I thought about one of my favourite albums of all time today which is ‘Black Love’ by Afghan Whigs. I’ll totally admit that I bought this album as a 15 year-old because NME gave it 9/10. It was released around the same time as ‘Dust’ by Screaming Trees which they also gave 9/10, but I could never get into that record so much – ‘Black Love’ on the other hand, I still listen to regularly to this day.
It seems to be general consensus that ‘Gentlemen’ is Afghan Whigs’ masterpiece, but for me ‘Black Love' is not only their best album, but one of the best albums of all time. The very 90’s concept of a record-as-movie was played-out by the time this was released in 1995, but if one album in my collection deserves to be described as ‘cinematic’ it’s ‘Black Love’. I guess there’s a thematic arc throughout its 11 tracks that make it play like some sort of grunge-rock-noir version of ‘Chinatown’ in my head. I’m making it sound bad now (especially as I haven’t even seen ‘Chinatown’ all the way through), but ‘Black Love’ is also kind of important insofar as it taught me that there was other music to be investigated outside guitar bands from Seattle. it's drenched in soul and funk – genres it has to be said that my 15 year-old self wasn’t too big on.
The overriding memory I have of this album is being on a Spanish exchange in Madrid and taking my cassette copy of this album with me and sitting on my bed listening to ‘Honky’s Ladder’ over and over again on my walkman thinking of home and feeling a bit socially retarded - so I guess some things never change.
It seems to be general consensus that ‘Gentlemen’ is Afghan Whigs’ masterpiece, but for me ‘Black Love' is not only their best album, but one of the best albums of all time. The very 90’s concept of a record-as-movie was played-out by the time this was released in 1995, but if one album in my collection deserves to be described as ‘cinematic’ it’s ‘Black Love’. I guess there’s a thematic arc throughout its 11 tracks that make it play like some sort of grunge-rock-noir version of ‘Chinatown’ in my head. I’m making it sound bad now (especially as I haven’t even seen ‘Chinatown’ all the way through), but ‘Black Love’ is also kind of important insofar as it taught me that there was other music to be investigated outside guitar bands from Seattle. it's drenched in soul and funk – genres it has to be said that my 15 year-old self wasn’t too big on.
The overriding memory I have of this album is being on a Spanish exchange in Madrid and taking my cassette copy of this album with me and sitting on my bed listening to ‘Honky’s Ladder’ over and over again on my walkman thinking of home and feeling a bit socially retarded - so I guess some things never change.
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