Album anniversaries: Three records to celebrate in February 2024
Every month of 2024, Euronews Culture takes a trip down memory lane and handpicks a trio of albums celebrating a major milestone.
(January's trio, in case you missed them, can be found here.)
These are the three records you should choose to (re)discover as they respectively turn 10, 20, and 30 this February.
Turing 10 in 2024: Wild Beasts – Present Tense
(Release date: 25 February 2014)
British indie rockers Wild Beasts lasted a solid 16 years together, and it’s no hyperbole to state that they were once one of the UK’s most distinctive talents. The dualling voices of members Tom Fleming and Hayden Thorpe are missed, but the band left behind them five stunning albums to show for it, each with their own merits and always boasting immaculate production. And this year, perhaps their most accomplished album turns 10.
After 2011’s excellent and smooth-sounding 'Smother', the band’s fourth album, 'Present Tense', saw Wild Beasts polish their synthy leanings, but this time with a more lyrical sensibility. In fact, 'Present Tense' could be their most emotional album, as the band's sharp observations on masculinity, sex, and sensuality are met with an added dose of romance that contrasted at the time with the lad-rock that made countless NME covers. Not that 'Present Tense' saw them lose their signature swagger, as their sleek R&B-indebted pop feels incredibly foreboding. The feelings are there, but there’s a directness on this record that was absent from 'Smother' and their second album, 'Two Dancers'.
The track that gets the most attention is the opener ‘Wanderlust’ and its soft growls that feel menacing yet inviting. Further down the tracklist, songs like ‘Daughters’, ‘Mecca’ and the mesmeric ‘Nature Boy’ show a band at the height of their powers, with their talent fully aligning with their ambitions.
Wild Beasts’ final album would come two years later with the underrated 'Boy King', which was a fitting swansong, despite the poor reviews in 2016. However, if there’s one album you’d do well to start with should Wild Beasts have passed you by, it’s ‘Present Tense’. It’s dense but never impenetrable, and its feverish collection of songs collide with one another to immerse you in a dirge unlike any other.
Yeah, we’re fans. Can you tell? Also turning 10 in January: Hurray For The Riff Raff’s superb ‘Small Town Heroes’; Beck’s Grammy Award winning twelfth album ‘Morning Phase’; arguably St. Vincent’s best album, ‘St. Vincent’.
Turning 20 in 2024: Melissa Auf der Maur – Auf der Maur
(Release date: 02 February 2004)
An obvious pick for an album turning 20 this month would have been German-born British composer and pianist Max Richter’s ‘The Blue Notebooks’, a post-classical masterpiece that topped our ranking of the Best European Albums of the 21st Century...So Far. However, we like to shake things up here, and thought it best to shine the spotlight on an album that perhaps never got the praise it deserved. We’re talking about Melissa Auf der Maur’s eponymous debut album, which celebrates its two decades.
Prior to ‘ Auf der Maur’, the Canadian musician was best known as the bassist extraordinaire for the bands Hole and The Smashing Pumpkins, having replaced D’Arcy on the Pumpkins’ line-up in the early 2000s. Once the band’s Sacred and Profane tour was over, they broke up (only to re-emerge four years later... and they’ve never been quite as good since). Auf der Maur apparently did not have plans to continue her music career, but gave it a good go anyway – and we’re glad she did.
'Auf der Maur' is a riff-filled gem that contains stomper after stomper – the sort of guitar-driven, arena-scale beast that never backs down, or lack oomph or melody. While the themes and lyrics can often betray the fact that this is a debut album, you'll be too busy having a great time with an impressive amount of rock tunes.
Auf der Maur’s sensual vocal delivery is perfect to cut through