John Zorn - Naked City

Oh Friday. I'm happy to see you! For a couple reasons - 1) The weekend if nearly here, which is phenomenal. 2) I'm no longer feeling sick, which is tremendous. 3) I only have a half day today! Hooray! Sorry again about no posts yesterday - I could barely drag myself out of bed to even let you guys know I was in rough shape. So today, I get back to album reviews and follower mithrandr's suggestion of John Zorn. I'm not 100% sure where he comes up with some of this kooky stuff, but alas - here it is. Zorn runs the gambit of music. This album shows pretty much every genre you can think of, except for maybe hip hop or something. It's mostly jazzy - but jazz on speed or something. There are a couple tracks where heavy metal seems to be fused in with jazz, which is super crazy. Zorn was born in 1953 in good old New York City. He started making music at the ripe age of 20. He played flute, piano and guitar as a child, and then learned pretty much every other instrument known to man. He started doing composer work early in his career, ended up getting into the punk rock scene and doing some film scores. Wikipedia has a super long section just on this record if you look up Mr. Zorn. I won't rehash it here, but just encourage you to check it out. They've got a lot of things to say about this album and it's concept. I will just share that this is VERY different. I kind of enjoy it, mainly because of how it's arranged. You go from 'Speedball' to 'Chinatown' which is like going from Pantera to Kenny G back to back. That's right up my alley. Anyway, give this a go today. Like I always say, if nothing else, just to expand your musical horizons.

TRACK LISTING:
1. Batman
2. The Sicilian Clan
3. You Will Be Shot
4. Latin Quarter
5. A Shot in the Dark
6. Reanimator
7. Snagglepuss
8. I Want to Live
9. Lonely Woman
10. Igneous Ejaculation
11. Blood Duster
12. Hammerhead
13. Demon Sanctuary
14. Obeah Man
15. Ujaku
16. Fuck the Facts
17. Speedball
18. Chinatown
19. Punk China Doll
20. N.Y. Flat Top Box
21. Saigon Pickup
22. The James Bond Theme
23. Den of Sins
24. Contempt
25. Graveyard Shift
26. Inside Straight

Listen To Samples

Top 3 Tracks:
1. Saigon Pickup
2. Chinatown
3. James Bond Theme

FINAL RATING:
3.5 out of 5 stars