
3. Young Fathers, White Men Are Black Men Too
4. Ibeyi, Ibeyi (Number 5 on my top 10 of 2015. Might pick this one for a later cycle.)
5. Death Grips, The Powers That B
6. Jamie xx, In Colour
7. Skyzoo, Music For My Friends
8. Alabama Shakes, Sound & Color

Duders! Welcome to the 55th edition of the Unofficial Giant Bomb Album Club! Last week, things got very classical and very Soviet with Dmitri Shostakovich. This week, we get the beautiful love child of prog and neo-soul in the form of Choose Your Weapon by Hiatus Kaiyote! This album was selected by yours truly, and you can listen with the following links:

Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/album/3qzmmmRmVBiOuMvrerfW4z?si=LSEFNLSRTnmW-grp_Uer8w

Apple Music:https://music.apple.com/us/album/choose-your-weapon/972218237

Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mxQdlK-tNsc1GCJG5XZ64I3fQBBt5ijv4

You like music? You like unofficial clubs on video game website forums? You like heading over to a discord and submitting an album to be selected at random to be listened to and discussed every week? I know you do, so come on down! We have five albums left in this cycle, but if you want to nerd out until the next cycle comes around, we're here for that!