Five Albums My Professor Thinks You Should Hear

Ever wonder what kind of music Cross-Media News Writing professors listen to? Well, today’s your lucky day. 

By: Harry Sutton

This year, when I told my Journalism 211 professor that I wanted to be a music journalist, I got a response that I didn’t expect. He didn’t want to give me cliché advice about the industry or ramble on about his achievements. Instead he wanted to know what kind of music I was interested in. He recommended to me a book written by the frontman of The Talking Heads, an app that keeps pinpoint statistics of what I listen to on Spotify, and showed me a glimpse of his newest music-related project: a mashup tape of MF Doom and disco songs. 

I found myself enthused and curious as to what other music he listens to, so I asked him for some album recommendations. Over the past few months, I’ve listened to a bunch of them, so here are five albums that Mr. Martinez thinks you should listen to. 

There’s No Place Like America Today by Curtis Mayfield

There's No Place Like America Today by Curtis Mayfield is a soul/RnB album that transports you to a gray and somber American city in the 1970s, illustrating the urban struggle of the time with immensely powerful politically-relevant music. Echoed in the sardonic album cover, a 1937 photo taken by Margaret Bourke-White in Louisville, the project deals with the dichotomy of The American Dream (represented by a vibrant and idyllic cartoon of a smiling white family in the car) and the African-American struggle (reflected by the desaturated, gloomy row of black Americans lined up on the city sidewalk for a handout). 

Singing “the system need us/ but it’s trying to mislead us/ they know this money don’t feed us”, Mayfield mostly focused on urban life in the ‘70s, only interrupted by a gospel track (“Jesus”) and a ballad of earnest infatuation (“So In Love”, my favorite track–which I later discovered was Mr. Martinez’ wedding song). Characterized by smooth drums, subtle horns, funky guitar riffs and Mayfield’s mellifluous falsetto, the album combines a powerful message with true musical mastery.

Remember My Song by Labi Siffre

Also released in 1975 was Labi Siffre’s Remember My Song. I immediately recognized the artist from two major samples in the modern rap world (Kanye West’s use of “My Song” on “I Wonder”, and Dr. Dre’s iconic loop of Siffre’s “I Got The…” on Eminem’s “My Name Is”).

After listening, it’s clear to see why Siffre is so often sampled nowadays; his playful instrumentation and tremendous range make the record enjoyable. I was immediately captivated by “I Got The…”, but my expectations shifted when the next few songs mellowed out the mood, with comparatively minimal ballads of love and heartbreak. 

After a handful of calmer tracks, Remember My Song returns to its dynamic state on the B-Side, with “The Vulture” and “Sadie and the Devil” restoring the vivacity that the intro incited. Taken individually, the songs hold up, but the project’s only glaring flaw is its sequencing. Semi-erratically bouncing back and forth between slow jams and buoyant soulful funk-rock, it can feel incongruent on a full listen. While the mood shifts frequently, there is no denying the quality of Siffre’s vocal range, songwriting, and instrumental arrangements. 

45:33 by LCD Soundsystem

LCD Soundsystem’s 45:33 is a long-form composition that Nike commissioned in 2006 as part of their “Nike+ Original Run” promotional series. The project was initially marketed as having been designed as the perfect soundtrack for a jogging workout. Lead vocalist and songwriter, James Murphy, later disproved this advertising ploy, saying that the music wasn’t made for a workout, but that Nike’s sponsorship simply gave him an excuse to create the long-form project that he always wanted to. Murphy credited German composer Manuel Göttsching’s E2-E4 as the project's biggest inspiration: a minimalistic, hour-long electronic project that dominated club scenes in the ‘80s. 

Though I may have been eating a  Halal Shack rice bowl in Schine for the entirety of my listening, I concur that the composition would accompany a morning jog quite swimmingly. The 46-minute experiment is minimal in lyricism, but the entrancing syncopations and sparkly synths provide a constantly stimulating experience. LCD Soundsystem plays around with styles of synth pop, electronic, disco and funk,and occasionally jazz, making for a zippy and coruscating experience. The project wasn’t designed for replayability, but it is certainly worth a listen for those who fancy vibrant digital instrumentation.

Fetch the Bolt Cutters by Fiona Apple

Fiona Apple’s fifth album, Fetch The Bolt Cutters, is an ambitious art pop record that emphasizes raw expression. Put together largely on GarageBand, the album is intentionally and powerfully unrefined, featuring minimal production that is entirely percussion-driven. She forgoes drums for her mise en place of percussion, opting rather to bang on the walls, stomp on the floors and fling household objects around the room to create her beats. Apple pairs this with an unedited, manic mixture of vocal expression, where her melodies are often backed by whispers, screams, laughs, groans and even dog barks. 

Fetch The Bolt Cutters uses some traditional pop techniques but juxtaposes them with unpredictable song structures and a purposefully slipshod medley of homemade percussion. The album is hinged on its jumbled rhythms, which reflect the chaos that goes on inside the heated human mind. With most tracks solely consisting of Apple’s voice and percussion instruments, she achieves a more intimate form of communication with the listener. Her delivery is dragged along by the rummaging drums, which constantly redirect the pace and focus of each track. At times the tracks are dictated so commandingly by their percussion that they feel like tribal chants.

Apple’s lyrics are rooted in the oppression of women, but the tone moves from sad to angry to ebulliently triumphant. She details soul crushing traumas that simultaneously feel ultimately personal yet applicable to women everywhere, but at times she also shrugs off her struggles with humor. The most rewarding listens on the album are songs like the title track and “Under the Table”, where Apple valiantly revolts against those who have done her wrong.

Doolittle by Pixies

Pixies’ frontman Black Francis had a highly publicized feud with label-hired producer, Gil Norton, during the creation of their 1989 album, Doolittle. Norton looked to turn the band towards a more commercial-friendly sound, while Francis was settled on keeping them more grungy.

I immediately recognized the album, partially for the mainstream success of songs like “Here Comes Your Man” and “Hey”, and partially because it was one of my mom’s favorite albums in college. Looking back on it over 30 years later, Black Francis and the label producers should both feel satisfied, as the album gained tremendous critical and commercial success, while remaining unquestionably grungy. Francis wrote every song on Doolittle with a surrealist standpoint, repeatedly highlighting themes like death, violence, torture and a smattering of Biblical analogies. Like the album cover (a blueprint scheme of a monkey wearing a halo), much of the album’s imagery is not intended to be understood. In the year Doolittle was released, Francis described his outlandish songwriting as “an escape from reality… totally artificial.” 

The album is built on a black-and-white interpolation of loud and quiet, with desolate soundscapes and eerie whispering vocals instantaneously transitioning into screaming, drum smashing, and feverish guitar lines. 

Pixies is one of the bands whose name is always mentioned alongside Sonic Youth, The Stone Roses and Talking Heads as one of the most influential alternative rock bands of the ‘80s, and Doolittle is one of the essential reasons why.