Sunday, October 9, 2022

Album of the Week: Horizons

One of my long-standing concerns with Record Club is that it is too masculine. Not the music itself, necessarily. I'm saying that, on any given week, the number of reviews that come in for publication are going to consist of majority male opinions from male authors. Not that it's ALL male, seeing as how Pam has written pretty much every week for the past year, and a handful of other female pals are semi-regular contributors. But in terms of pure numbers, the vast majority of words written about Record Club albums are written by males.

This is something I'm going to address eventually (possibly making it a priority in the 2023 calendar year), but for now... we're going to do the opposite and lean into the skid. There's another RC member's bachelor party coming up this weekend, and so here's another slate of male RC members collectively choosing the album in anticipation of that bachelor party.

I know! I'm sorry! This isn't what we should be doing! I am going to work really hard after this to figure out why such a music criticism club ended up skewing so far to the male side of things. But I'm not going to do that this week. Definitely next week.

If you'd like to ignore the fact that at least ten of your male Record Club pals are going to be acting the fool this weekend, then you can always check out the archives and pick out another album to listen to and review. Plenty of strong females on that list, both musicians and RC members. Let us honor them... right after this quick bachelor party.

WEEK 193 — October 9-15, 2022

What we're listening to this week (Brian's and Gary's and Jamie's and Lamson's and Sunny's but mostly Lamson's pick):


ALBUM: Horizons
ARTIST: Surfaces

RELEASED: February 28, 2020

LOCATION: College Station, Texas

WHAT GENRE IS THIS: Per Wikipedia—soul, pop, hip hop, reggae, jazz, calypso (which, I dunno, seems like a lot, but let us find out how accurate it is)

WHY BRIAN AND GARY AND JAMIE AND LAMSON AND SUNNY PICKED IT: My thought was to send a group text to all the dudes who were going to be at Stephan's bachelor party, to see if they could collectively come up with an album that would embody the idea of "Stephan" in some way. About three minutes after I hit send, Lamson sent the group four texts in a row, saying that the album should be Horizons by a band called Surfaces. Here is that brief exchange:

Joe: I will try to stay out of this conversation as much as possible—whatever you guys pick is cool with me—but how is this album connected to / related to / reminiscent of Stephan? That was more of what I think we're looking for here.

Lamson: Yeah idk I just think he would like it. I could add more insight but I just think he would like it.

Fair enough. I sincerely didn't have a horse in this race. Some of the other guys had some good ideas. Gary said Candy Girl by New Edition because Stephan is into baking (would've been interesting to do New Edition only seven months after Bobby Brown). Jamie stated that he was getting Stephan vibes from Syreeta, and Sunny agreed. Sunny also tried to test the waters as far as soundtracks go (NO!!!!!!). Gary said that they should just ask Allison. Jamie reminded us that Stephan was a trumpet player. Brian tried to combine the baking idea and the trumpet idea by suggesting Chet Baker.

Once the conversation petered out a bit, Lamson hit us with this:


Which, to be fair, is very funny. And also probably settles the matter? I have no idea whether Surfaces is going to embody the idea of Stephan in any significant way, but I appreciate the legwork done in the name of Record Club.

Sidenotes: Stephan did not participate in the group chat so that this can be a surprise, and Sam did not participate because he was a bachelor party co-organizer, and plus he just picked last week. I will force both of them to write a review for Horizons. Pat and Dwyer and Dranders declined participation in the conversation, for reasons of varying degrees of legitimacy (newborn and new dog and ???, respectively), so they aren't technically on the hook for writing a Horizons review, but I'm still going to ask them to write one anyway (especially because Dranders still owes us a Thin Lizzy review).

TRACKLIST:
  1. Rising
  2. Take It Easy
  3. Good Day
  4. Lazy
  5. Bloom
  6. Sunny Side Up
  7. Sky Interlude
  8. Remedy
  9. Dancing with Nobody
  10. All Around
  11. Horizons
  12. Keep It Gold
LENGTH: 35:47

WHERE TO LISTEN FOR FREE: YouTube

READING SOME SHIT: Here's an interview with Songwriter Universe. There's a picture of the two guys from Surfaces, and they look exactly like the two random fucking bros that Lamson invited to your party without asking you if it was cool.

RECORD CLUB ALBUM ON THE DAY THAT THIS ALBUM WAS RELEASED: 1000 gecs by 100 gecs (with reviews from Joe, Pam, Sara, Sunny, Meagan, and Nate)

PREVIOUSLY ON RECORD CLUB: Big Sophistafunk vibes from this one (though I haven't listened to Surfaces yet, so maybe I'm getting the wrong impression from what I've read).

EVERY ALBUM THAT BRIAN AND GARY AND JAMIE AND LAMSON AND SUNNY AND STEPHAN AND STEPHAN'S GRANDMOTHER HAVE CHOSEN FOR RECORD CLUB SO FAR, IN ORDER FROM WORST TO BEST:

1. Long Season

Happy listening, fam! Have a great bachelor party, Stephan!
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