Why is KT Tunstall’s Eye to the Telescope on my best 1,000 albums ever list?
If you’re not yet hip to it, suddenly you shall see that super satisfying sounds abound.
What does KT Tunstall’s Eye to the Telescope mean to me? What does it make me feel? Why is it exciting or compelling?
I can’t recall the first time I heard “Suddenly I See.” Perhaps it was in the final days that I still listened to terrestrial radio in any kind of way. I mention this because while it has been on my radar for many years, it’s not the kind of song that I’d necessarily seek out ordinarily.
But upon further review, I realized that it demands to be listened to as it’s compulsively catchy and lovely, wonderfully layered and constructed, all topped by Tunstall’s voice, which occupies a really nice zone between coffee house singer songwriter and alternative rocker.
“Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” (a song title that I imagine Jack White wishes he could have snagged for one of his projects) strikes a similar mood, with a nice boot stomping, shuffle-y vibe and really fun whoo hoo backing vocals.
Much of the album has a really pleasing dreamy quality, and “Other Side of the World” especially does while striking a Cheryl Crow-ish vibe.
In reading some reviews of Eye to the Telescope, I saw it called out for being “over produced” a few times. It certainly has a lushness and sheen to it, but for my money it very much works overall.
This album also sounds like
I see a nice mix of Dido, Cheryl Crow, and Fiona Apple, though Tunstall definitely leans much harder into the rock side of the singer songwriter/adult alternative spectrum in a great way.
Personal stuff that’s somehow related to KT Tunstall’s Eye to the Telescope
There’s something about the sound of this album that evokes the feeling of movement. Even the album cover, showing Tunstall’s hair being blown around, makes you want to get in the car, turn the (terrestrial radio, I guess?) music up, and hit the road.
Preferably roads with traffic and stuff, the fun happy no traffic roads on a nice day without terrible weather and without needing to be at work on time or you’re going to miss the Really Big Meeting and stuff. But I digress.
That quality and the year Eye to the Telescope was released, 2005, takes me back to an oddball time in my life and career, when I spent a great many of my waking hours on the not so open roads of Southern California. My job entailed giving lectures on Internet and academic research skills to graduate schools. So that’s one way to put it, right?
Another is to say that I would trek to exotic sounding places like the Antelope Valley and Palm Desert, find my way to distance learning centers often located in strip malls, and ply my trade for tired, overworked grad students who were trying to upgrade their educational and professional credentials while working fulltime gigs at the same time.
On good thing was that I had the time (oh, I had the time!) to listen to plenty of music. I think I was listening to the earliest forms of podcasts by then, too, which I would download off a desktop computer and then copy over to an early edition iPod. Books on tape, too, many of which I purchased used on the super cheap from eBay.
So to this day there are artists (Henry Rollins), public figures (Colin Powell), and books (Stephen King’s On Writing) that automatically make me think of driving through the desert while sipping on a gargantuan-sized Diet Coke purchased from Carl’s Jr. (approximately 83% of the time, if you throw a rock in the SoCal desert, you’ll hit a Carl’s Jr. – it’s been documented).
And “Suddenly I See,” too.
Some stats & info about KT Tunstall – Eye to the Telescope
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rock, Indie Rock, Adult Alternative, Singer Songwriter, Pop Music
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 3.5 out of 5 stars
- When was Eye to the Telescope released? 2005
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #977 out of 1,000
KT Tunstall’s Eye to the Telescope on Spotify
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective take on what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.