1001 Albums Journey

This album boasts one of the worst lyrics ever: "It's better to burn out 'cause rust never sleeps." Dull, dull, dull music. Arrangements consist of just strummed guitars--no art or nuance involved whatsoever. Oh, okay, now this is a little better. Ride My Llama at least has some halfway interesting rhythms and chord progressions. Actually, some of these songs aren't bad--there are some decent melodic hooks. The album actually gets better as it goes along. The first two songs were the pits. Neil Young's lead guitar playing on Powderfinger is atrocious. He's totally unconvincing as a rocker. Crazy Horse reveals itself to be a deeply mediocre backing band. 2 stars out of 5 and that's being generous.

Hideous 80s synth tones--check. Ugly ass programmed drums--check. At least the rhythms are layered. There's also a welcome overlay of funk on the first track. Why was there such a sickening emphasis on the backbeat in 80s music? I'll give New Order this: they're big on interlocking instrumental parts, which gives their music interest it would otherwise not have. Another thing in the album's favor is that there is a fair degree of variety in the songs. Some of it's synth-heavy, some of it's more conventional guitar-based pop. Unfortunately, the melodies, harmonic content, and lyrics are bland and hackneyed, especially in the more conventional songs. This is not terrible for 80s pop, which ain't saying much. Three songs before the end of the album, I was dying for it to end. One and a half stars out of 5.

When I saw this was the album with Clapton's cover of "I Shot The Sheriff" on it, my heart sank. Why on earth would a guy like Clapton cover Bob Marley except to whitewash reggae for a white audience and cash in? At least put your own spin on it like The Specials or The Police. Jeez. The first tune on the album, Motherless Children, made me think that maybe my fears were misplaced. It's an energetic blues cover in the pop style of Clapton's debut solo album, and a good listen. But every subsequent tune is a disaster. It turns out that 461 Ocean Boulevard is a middle of the road, poppy, radio ready take on roots music, and it's about as exciting as watching somebody fart in a swimming pool. Basically, Clapton takes a huge dump on the legacy he crafted with Cream and his first solo album. It's fucking nauseating, just vile, a complete waste of talent, a competent backing band, time, and vinyl. Every copy of this record should be cut up and turned into guitar picks.

I'll start off with a disclaimer. I don't especially enjoy vocalist John Fogerty's vocals. I find him strident, overly earnest, and lacking nuance. But you could just as easily describe him as passionate and holding nothing back. So, on to the music. I'm three songs in and so far, I'm unpleasantly surprised. I fully expected this album to be chock full of memorable hooks, so familiar from hits like "Fortunate Son," "Who'll Stop the Rain," and even "Born on the Bayou." Instead what you get is utterly basic and generic roots rock. "Wrote a Song for Everyone" is a little better, but it's not until you get to "Bad Moon Rising" that the album kicks into gear. There's a few more pleasant but unremarkable tunes and then we get a genuine shocker: a blistering cover of Ray Charles "The Night Time is the Right Time," a drastic improvement over the original, which Creedence completely makes their own. In fact, I'd say this is the definitive version. The last two songs are instrumentals. The last, "Glory Be," is a bit of a wasted opportunity. It has some catchy riffs and a fair amount of energy. With an impassioned vocal performance added on top, "Glory Be" would have been another hit for Creedence. If not for "Bad Moon on the Rise" and "The Night Time Is the Right Time," this album would be a complete waste of time. As it is, I give "Green River" 2 1/2 stars out of 5.

Oh, boy. Here we go, again. Crappy 80s synths. Hideous echoey drums emphasizing the backbeat. Inconsequential melodies and song structures. We don't even have the saving grace of interesting rhythms or song lyrics. This is self-serious, humorless tripe, the dullest of dull pop. It's not even danceable. It makes me want to curl up and die. Not even the moderately original album closer Pimpf, with it operatic vocals, comes close to redeeming this dreadful album. 1 star out of 5 and only because I can't give it less. I'm beginning to have my doubts about the curators of this list.

Jeff Buckley isn't really my jam, but his passion, creativity, and originality cannot be denied. On Buckley's debut album, Grace, his incredibly rich soundworld, melodies, and song forms spring to life fully formed like Athena springing from Zeus' head. You could listen to this album every day for a month and hear new details every time. Reviewers reach for comparisons to Robert Plant, grunge, folk music, Arabic singing, but the truth is that he sounds like none of them. The only thing he sounds like is Jeff Buckley. I'm not sure I would call Grace a masterpiece. I don't care for the timber of Buckley's voice and it's not like I'm going to be humming these tunes any time soon. But if you're the type of person who gets bored easily, you'll be fascinated by how the serpentine twists and turns of the music, and how Buckley never, ever repeats himself. I've got to give credit where credit is due. 4 stars out of 5.

Yoshimi is the sequel to The Soft Bulletin, except it's also a loosely organized allegorical concept album about the struggle of humanity to extricate itself from the technological disaster it's created, but lyricist Wayne Coyne concentrates on the human costs involved. I'm a sucker for these kinds of themes to begin with, but the Lips do something unique with it. Their lyrics are goofy, heartfelt, incisive, and utterly humane, which couldn't be more endearing. Musically, the Lips write fairly simple pop songs with pretty melodies, but they've come up with arrangements that complement and deepen their lyrical content beautifully. They adroitly mix warm analog guitars with digital drums, orchestral flourishes, blatantly artificial and sometimes silly synth patches, augmented with studio trickery and faux-documentary excerpts, all grounded by Wayne Coyne's tremulous, wistful voice. Numerous psychedelic touches reveal The Lips' devotion to Pink Floyd, but they sound nothing like them, really. Are there weak spots? Yes, but they are hard to find. I find Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Part II musically uninteresting and just plain silly. There is a preponderance of ballads. Nothing really rocks hard. But these are minor complaints. Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots is a very strong album and well worth your time. 4 stars out of 5.

Dookie is the sort of basic update of 50s rock 'n roll/70s punk that always gives music critics a hardon, but I do understand the appeal. The melodic lines are clean, the songs are tightly written and performed, there's a ton of energy, Billy Joe Armstrong's voice is perfect for this sort of material, and the crystal clear production showcases the trio admirably. But frankly, it's all a bit monotonous and one dimensional. The majority of the songs are straight up ravers with hardly any shading. Even The Stooges had the noisescapes of guitarists Ron Ashton and James Williamson to keep things interesting. The band doesn't really throw any curveballs with the lone exception of Longview, Billy Joe's paean to masturbation. On that tune, Michael Pritchard's bass plays a major role on the verses and Billy Joe's voice and guitar comes roaring back on the choruses. I was always happy when that song came on the radio, and I didn't really mind the other hits like When I Come Around and Welcome to Paradise either. But a whole album's worth of that kind of stuff and I start shifting in my seat halfway through. While it's all perfectly executed, I can't in all conscience give this more than 3/5.

Interesting choice. This is considered by many to be the crowning glory of Stevie's amazing run of classic albums starting with either Music of My Mind or Talking Book. I'm not one of them. The quality of Songs In the Key of Life is a marked drop-off from those earlier albums. Isn't She Lovely is musically trite. Ebony Eyes sounds like something he knocked out in five minutes as a joke. The instrumental Contusion is a cringeable foray into fusion, lacking sophistication or subtlety, with awful, on-the-nose drumming. The synths on Village Ghetto Land, Pastime Paradise, Saturn, and I Am Singing are an embarrassment. How could this happen? Because this is the first album in Stevie's classic run that didn't have Malcolm Cecil and Bob Margouleff programming Stevie's synthesizers. And maybe, after all the adulation, Stevie started to believe his own press, and came to the conclusion that he was incapable of creating mediocre music. It turns out Stevie did have limits to his talent, after all. That said, we're talking about Stevie Wonder, one of a handful of indisputable geniuses of R&B. So of course there are a number of wonderful songs on Songs In the Key of Life. It's just not the classic it's cracked up to be. 3 stars out of 5.

Shit

Billie Holiday is in unusually fine form for such a late-period release. Her voice might crack now and then (she lived life really hard), but her pitch, phrasing and interpretation skills are as immaculate as ever. Trouble arrives with the charts by arranger/conductor Ray Ellis, which are utterly conventional, without an ounce of soul, and dated as hell, stamping this irrevocably as a late 50s product. Every bit of grit and worldliness has to come from Billie, and even if she's up to the task, there's zero musical interest in these tunes, apart from Billie and the songs themselves, which are classic tin pan alley. If not for Billie, this would be an instantly disposable snooze, and that's putting it kindly. 2 1/2 stars out of 5.

The first thing to know about Talking With The Taxman About Poetry is that it's a folk album. The primary instrument in these songs is electric guitar, adorned with the occasional violin, trumpet or organ. The arrangements are sparse, but effective and varied. As an instrument, Billy Bragg's voice is humble and plain, well-suited to the folk idiom. The point of this music is the songs themselves, which while simple, are tuneful, with thoughtful lyrics about a variety of topics. Still, I don't understand why this album is on this list. I cannot imagine this LP rocking anyone's world. It breaks no new ground, in fact, it's defiantly retro. That said, on its own terms, Talking With the Taxman About Poetry is pretty much perfection. How to rate? I cannot in good conscience give this any higher than a 3. 3/5

The good news about Illmatic is it's sonically pleasant. The beats have flava (shoot me for using the slang) and the samples are tasteful, well-chosen and varied. There's some nice scratching on The World is Ours and Memory Lane. Olu Dara's sinuous trumpet lines are welcome on Life's a Bitch. Unfortunately, it's all downhill from there. There are few new insights here, just the same old gangster rap tropes and DJ braggadocio you've heard a million times before. Okay, that might be a little harsh. Nas redeems himself slightly as a storyteller on Memory Lane and One Love, which have a palpable sense of place and an elegiac, melancholy tone, unusual in rap. Unfortunately, Nas' raps are rhythmically remedial. They're fluid enough, but lack creativity and variety. Frankly, Illmatic mostly bored the shit out of me. One small blessing: the usual misogyny and homophobia are kept to a minimum. 1 1/2 points for the musical backgrounds, 1/2 point for the raps. 2/5

Shit

It is very rare that a 10+ minute track earns its length, even in classical music or jazz, much less pop, so when I saw that the first eponymous tune on Timeless clocked in at 21:02, I was like "Uh, oh." Uh, oh indeed. The track starts out with godawful, ugly orchestra synth swooshes before some breakbeats kick in. I've gotta be honest. This kind of dance music has to be really creative and innovative before I can enjoy it and this music is just nothing special. At least Goldie is lucky enough to have a decent singer in Diane Charlemagne, although the melodies are pretty remedial. Actually, remedial is a good description for the entire track and this goes on for 20 fucking minutes. Good God! Given that the title track is obviously the centerpiece of the album, it would have been a miracle if the rest of the album was an improvement. Alas, a miracle was not forthcoming. Goldie makes The Knack look cerebral and deep.

I had an odd thought while listening to Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge: on a couple of cuts (Good Enough, Something So Clear), the band reminds me of Velvet Underground. Obviously, the two bands are from completely different genres, but the guitar strumming is straight up Lou Reed, and the drumming has the single (and simple) minded intensity of Maureen Tucker. Considering this album is considered a classic, it's disappointing. You have to wait 5 songs until you get to a solid tune like Into The Drink. Up until then, the tunes are so basic as to be borderline insulting. I mean, primitivism can be legitimate, but there are limits, at least for me. Unfortunately, Mudhoney is the sort of band that lives and dies on individual songs. They don't have the requisite musicianship to carry them through marginal material. The lead guitarist can't play a lick, and he doesn't have great ears either, so his attempts at artful noise fall flat. I actually like grunge, but this is pretty weak.

Let's forget a minute how influential Little Richard was and is, especially vocally--it's hard to imagine James Brown, Paul McCartney, Wilson Pickett or David Lee Roth without him. Is there any reason we shouldn't just consign Little Richard to rock 'n roll history? Surprisingly, yes. Here's Little Richard is more or less evenly split between rock 'n roll and Crescent City R&B, and it's pretty basic stuff. But two things set it apart and keep it relevant: Little Richard's pounding piano style and the sheer energy and stylistic innovation of his vocals. Even now, Little Richard's vocals are exciting. That said, a whole of album of this gets a little samey, but I'll give it 3.5 stars on the strength of Little Richard's performance alone.

The first time I heard the Talking Heads was their smash hit Psycho Killer, which I didn't much like. It struck me at the time as a novelty tune, goofiness for it's own sake, and I wasn't amused. But unlike many other groups, Talking Heads is best understood in the context of their albums rather than their singles, and so it is with Talking Heads '77. It turns out that front man David Byrne's dyspeptic yelp is of a piece with his elliptical musings about emotional states and offbeat philosophizing. Although Talking Heads is lumped in with punk and new wave, it doesn't have a lot in common with either. For one thing, the songs are a lot more complex musically than most punk and new wave. For another the rhythm section of Tina Weymouth on bass Chris Frantz on drums is frequently funky, drawing from pop, R&B, and Latin music. Taken together, these elements result in music which is as brainy as it is fun. And finally, Psycho Killer reveals itself as simply the most outré and extreme of the songs on Talking Heads '77, and frankly, the least interesting of the bunch. Taken together, Talking Heads '77 is a consistently terrific album and as clear a statement of purpose as you could want from a band's first album.

First off, let me stipulate that Bob Dylan is one of a handful of great lyricists of the rock era, and certainly the most political, and some of Dylan's most trenchant lyrics can be found on Highway 61 Revisited. Now, not everyone felt that way. Syd Barrett wrote a hilarious take down of Dylan called The Bob Dylan Blues: Got the Bob Dylan blues And the Bob Dylan shoes And my clothes and my hair's in a mess But you know I just couldn't care less Goin' to write me a song 'Bout what's right and what's wrong 'Bout god and my god and all that Quiet while I make like a cat 'Cause I'm a poet, don't ya know it And the wind, you can blow it Cause I'm Mr. Dylan, the king And I'm free as a bird on the wing Roam from town to town Guess I get people down But I don't care too much about that 'Cause my gut and my wallet are fat Make a whole lotta dough But I deserve it though I've got soul and a good heart of gold So I'll sing about war in the cold 'Cause I'm a poet, don't ya know it And the wind, you can blow it Cause I'm Mr. Dylan, the king And I'm free as a bird on the wing Now, aside from his lyrics, Dylan isn't a bad songwriter. No, I take that back. His compositions are often sturdy and occasionally inspired, if still fairly basic. And the covers of his work, by artists as varied as Hendrix and Keith Jarrett, prove that point. But as a performing artist, Dylan's charms are way overstated. His sneering talk singing may put across his lyrics, but musically, it kind of sucks. Ditto his guitar playing, ditto his harp playing. There's only so much Michael Bloomfield on guitar and Al Kooper on organ can do to save Highway 61 Revisited, and this is far from their strongest work, anyway. There's a little more energy on Highway 61 Revisited than on Dylan's previous albums, which makes the music more bearable, but to call this "hard bluesy rock" is ludicrous. Once again, an artist's reputation distorts the critical evaluation of their work. I'll give this a 2.5 out of 5 and only because of Dylan's abilities as a songwriter.

Obviously, The Temptations Cloud Nine was groundbreaking at the time for its use of funk, but how does it hold up? To modern ears, the earnestness of the lyrics grates a little. Social consciousness is one thing, but these lyrics are pretty on the nose. But how about the music? The playing and arrangements of the first three tracks in the relatively new funk style are impeccable. They groove relentlessly. And sure enough, it's the Temps, so the vocals kick ass. After the initial blast of funk, the rest of the album reverts to the Temptations signature smooth soul. This is not necessarily a bad thing. There's a lot to be said for soulful and varied vocals, competent if conventional arrangements, and the solid songcraft and musicianship from the Motown stable. I've got to be honest. I prefer 70s soul to 60s soul, but Cloud Nine is one of the more solid efforts of the period. There is little of the outright filler, pointless covers of hit material, and outright pandering to crossover audiences that was all too common on Motown releases. I'll subtract half a point for some painful earnestness and out of subjective personal preference. 4 1/2 out of 5

It's going to be a bit difficult for me to review this record impartially. I was around when it came out and I pretty much accepted it as a masterpiece along with the rest of the world at the time, but here goes. ...And the Gods Made Love starts out the album with some primitive slowed down speech, flanging, stereo effects and the like, but even here, a high level of artistry and imagination is apparent. The first proper song, Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland) blends rock, soul, and psychedelia seamlessly, with a flowing melody and changes which are as surprising as the seem inevitable. Cross Town Traffic gives us a jolt of pure pop. The low tech and inspired use of a comb and a piece of cellophane provides the vocal effects. Hendrix and Stevie Winwood (on organ) provide a master class in electrifying the blues on Voodoo Child that hasn't been approached, much less equalled since. I'm also amazed by how the musicians, seemingly communicating telepathically, improvise much of the music, building and building the drama and intensity throughout the 15 minute run time, without a wasted second. Hendrix's phrasing and tone are phenomenal on this live in the studio track, and Winwood comes close to matching him. Finally, with Little Miss Strange, we get a tune which is merely very good. Noel Redding's lead vocals are a little wimpy here, but it's a charming tune nonetheless. With Long Hot Summer Night, Hendrix is back to combining soul and rock in his unique way. Don't let the ease with which it goes down blind you to the complexity and taste of the composition and arrangement. Come On (Let The Good Times Roll) is a straightforward blues tune, good but nothing special. Hey, they can't all be great! Gipsey Eyes and Burning of the Midnight Lamp are accessible but wholly original, a neat trick. Midnight Lamp features Hendrix's mastery of the wah-wah pedal. The next suite, which took up a whole album side in the days of vinyl, gives us a demonstration of Hendrix's studio wizardry. It's been a long time since I've listened to this album. I've forgotten how effortless and soulful Hendrix was as a singer, composer and guitarist. Rainy Day, Dream Away gives us a stoned paean to rainy days, which drifts into the groove of the lyrics on 1983...(A Mermaid I Should Turn Out To Be). It meanders with a purpose, if that makes sense. It's blissed out meditation, pure music. I could go on, but I think y'all get the point. I haven't even talked about the incredible tango psychedelic rock hybrid House Burning Down or the definitive version of Dylan's All Along the Watchtower, the album's big hit yet. I don't know what drugs Hendrix was taking, but I want some! He does more with a primitive studio, standard rock trio instrumentation, and an occasional sax or organ than almost anyone has since, and this without the benefit of anyone blazing his path for him! The studio trickery, his approach to the guitar, his arrangements, all of it is unique to him! And he reached these heights in a scant few years! Electric Ladyland is more flat out astonishing with the benefit of 50 years of hindsight than it was at the time and that is saying something. 5 out of 5.

Fucking awful. Complete shit.

It's going to be a bit difficult for me to review this record impartially. I was around when it came out and I pretty much accepted it as a masterpiece along with the rest of the world at the time, but here goes. ...And the Gods Made Love starts out the album with some primitive slowed down speech, flanging, stereo effects and the like, but even here, a high level of artistry and imagination is apparent. The first proper song, Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland) blends rock, soul, and psychedelia seamlessly, with a flowing melody and changes which are as surprising as the seem inevitable. Cross Town Traffic gives us a jolt of pure pop. The low tech and inspired use of a comb and a piece of cellophane provides the vocal effects. Hendrix and Stevie Winwood (on organ) provide a master class in electrifying the blues on Voodoo Child that hasn't been approached, much less equalled since. I'm also amazed by how the musicians, seemingly communicating telepathically, improvise much of the music, building and building the drama and intensity throughout the 15 minute run time, without a wasted second. Hendrix's phrasing and tone are phenomenal on this live in the studio track, and Winwood comes close to matching him. Finally, with Little Miss Strange, we get a tune which is merely very good. Noel Redding's lead vocals are a little wimpy here, but it's a charming tune nonetheless. With Long Hot Summer Night, Hendrix is back to combining soul and rock in his unique way. Don't let the ease with which it goes down blind you to the complexity and taste of the composition and arrangement. Come On (Let The Good Times Roll) is a straightforward blues tune, good but nothing special. Hey, they can't all be great! Gipsey Eyes and Burning of the Midnight Lamp are accessible but wholly original, a neat trick. Midnight Lamp features Hendrix's mastery of the wah-wah pedal. The next suite, which took up a whole album side in the days of vinyl, gives us a demonstration of Hendrix's studio wizardry. It's been a long time since I've listened to this album. I've forgotten how effortless and soulful Hendrix was as a singer, composer and guitarist. Rainy Day, Dream Away gives us a stoned paean to rainy days, which drifts into the groove of the lyrics on 1983...(A Mermaid I Should Turn Out To Be). It meanders with a purpose, if that makes sense. It's blissed out meditation, pure music. I could go on, but I think y'all get the point. I haven't even talked about the incredible tango psychedelic rock hybrid House Burning Down or the definitive version of Dylan's All Along the Watchtower, the album's big hit yet. I don't know what drugs Hendrix was taking, but I want some! He does more with a primitive studio, standard rock trio instrumentation, and an occasional sax or organ than almost anyone has since, and this without the benefit of anyone blazing his path for him! The studio trickery, his approach to the guitar, his arrangements, all of it is unique to him! And he reached these heights in a scant few years! Electric Ladyland is more flat out astonishing with the benefit of 50 years of hindsight than it was at the time and that is saying something. 5 out of 5.

I came into this review thinking of the White Stripes as a pale imitation of the Rolling Stones. I'd heard them before in passing, but didn't really pay much attention. Listening to Elephant, it's apparent that leader Jack White is very much his own man. Elephant is elemental music, painted in primary colors. There is no shading to speak of. The instrumentation is unadorned aside from a little distortion here, a little reverb or echo there. The song structures and melodies are dead simple, but very hooky. Beyond this music being rock, I really didn't pick up on any of the influences I would have suspected, like the Stones or Marc Bolan. There's no blues until you get to the 8th song. Then, with the cover of Burt Bacharach and Hal David's I Don't Know What To Do With Myself, it becomes clear. On Elephant, The Whites Stripes are making pop music with the attitude and instrumentation of rock. But do they do it well? There's no doubt that The White Stripes perform with conviction. They have something specific to offer, and they put it across cleanly and with a minimum of artifice. But I don't really dig it. First off, I like the blues and rock without it seems kind of besides the point to me, but that's probably just because I'm old. More damaging, Jack White's musicianship is downright primitive. While there's nothing wrong with Jack White's imagination or ears, I prefer my musicians more technically accomplished, and my music more complex, more shaded. One listen in, and you'll have gotten pretty much everything there is to get out of Elephant. There's not much point in listening to it a second time. Still, I wouldn't skip over these songs if they turned up on a playlist. I'll give Elephant credit for being pleasant and for accomplishing what Jack White set out to do. He aims low and hits the target.

By 1977, Fleetwood Mac had left their roots as a blues outfit long behind, opting for Lindsey Buckingham's sunny California pop. It's hard to imagine now, but at the time, most of the songs on Rumors were inescapable on the radio. For me, it was a cultural phenomenon, so the songs on Rumors are a bit difficult for me to assess as music. Adding to the difficulty is that I don't especially enjoy Fleetwood Mac; straight-up pop not being my thing. That said, it's easy to see why Rumors was such a massive success. Fleetwood Mac avoids the wretched synthesizers that ruined many a record of the period; Fleetwood Mac uses them judiciously and tastefully. Their arrangements are tight, only as detailed as they need to be, transparent, and succint, leaving plenty of room for the songs to breathe. There are tons of hooks. Fleetwood Mac never repeat themselves on Rumors--every song is different; there's a wide range of styles and tempos, and there are no real duds. The playing is competent, never ostentatious, and always in the service of the tunes. And it's all so middle of the road, AM radio friendly it hurts. So, how to rate? It's easy to dismiss this kind of music because it sounds so simple, like anyone could do it. But if making a 20x Platinum record was easy, everyone WOULD do it, for the money and fame, if nothing else. I can't deny the artistry and craftsmanship involved. Fleetwood Mac set out to make a state of the art mainstream pop record and they succeeded wildly. 4.5 out of 5 and I'm only docking this half a star because I would never listen to this record out of choice.

Siouxsie And The Banshees deserve a lot of credit. They've come up with a truly original sound here. The standard chord progressions of rock 'n roll are nowhere to be found, replaced by an emphasis on minor seconds, tritones and overall dissonance. The rhythms are tribal and relentless, particularly Budgie's drums. McGeoch's guitars lines are serpentine or jagged, and often drenched in reverb--he develops new ideas and concepts for every song. The lyrics are disturbing and evocative. Siouxie's vocals are impassioned. The entire band gives a sustained and committed performance throughout the entire album. The energy never flags, so much so, that the overall effect is claustrophobic. And yet, despite all of the skill and passion involved, not one melody or lick or chord sequence or rhythmic sequence stuck to my brain. That's a mystery, but unfair as it might seem, I'm going to dock Juju a star for that. Even free jazz or avant-guarde classical music needs to provide a point of entry for the listener. Who knows, maybe with repeated listens, Juju would magically become more accessible to me, but at this point, I admire it more than like it.

Siouxsie And The Banshees deserve a lot of credit. They've come up with a truly original sound here. The standard chord progressions of rock 'n roll are nowhere to be found, replaced by an emphasis on minor seconds, tritones and overall dissonance. The rhythms are tribal and relentless, particularly Budgie's drums. McGeoch's guitars lines are serpentine or jagged, and often drenched in reverb--he develops new ideas and concepts for every song. The lyrics are disturbing and evocative. Siouxie's vocals are impassioned. The entire band gives a sustained and committed performance throughout the entire album. The energy never flags, so much so, that the overall effect is claustrophobic. And yet, despite all of the skill and passion involved, not one melody or lick or chord sequence or rhythmic sequence stuck to my brain. That's a mystery, but unfair as it might seem, I'm going to dock Juju a star for that. Even free jazz or avant-guarde classical music needs to provide a point of entry for the listener. Who knows, maybe with repeated listens, Juju would magically become more accessible to me, but at this point, I admire it more than like it.

It/'s crap

I, II, III, and Physical Graffiti all make appearances on the 1001 albums list. I love me some Led Zeppelin, but that seems like overkill. Especially because LZIII was critically panned when it came out, damned both for being less aggressive than its predecessors (Melody Maker) and for not being substantially different (Lester Bangs). Perhaps this album was included because it foreshadows Led Zeppelin's later work--Arabic modes and English folk songs both make their first appearance on LZIII. But I'm going to ignore LZIII's place in music history. Is it any good? The leadoff track, Immigrant Song, is relentless and menacing, driven by a staccato pedal point and Robert Plant's double-tracked vocals. A prominent tri-tone and a bridge that leads to nowhere, ending on a flatted 6th, contribute to the track's edge. Friends is a spooky modal tune, feature a flatted 5th and a minor 2nd. The arrangement is both sparse and ingenious, with strings handling a countermelody while Jimmy Page pounds out a rhythmic drone on the bottom. The song ends on a gorgeous synth drone from John Paul Jones, which leads into the next tune, Celebration Day. Here, Jimmy Page repurposes a riff from Robert Johnson's Terraplane Blues, but completely makes it his own. The chorus is pure pop. John Bonham's pounding drums seal the deal. Since I've Been Loving You is one of Led Zep's patented supercharged blues workouts--they wring out every last drop of emotion and intensity from the tune. Out On The Tiles is anchored by an extended Jimmy Page riff, woven together with Plant's vocal. The band is killer throughout the first half of LZIII. What guitarist Jimmy Page lacks in precision, he makes up for in taste, tone, and arranging prowess. John Bonham was the most powerful rock drummer of the era; sorry, Keith Moon. And the band's secret weapon is John Paul Jones, who plays keyboards with consummate taste, as well as bass. The second half of LZIII is less bombastic, which presents a problem for some fans, but is it really the weak link that critics claim it to be? Gallows Pole is a powerful rendering of an old English folk tune, driven along by mandolin, banjo, and John Bonham's kickass drums. Bron-Y-Aur Stomp has a more basic arrangement, but it's effective nonetheless. The softer tunes, Tangerine and That's The Way, are cunningly arranged and cast a melancholy spell. The weakest tune in the bunch is Hats Off To (Roy) Harper, which is 4 minutes of raunchy blues slide guitar paired with Robert Plant's processed vocals, in which he seemingly randomly spouts snippets of various blues lyrics. But even there, I appreciate how Jimmy Page recasts a traditional blues into something contemporary, utilizing the simplest of means. So, what's the verdict? I personally prefer Led Zep's harder side, but they pull off their more acoustically oriented stuff with skill, too. I prefer I, II, IV, and Physical Graffiti, but LZIII is pretty damned good.

I, II, III, and Physical Graffiti all make appearances on the 1001 albums list. I love me some Led Zeppelin, but that seems like overkill. Especially because LZIII was critically panned when it came out, damned both for being less aggressive than its predecessors (Melody Maker) and for not being substantially different (Lester Bangs). Perhaps this album was included because it foreshadows Led Zeppelin's later work--Arabic modes and English folk songs both make their first appearance on LZIII. But I'm going to ignore LZIII's place in music history. Is it any good? The leadoff track, Immigrant Song, is relentless and menacing, driven by a staccato pedal point and Robert Plant's double-tracked vocals. A prominent tri-tone and a bridge that leads to nowhere, ending on a flatted 6th, contribute to the track's edge. Friends is a spooky modal tune, feature a flatted 5th and a minor 2nd. The arrangement is both sparse and ingenious, with strings handling a countermelody while Jimmy Page pounds out a rhythmic drone on the bottom. The song ends on a gorgeous synth drone from John Paul Jones, which leads into the next tune, Celebration Day. Here, Jimmy Page repurposes a riff from Robert Johnson's Terraplane Blues, but completely makes it his own. The chorus is pure pop. John Bonham's pounding drums seal the deal. Since I've Been Loving You is one of Led Zep's patented supercharged blues workouts--they wring out every last drop of emotion and intensity from the tune. Out On The Tiles is anchored by an extended Jimmy Page riff, woven together with Plant's vocal. The band is killer throughout the first half of LZIII. What guitarist Jimmy Page lacks in precision, he makes up for in taste, tone, and arranging prowess. John Bonham was the most powerful rock drummer of the era; sorry, Keith Moon. And the band's secret weapon is John Paul Jones, who plays keyboards with consummate taste, as well as bass. The second half of LZIII is less bombastic, which presents a problem for some fans, but is it really the weak link that critics claim it to be? Gallows Pole is a powerful rendering of an old English folk tune, driven along by mandolin, banjo, and John Bonham's kickass drums. Bron-Y-Aur Stomp has a more basic arrangement, but it's effective nonetheless. The softer tunes, Tangerine and That's The Way, are cunningly arranged and cast a melancholy spell. The weakest tune in the bunch is Hats Off To (Roy) Harper, which is 4 minutes of raunchy blues slide guitar paired with Robert Plant's processed vocals, in which he seemingly randomly spouts snippets of various blues lyrics. But even there, I appreciate how Jimmy Page recasts a traditional blues into something contemporary, utilizing the simplest of means. So, what's the verdict? I personally prefer Led Zep's harder side, but they pull off their more acoustically oriented stuff with skill, too. I prefer I, II, IV, and Physical Graffiti, but LZIII is pretty damned good.

At the 1971 Grammy Awards, Don McLean performed Vincent, a lachrymose ballad about an artist (Vincent Van Gogh) who commits suicide because he's too good for this world. As a self-centered, self-aggrandizing, and self-pitying pre-adolescent, the song struck a chord with me. Now it offends me. People don't kill themselves to make a point--they kill themselves because they're in pain. That song is representative of the basic vibe of American Pie, the album, as opposed to the single. Don McLean's lyrics are pretentious, sanctimonious, self-pitying, stilted, and basically full of shit. McLean has a strong voice, but he uses it in a sentimental way that strips any true emotion from his songs. It's as if McLean doesn't trust his audience to come to their own conclusions but rather is determined to tell them what to feel. Musically, the playing is competent enough, but the arrangements and performances are forced and unnatural in keeping with McLean's agenda. Thankfully, there is one standout from the album, the title cut. I think what saves it from the sins of the rest of the album is that McLean is celebrating something from the past instead of simply castigating the world for essentially moving on without him. American Pie, the song, is engaging because McLean's passion informs his performance. There's energy to spare in the song, real emotion, and it's quite tuneful as well. So, how to rate? 1.5 stars for the title cut, 0 stars for the rest.

The first thing I noticed about Live At The Regal is that the drummer and bass player are horrible and the horn arrangements add absolutely nothing to the presentation. On Every Day I Have The Blues, the drummer takes the tune at at the most literal thudding blues shuffle I have ever heard. He singlehandedly ruins the cut and the bass player is almost as bad, with his thoroughly unimaginative note choices. The horn charts are seemingly ported over from a Vegas review with no blues feel whatsoever. That's a terrible shame because there's a lot that's good about this recording. King's voice is in great shape and his guitar playing is just fine. The audience is clearly there to have a good time; they're incredibly responsive, to the point that they're integral to the power of the recording. King has them eating out of the the palm of his hand. Thankfully, the drummer and bass player aren't as wretched on the downtempo tunes and the horns aren't as up front either. Okay, maybe the drummer and bass player were only warming up on Every Day I Have The Blues. They're not quite as awful on the other uptempo tunes. Okay, in the end, the reason to listen to this album is B.B. King and the audience, who are both on fire. The band and arrangements are mediocre at best. This scrapes by with a 3/5

Gotta say, I'm a little surprised to see this here on this list. There is a thoroughgoing prejudice against prog in the critical community, probably because it forces critics to engage with the music instead of discussing influences, lyrics and personalities. ELP was unique for a number of reasons. They were a keyboard-based progressive rock group, with nary a guitar in sight. And Keith Emerson's interests, in addition to blues and rock, ranged from "serious" classical composers like Mussgorsky and Bartok, all the way up to contemporary composers like Alberto Ginastera. When you throw in covers of Aaron Copeland and Emerson's interest in martial themes and Americana, it's a potent brew, obviously not to everyone's taste. Surprisingly, this kind of thing was popular at the time. Hard to imagine, I know. But how good is Tarkus? For better or worse, the epic title track may be the purest expression of Emerson's obsessions. Here are the martial rhythms and themes, the nods to contemporary classical music, copious rock and blues, and so on. Emerson effectively utilizes his arsenal of keyboards, such as piano, organ, and early synthesizers to create an intense, claustrophobic vibe. Carl Palmer reinforces the martial feel of the track with his patented fills and overall busyness. If the rest of the album had been up to this level, it would be a stone classic. Alas, there are some downright stinkers, like Are You Ready, Eddy?, in which Emerson indulges in a dubious sense of a humor and a rancid take on 50s rock 'n roll. There are other weaknesses. Some of the lyrics are awful: Sleep in a dream Of butter milk cream You dance on a beam Dancing on a beam And occasionally, vocalist/bassist Greg Lake reaches for notes he can't handle. On the other hand, we have Infinite Space, which has similar virtues to the title track, in miniature. And Bitches Crystal and A Time And A Place ain't bad either, if you're willing to overlook the occasional maladroit lyric or off key vocal. On Tarkus, the highs are Olympian and the lows are Stygian. How to rate? I can't in good conscience give this any less than a 4/5. Proceed at your own risk. And fair warning: if you don't share Emerson's musical interests, you will likely hate, hate, hate, this album with an all consuming passion.

Fuck Ray Charles

The formula here seems to be to distill blues rock down to it's most basic elements, drown the individual instruments in a thick film of sonic distortion and scuzz, and then remove any actual blues feel. Maybe that last part is accidental, I don't know. This music puzzles me. There are no real melodies, the tunes are mostly one chord wonders with riffs so prehistoric that Led Zep or Black Sabbath would have turned down their noses at them, and there are no real solos to speak of. Okay, on Black Mud, guitarist Dan Aurebach just unleashed a solo and it turns out that he can barely play. His bending skills are non-existent and he probably couldn't play a diatonic blues scale from the top of the frets to the bottom without losing the thread multiple times. Okay, I don't get it. What's the appeal? This is blues rock filed down to the nub, with no blues feel, played without discernable skill. It's blues rock for people who hate blues rock, a real head scratcher.

Going in, I had no idea what to expect from Haunted Dancehall, as I had never heard of Sabres of Paradise, and am not generally interested in techno. To my surprise, Haunted Dancehall isn't bad at all. The Sabres position themselves halfway between ambient and dance music. I can easily imagine this playing in a bar or club or sushi restaurant. It's pleasant sonically and has a laid back, cool vibe, but has enough energy to provide a consuming mood, whether that consumption be food, drugs or alcohol. The first few tracks are quite abstract. The sound sources are varied and quite tasteful. No horrid synth patches here. The sonic manipulation is creative and tasteful as well. The rhythms are mostly fairly simple. The interest comes from how the various elements fit together. On these early tracks, the Sabres sometimes deconstruct the tunes a bit to point out the art in what they're doing. It's a savvy strategy because the parts fit together so naturally, the effort and creativity involved would otherwise go unnoticed. About six tracks in, the tunes get less abstract and more songlike. For me, this is a mistake because it calls too much attention to the functional nature of the music. This kind of music should glide over the smooth brains of the listeners, lulling them into the desired emotional state. Even here though, the same virtues of economy, taste, and studio mastery remain. After a few tracks, the Sabres return to a more abstract style for the rest of the album, which I actually prefer. How do I rate this? It's quite well done, but this is functional music, not really meant for close listening. If I put this on a playlist, it would be as a palate cleanser. Is it wrong of me to refuse to give a higher score because of a perceived lack of artistic ambition? Maybe. It feels like snobbery. Oh well. 3.5/5

Shitty synth patches and drum machines destroy whatever impact this music might have had. And let's just say that David Gray's voice is an acquired taste. The compositions are utterly undistinguished as are the arrangements. Bland and forgettable middle of the road pop. I can't speak to the lyrics because I couldn't get past the music.

Shitty synth patches and drum machines destroy whatever impact this music might have had. And let's just say that David Gray's voice is an acquired taste. The compositions are utterly undistinguished as are the arrangements. Bland and forgettable middle of the road pop. I can't speak to the lyrics because I couldn't get past the music.

The three lead tracks are instant pop classics, the songcraft throughout is unparalleled, the arrangements conform to Carole King's vocal style like a bespoke suit, and King's lyrics are intelligent and sensitive. So why don't I like Tapestry better? Part of the reason is that the style rubs me the wrong way. All of the edges have been sanded down. King's style is an amalgam of soul, pop, and rock n' roll, but here it's housebroken, with all the rude phone calls razored out. Drummer Russ Kunkel and guitarist Danny Kortchmar, the core of a group of session musicians who backed such Laurel Canyon luminaries as Jackson Brown, Linda Rondstadt, and Warren Zevon, give competent but toothless backing. And even though King's songcraft is impeccable, sometimes there seems to be more perspiration than inspiration involved in such songs as Beautiful, Way Over Yonder, and Where You Lead. Most damaging is the title track, which edges over into twee, with its nursery rhyme melody and imagery. And Smackwater Jack tries too hard to be edgy--King comes off like a little girl playing dress-up. I don't want to be too harsh. Carole King is a creditable performer. Her piano comping is simple but always tasteful and if her voice is homely, she wields it with great understanding and skill. Still, the final track on Tapestry shows her limitations. King's rendition of (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman, while competent enough, doesn't really bring out the song's potential, the way Aretha's did. Now, it may seem unfair to compare Carole King to the Queen of Soul, but I'm just trying to point out that King's talents were chiefly as a songwriter, not a performer. Some of these songs might have faired better with a gutsier, more powerful performer. So, how to rate? The first three songs are lightning in a bottle and the rest of the album is thoroughly professional, if not to my personal taste. I'm probably guilty of underrating this, but I'm going to give it 3.5/5 stars. 3.5/5

Rubber Soul was never a favorite of mine growing up, but some of that stems from the fact that my family owned the American version, not the superior British version. Another reason is that Rubber Soul is hugely influenced by the folky scene of the time, not really my favorite genre--and I don't much care for the Beatles' take on it. I never could warm to Michelle (sappy) or Girl (I loathe doowop, even though that's the basis of much of Motown & Philly soul). What Goes On In Your Mind is a throwaway. The Word is too on the nose for me. I don't even like Norwegian Wood, which I find sing song-y. I realize this puts me in squarely in the contrarian camp--Michelle and Norwegian Wood have collectively been covered hundreds of times, which doesn't happen by accident. And while it's true that Rubber Soul was a huge evolutionary step in rock at the time, I refuse to evaluate it on that basis. More to the point for me, at least in this context is, how does it play now? Fortunately, there are a number of first-rate tunes on Rubber Soul. Drive My Car is pretty much a perfect pop song, with it's relentless forward motion, monster hooks, short and snappy instrumental breaks, and welcome sense of humor. So much so, that it was still getting significant airplay alongside contemporary music a quarter of a century after it came out. You Won't See Me, Nowhere Man, I'm Looking Through You, In My Life, and If I Needed Someone are also standouts. The three part harmonies are killer throughout Rubber Soul. The fuzz bassline on Think For Yourself is a great touch. Many folks have a problem with the lyrics of Run For Your Life, but I think they're great, nailing the inner life of an angry misogynistic creep typical of the era. So, how to rate? Again, I'm probably underrating this, but I'll give it 3.5/5 stars.

I'm pleasantly surprised that this album was included on the 1001 list. Most of the curator's choices are obvious, boneheaded or both; this is neither. Music From The Penguin Cafe is unique, both in The Penguin Cafe Orchestra's discography and more generally. It seems to me that the group's driving force, Simon Jeffes, was still trying to figure out what his group was all about. Seemingly irreconcilable elements fight for dominance, sometimes in the same song. You have feints at pop songs, pastoral violins, world music tropes boiled down to their essence, and avant guarde noodling, flavored from time to time with producer Brian Eno's effects processing. Adding to the strangeness is the prominence of Fender Rhodes (mostly used in jazz fusion) and electric guitar. Sometimes Music From The Penguin Cafe is awkward, sometimes it's gorgeous, but it sure as hell ain't boring.

Ew

Okay, I actually like the Pretenders, but the hype around them irritated me at the time. Back in the rock era, any time some back to basics band came around, they were hailed by the rock press as the saviors of rock 'n roll, and the Pretenders were no different. The Pretenders are a rock 'n roll band at heart, at least in their attitude, but there was more to them from the start. On their debut album, the treated guitars of James Honeyman-Scott were swathed in reverb and flange, a nod to new wave. They had songs like "Brass In Pocket" or "Mystery Achievement," which made them chart accessible. But they also had a real edge in songs like "The Phone Call" and "The Wait," which had tricky rhythmic figures unusual in this kind of music. And on top of all that, you had the bad girl swagger of Chrissie Hynde cut with an emotional vulnerability that was probably closer to the truth. I've never listened to this album all the way through, but the sustained invention, energy, and performances are impressive. The Pretenders are actually a much more powerful band than their hits would lead you to believe. Another thing I just noticed is how beautifully produced and sequenced this album is. The album flows like a dream, especially the first side. The second side is much more poppy, not nearly as much my thing.

After the one-two punch of Fleetwood Mac and Rumors, there were ridiculously high expectations for Tusk. Lindsey Buckingham was widely credited for being the main architect of the sound and vibe for those albums, so he was freely indulged on Tusk (half of the songs are his compositions). The eponymously titled lead-off single, a ditsy earworm backed (really!) by a high school marching band, was released to great fanfare. The rock press pretended to like it, but the Tusk single was an embarrassment (albeit used brilliantly in the soundtrack of Boogie Nights 20 years later). On the strength of Fleetwood Mac's previous two albums and the attendant hype, the single was a minor hit. Now, I realize that the song is meant to be humorous, but it also makes the band look foolish. I remember being embarrassed for them when it came out on the radio. The stink was bad enough that I didn't bother to listen to Tusk for another 50 years. As an album, Tusk was a huge commercial disappointment given the outsized expectations. Fortunately for us, Tusk the double album is far better than Tusk the single would lead you to believe. Inspired by the latest developments in punk and new wave, Lindsey Buckingham's songs are rife with sonic experimentation. Sometimes the stringed instruments sound homemade (from tuning the instruments way lower than normal, say), and the percussion often consists of random household items like frozen lamb chops and a Kleenex box being struck. Some instruments were miked in a studio replica of Lindsey Buckingham's bathroom or right next to a tile floor. The overall effect is scrappy and harsh, at least for Fleetwood Mac. Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn't. That's All For Everyone is haunting and vibrant, like a weirder version of Brian Wilson. Not That Funny is amusingly scabrous in a gutbucket kind of way. That's Enough For Me and I Know I'm Not Wrong have a nervous, coked up energy that's kind of thrilling. Walk A Thin Line memorably exudes paranoia and tension. Save Me A Place is a lesser effort, which isn't helped by cardboard percussion, simple mandolin strumming, and unaccountably ugly background vocals, inexcusable in a group with this much vocal talent. And of course, the title cut is wretched. The other two songwriters, Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie, provide a balance for Buckingham's eccentricity. Their contributions are either mellow ballads or gentle rockers. McVie comes off best. Her Never Make Me Cry is an especially lovely ballad. Honey Hi is as sweet as its title. Never Forget is upbeat and romantic, anchored by McVie's tasteful comping on electric piano and Buckingham's biting slide guitar. On the other hand, Stevie Nick's Sisters of the Moon is uninspired, by the numbers mopery in spite of Lindsey Buckingham's passionate guitar solo. Angel is similarly lackluster. Nicks is in full Glenda the Good Witch mode here, and it's boring. Her songs slow Tusk a crawl, a big problem in a double album. Equally as damaging, the hooks just don't sink very deep on Tusk, the way they did on Fleetwood Mac and Rumors. This is deadly for a mainstream pop band. If Fleetwood Mac had jettisoned most of the Stevie Nicks tunes, kept the strongest McVie compositions, and gotten rid of the title track, they would have had a pretty strong album. As it is, Tusk is a decidedly mixed bag

I find the inclusion of this album on the list interesting. I always thought of Paul Revere and the Raiders as a disposable bubble gum band. Perhaps their critical rehabilitation has something to do with Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, which featured their "Hungry" in the soundtrack, and even a discussion of how underrated they were. Well, listening to Midnight Ride, PR&TR seem to be a workmanlike pop band with a decidedly garage-y orientation, and that's true enough. Boyce & Hart's I'm Not Your Stepping Stone fits the group like a pair of stone-washed jeans whereas the Monkees were just playing at (however convincingly) being a garage band. Paul Revere & The Raiders can also whip up a pure pop chorus if the mood strikes them. But they are much more than a poppy garage band. There She Goes and Take A Look At Yourself are convincing takes on the country pop/rock of the Gosdin Brothers. SS 396 and Corvair Baby are expert nods to the Beach Boys. The group even picks up on the then current trend of raga rock here and there. Less compellingly, there is the wan balladry of Little Girl in the 4th Row and the dad schmaltz of Melody for an Unknown Girl, which could almost be a Perry Como cover. Nonetheless, the overall effect is workmanlike rather than inspired, as compared to the Monkees. That's an unfair comparison in that the Monkees had the cream of professional songwriters pumping out tunes for them and were backed by the best studio musicians money could buy, whereas PR&TR mostly relied on the native talent of the group, but the band invites it the comparison with their genre hopping and occasional poppy choruses. I wish PR&TR had shown a little more discipline and toned down their garage band tendencies a little, emphasized the poppy choruses, and jettisoned the ballads and schmaltz. I think they probably had a solid album in them, but this isn't it.

I honestly had no idea that Tom Waits was anything other than the Kurt Weill by way of Captain Beefheart backed by a junkyard band kind of guy we've come to expect on recordings like Bone Machine, but it turns out that Swordfishtrombones was where all of that started. Apparently, Waits was musically restless at the time and decided to shake things up. One way he did this was by gaining access to the collection of exotic instruments compiled by percussionist Emil Richards. And Waits was wise enough to eschew the synthesizers and drum machines of the time, so Swordfishtrombones feels timeless, like it could have been recorded any time during the last 40 years. I'm guessing that Waits was also inspired by Captain Beefheart's late period albums like Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) and Ice Cream For Crow. Waits bravely opens the album with the purest version of his brand new style, as though daring his audience to reject him. But here's the thing about Swordfishtrombones--Waits doesn't stick to one style, the way he did on Bone Machine. He goes all the way from a sensitive croon to full on Howling Wolf impersonation and all stops in between. That's revealing for me, because I kind of thought that Waits' Howling Wolf schtick was actually who we was, but no. Waits puts on vocal styles like so many masks, whatever suits the characters and stories he wants to tell in a specific song. As to style, Waits has the junkyard percussion thing down, but he also does jump blues, B3 organ trio stuff, and the occasional piano ballad. For me, that makes Swordfishtrombones a very rich record. It's also beautifully performed, courtesy of a veritable who's who of musicians, including guitarist Fred Tackett from Little Feat, organist Ronnie Barron, who worked with Dr. John, and utility percussionist Victor Feldman, who has played with well, everyone. And it doesn't hurt that the lyrics are literate and frequently a hoot. Now, although Tom Waits isn't really my kind of artist, I couldn't help but appreciate the level of detail and craft lavished on these tunes. 4.5/5

I don't find Elliott Smith lyrically interesting for reasons I won't get into here. That leaves his music. Since Smith went into a self-confessional folkie direction, his lyrics are mostly what he's about, so that's two strikes against him. Fortunately, on Figure 8, Smith opens up his sound somewhat past his quivering voice and spindly guitar picking, which definitely helps matters. But still, Smith's tunes sound like they all came from the same factory. It's been said that his music is Beatlesque, but that's an insult to the Beatles. Their music sounds joyous and effortless, but you can hear Elliott Smith painfully grinding away on tune after tune, and at almost an hour, that's way too much of a bad thing.

Life's Too Good is often labeled post-punk, but that doesn't seem right. The sound is as bright and candy colored as the name of the band would suggest, reminiscent of the B52s or the Police, but the song structures are nothing like these bands. In lieu of traditional songs, the Sugarcubes give us mostly vamps, which Bjork growls, whispers, swoops and shrieks over, while Einar Örn mumbles in the background. The rhythms seem influenced by the likes of Adam Ant and Tom Tom Club. But when you put all of this together, Life's Too Good doesn't really sound like anything else. It all feels really abstract. There are no real hooks, instrumental or otherwise to draw you in, just slick surfaces, which forces you to either throw up your hands and reject the band or accept them on their own terms. The thing is, everything here seems really intentional. The songs are each different from one another and quite detailed in their arrangements. The playing is both competent and confident. The Sugarcubes know exactly what they're doing. Do I like it? I don't hate it. It's unique, which is a plus. And it isn't contaminated by the sickening factory set synths typical of the late 80s.

Jah Wobble's Rising Above Bedlam feels like a genuine attempt at cross cultural fusion, which is commendable. But on the evidence, Wobble's understanding of the musical traditions he's borrowing from are skin deep, and that's being generous. The songs are dull and obvious and Wobble invariably makes the least interesting choices possible when it comes to timbres and instrumental colors. This music would be at home in a Starbucks Putumayo collection cd. One star for basic musical competence. Zero stars for the songs, arrangements, production, and lack of taste.

Miles Davis was smack in the middle of a period of profound transformation musically speaking when In A Silent Way Came Out. Inspired by his young drummer, Tony Williams, Davis was steadily abandoning the advanced harmonic underpinnings of jazz and emphasizing rock and R&B grooves in his music, putting him in the vanguard of the first wave of jazz fusion. The main thing he kept from the 2nd great quintet (Shorter, Williams, Davis, Carter, Hancock) was how the tunes themselves were just templates meant to be fleshed out in performance, and that is the case with a vengeance on In A Silent Way. The first tune, Shhh / Peaceful is 18 minutes and 15 seconds of one chord and a groove. It doesn't get any more basic than that. The only reason it works is because of the musicians: Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Joe Zawinul, Tony Williams, Chick Corea, John McLaughlin, and Dave Holland are seven of the greatest musicians to ever pick up an instrument. Each one is a monster player, composer, and band leader in his own right. Even so, there is precious little grandstanding on Shhh / Peaceful. Instead, the musicians weave around one another gracefully, painstakingly building the groove and providing peerless atmospherics that, in hindsight, sound almost proto-ambient. It's a little like slowly turning over the Hope diamond watching an ever changing light show through the facets. The other cut, In A Silent Way, starts with John McLaughlin stating the bucolic folk like melody over an open tuning on guitar. Originally, McLaughlin used Zawinul's jazzy chord changes, but Miles kept goading McLaughlin to go simpler, simpler. Finally, almost as a joke, McLaughlin went with an open E major chord and the rest is history. About ten minutes in, the R&B groove of It's About That Time kicks in. The band swings like crazy before ending the album with a reprise of the main theme. It's hard to overstate how successful Davis is here. On his first attempt at a communally based, performance driven, open ended rock and R&B influenced music, he comes up with a stone classic, only equaled and arguably surpassed by Bitches Brew a year later.

Somehow I managed to miss Scott Walker the first time around. All the Jacques Brel comparisons from other reviewers are apt, especially regarding the orchestrations, which are pretty over the top. I had no idea that Brel's lyrics were so rude--makes me want to learn French! And Scott Walker hyper-enunciates the lyrics so they are easy to understand. The overall effect is comical, which works for the songs that are intentionally rude and/or scabrous. Unfortunately, many of the songs on Scott 2 are ballads played straight. Scott's overripe vocals paired with the overbearing orchestrations and soaring strings effectively rob the songs of any power they might have had. Now, if you're actually into this kind of early 60s cabaret style, it's technically done very well. Personally, I think the style is only good for comedy. So, how to score? I'll give this 1 point for competence. Scott 2 really is a well-realized example of the cabaret style. And I'll give 1 point for the satirical songs. 2/5

On Gris-Gris, Dr. John gives us the most uncompromising music of his career, weaving together strands of soul, blues, jazz, and most tellingly, Indian and Cuban music, all tied together with his thoroughly stoned, even psychedelic Night Tripper persona. I wish I could tell you that Gris Gris is the masterpiece the critics would want you to believe it is, but it's too ramshackle for that. Dr. John apparently took advantage of some leftover studio time from a Sonny & Cher recording session, and not having the time or inclination to thoroughly arrange the material, counted on the expertise of a group of crack session players to fill in the gaps. That approach sometimes works in a jazz setting, but rarely in popular music, especially when you're combining at least four different music genres on the fly! To my ears, Dr. John's gamble doesn't really pay off. I prefer the more disciplined (and yes, more commercial) approach of his mid 70s albums or the rootsy, Professor Longhair inspired solo piano sides he cut in the early 80s. But still, respect is due Dr. John for having the balls to attempt such a whacked out melange of styles. I have no doubt that a great album could be made from these ingredients. Too bad Gris Gris isn't it.

Listening to the first track of Rio, my heart sank. The musicianship is such that I can't simply dismiss it with a few insults. I'm going to have to listen to the whole damned thing. The rhythm section of John and Roger Taylor is precise and specific. Whether it's the busy and intricate baselines on the title cut or the slap bass on My Own Way, bassist John Taylor is undeniably competent and has a full, punchy sound. Roger Taylor's grooves are original and so solid they could be carved out of marble. Nick Rhoded' synth washes and arpeggiations aren't slapdash--they're calculated as hell. Guitarist Andy Taylor mostly played a supporting role here: he either plays soaring harmonic lines or plays rhythm. These tunes are arranged within an inch of their lives. As much of a piece as the album is, each individual song is its own distinct entity. Guest artist Andy Hamilton's sax lines may be improvised, but they sound sculpted. I can't even dismiss the songwriting, which is replete with hooks, even on non-hits like the title cut, not to mention the instant earworm of Hungry Like The Wolf, which was inescapable back in the early 80s. And yet, oh how I hate this record! Singer Simon Lebon has the protypical 80s pasty croon down pat. The synths are horrid, and yet they fit this chintzy material like a glove. The sax breaks are nauseatingly wimpy. The whole package strikes me as unbearably insipid. Maybe part of what makes me hates Rio so much is what this kind of music represents to me: mindless consumerism, materialism, fashion over substance, etc. And yet, on its own disgusting terms, Duran Duran's Rio is a roaring success. Excuse me while I vomit.

I always thought I liked heavy metal. I'm fond of Sabbath and Deep Purple, the granddaddies of the genre. I treasure the two Ozzy albums with Randy Rhoads. I'm a big fan of the 90s bands that drew from metal, like Soundgarden, Alice in Chains and Smashing Pumpkins. But since I started reviewing the 1001 albums, I'm finding out that I actually don't like metal that much. It isn't that Iron Maiden's album is bad, exactly. The musicianship is competent. Vocalist Paul Di'Anno, in spite of the shade that's thrown at him in comparison with Bruce Dickinson, is a perfectly fine vocalist. It's a blessing that there are sections to these songs, changes in tempo, etc. But for me, all of it doesn't add up to much. The guitar leads are too straightforward and vanilla for me. The arrangements are busy but not all that creative IMO. I think it's sad that metal had advanced so little since its inception. This is pretty standard headbanging. At least it's better than that album cover. Yikes! 2.5/5

Clearly Neil Hannon is nostalgic for a bygone era in which albums were elaborately arranged and scored for a small army of musicians, with nary a synthesizer in sight. He also tries to resuscitate a style of songwriting which is all about melody. Nothing wrong with either of those two things. But in order for this to work, you have to have the talent to write memorable melodies, and a great deal of taste in orchestration. Neil Hannon has neither. The arrangements are hamhanded and suffocating. His melodies are crap, like a Broadway musical that flops on opening night. Finally, I find his baritone unpleasant, utterly without charm, interpretative skill or nuance. A Short Album About Love may indeed be short, but not short enough for my taste.

More than most artists, the music on Nick Cave's albums exists mostly as a backdrop to his lyrics. As such, the music should not compete with Cave and should contribute to and deepen the impact of his lyrics. I don't claim to be a Nick Cave expert, but a perfect example of this synergy is Murder Ballads, which is also on the 1001 list. Abbatoir Blues/ The Lyre of Orpheus, as it's title would suggest, is actually two albums released in one package. I'll discuss Abbatoir Blues first. The music is problematic in that it tends to distract from the lyrics. On the first song, you can barely hear the lyrics through the distortion of rock 'n roll instrumentation and a choir, both recorded deep into the red. The rest of the album is better in that respect, but not by much. And the music isn't interesting enough to justify the imposition. It's standard song structure, standard instrumentation (with the exception of the omnipresent chorus and the distortion), nothing noteworthy. The whole thing gave me a headache and bored me, sound and fury signifying nothing. On The Lyre of Orpheus, the balance is a bit better. You can actually hear the lyrics. Unfortunately, Cave isn't in very good form, lacking the wit and storytelling verve that was so evident on Murder Ballads. Here, he's just unpleasant and mean. Again, the music is nothing special, although that's hardly the point. I'm sorry to report that Abattoir Blues/ The Lyre of Orpheus is a drag.

It's hard to understand how Car Wheels On A Gravel Road could be recommended at all, let alone make it onto a list like 1001 albums. The music is generic modern country, not distinguished by creative songwriting, kickass soloists, or anything else, unless you count the Cajun lilt on a few tunes. Maybe the blandness of the music is meant to highlight the stellar pipes of Lucina Williams? Nope. Her voice is as homely and dull as dishwater. But surely the lyrics are superior? Well, not really. Lucina Williams frontloads her best tunes; the first several songs demonstrate a keen grasp of quotidian life and a sure sense of place, but by the end of the album, the lyrics are so generic they could have been written by a computer program. The best compliment I can give Car Wheels On A Gravel Road is that it isn't actively unpleasant--just boring. Is this the best modern country has to offer? I sure hope not.

I approached this album filled with dread. I haven't had much luck with the hip-hop albums on this list. I'm still waiting for a great hip-hop record. This isn't it, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I expected. The first cut isn't encouraging. It's a skit, but the voice is so distorted, you can't even make out what the person is saying. It gets better from there. Now, it's true that the subject matter is mostly the same old, same old. But at least the imagery is inventive and vivid and the gangsta vibe is heavy. Not my thing really, but if you're gonna do it, you might as well go for it. The samples and loops are well-chosen and varied. Best of all, the beats are bangin'. The loops and the raps intersect in ways that propel the music forward like a rocket. Now, I wish the music was a bit more complex and it would have been more interesting if the tunes were punctuated with live instrumental breaks, like Cameo did in the 80s with the likes of saxophonist Michael Brecker, or even some decent scratching, but Ghostface Killah wisely keeps the tunes short, so you don't have time to get bored. He also intersperses the tunes with "comic" interludes, which also helps. YMMV. I'm conflicted on how to rate this. On the one hand, Fishscale is damned near perfectly realized. This is EXACTLY what Ghostface Killah was going for. On the other hand, I despair of the lack of ambition and Ghostface's narrow vision, both musically and lyrically, given his obvious talent. Update: Ghostface also skillfully integrates modern R&B vocals into the mix later on in the album, which is a plus, and there's a bit more variety to the subject matter than I first thought. I added half a point.

I approached this album with reticence, knowing it is almost universally critically revered, and not being much of a fan of the two singles, London Calling and Stand By Me, mostly because they were played to death at the time and The Clash were fawned over by the critics, who were gleeful about the death of prog and the ascendency of punk. But I have to admit, there is more to the band than I was aware of. The Clash were celebrated at the time for approaching pop with the energy and simplicity of early rock 'n roll, and that much is true. But what that doesn't get at is the degree of variety on London Calling. The Clash mine strains of reggae, rockabilly, and pop and mutate them into something new and elemental. Each song is different, but what they have in common is simple but distinctive hooks. The Clash may leave me cold, but I've got to give them credit. They succeed wildly in what they set out to do. I can't bear to rate London Calling higher than a 4, but it would be dishonest to rate it lower than that.

Ágætis Byrjun is a triumph of engineering and arrangement, but most of all, it's a triumph of imagination. For sure, you can trace Sigur Ros' antecedents in My Bloody Valentine, Mogwai, and other similar post-rock bands, as well as ambient and industrial music, but the widescreen cinematic dreamscapes of Sigur Ros are unique to them. How do they pull it off? It sure isn't the melodies and the harmonies, which are standard issue. It's more the ever so patient accrual of layers of bowed guitar, keyboards, strings and horns, all played legato, and how all of it is recorded through echo and reverb and other production tricks. The breakout track is the title cut Svefn-g-englar, which steadily builds to an epic conclusion slowly dying away. At over ten minutes, it's long for a pop tune, but the running time goes by in a flash because the music lulls you into a trance state. Not all the tunes on Ágætis Byrjun are as timeless and wonderful, but there's plenty to enjoy here. Ágætis Byrjun is an amazing breakthrough which has inspired dozens of bands--the reverberations are still being felt today. 4.5/5

All Mod Cons plays like an update of the early Who with a side of early Kinks for the punk era, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing. The music here is stripped down to the essentials, like the cover photo of the album. The arrangements are highly specific and well thought out, without any extra fillagree. It's mostly guitar, bass and drums, with the occasional keyboard part. The band is super tight. The overall effect is like an army made bed--you could bounce a quarter off of it. So much so that when the band incorporates field recordings of the subway or the beach into the music, it's a bit jarring. Still, songwriter Paul Weller manages to work an impressive variety of grooves and moods into these songs. The level of craft here is so high and the arrangements and performances so careful, that it almost feels wrong to call this punk. It feels more like classic rock with the energy of punk. I guess the other think that makes it punk is the lyrical content. I was only half paying attention, but it struck me that the songs were mostly about the sort of alienation and anger that was common in late 70s Britain. Anyway, even if this isn't my thing personally, I have to give credit where credit is due. 4/5

First off, emphasizing Ginger Baker in the credits here is a pure PR move. This is Fela Ransome-Kuti's record all the way. On this live recording, Fela and his band are in great form, debuting Fela's fusion of James Brown style funk and traditional Nigerian highlife. This fusion is probably why Western critics fetishize Fela and his drummer Tony Allen because it makes the music more accessible. I dig it too, up to a point, but Fela extends the tunes right up to their breaking point, given the abilities of his soloists. While the members of Fela's band are all groove monsters, and Fela himself is a capable singer, none of them can solo for shit. Why did Fela do this? He was making music for audiences to dance to and lose themselves in, not to actually listen to. Commercially, this was a canny move--artistically, not so much. Fortunately, on Live!, this propensity isn't fatal, the way it would be on later records in which tunes would take up an entire album side! As such, Live! is a decent entry point for folks interested in African music, so long as they also like James Brown. If not, there are better entry points for those interested in African music, like the Indestructible Beat of Soweto or Nigeria 70 compilations.

Suicide must have been a shock in 1977. It's stylistically bold, eschewing then traditional instrumentation almost entirely, focusing on primitive drum machines and synths. It balances this aesthetic with song structures borrowed from 50s rock 'n roll and breathy vocals reminiscent of rockabilly legend Gene Vincent. This album no doubt influenced dozens of 80s synth based bands and industrial music as well. But is it any good? Well, there's no disputing the integrity of band's vision. The fullest expression of that vision is Frankie Teardrop, a ten minute wallow in despair. Alan Vegas heartrending screams are supported by Martin Rev's proto-industrial soundscapes. In spite of the simplicity of the track harmonically and melodically, it holds interest for the entire ten minutes based almost entirely on atmospherics. In the end though, for me, this album is more interesting to me as a forerunner of industrial music than as an artistic statement on its own. Why? Well, I don't like 50s rock 'n roll and I don't like primitive synths, so I'm not really the audience for this band. Still, Suicide has done a great job of realizing their singular artistic vision. One point for the music itself, one and a half points for execution.

The first thing I noticed about The Seldom Seen Kid is that the textures of the songs are interesting and thought out with an impressive level of detail. For example, opener Starlings starts with a marimba like figure backed by echoey, percussive bass and swampy harmonies. There's plenty of space in the arrangement. There are spare keyboard figures, punctuated by harsh digital horn section stabs. This is all in the service of a song structure that is simplicity itself, oscillating between two chords a tone apart. Over that is a conventional melody. Not much there, but at least it sounds different. Okay. The 2nd song has a similarly simple song structure and melody, but entirely different musical textures. There's a clattering beat box rhythm paired with strummed guitar and fuzzed out bass, along with harmonies similar to the first song. Now and then distorted layers of guitars join in. By now, Elbow's modus operandi is clear. The songs themselves on The Seldom Seen are simple, even simpleminded, but the textures are anything but. The simplicity of the songs makes them accessible, but the production makes the music seem more profound than it actually is. In a way, this is ideal music for public spaces like a restaurant or a clothing store, because it doesn't really require close listening. You can just let the waves of sound wash over you. But for me, there is just too much good music around to seek out stuff that is only interesting on the level of texture, and even then, it's not radical, the way something like Here Comes The Warm Jets is.

This album starts out with a nice shimmery plasma of guitar noise before launching into Going Up. The band reveals its debt to psychedelia with guitarist Will Sergeant's processed guitars and echoey vocals, but that's just a jumping off point. For all of their psychedelic flourishes, Echo & The Bunnymen are in fact fairly direct rockers, which probably has a lot to do with the then recent punk movement. Do It Clean has an appealing drive, stuttering guitar, propulsive drums and double-tracked vocals. Stars Are Stars is a showcase for the drama queen yelps of Ian McCulloch. On Pride, it's bassist Les Pattinson's turn to shine up front in the mix. To the bands' credit, they are not one trick ponies. They ring variations on their basic sound throughout Crocodiles. Echo & The Bunnymen are strongest at their most aggressive. When they attempt introspection, there's a bit too much melodrama for me. Thankfully, they stick to high-energy tunes for the most part on Crocodiles. The more I listen to this, the more impressed I am with the rhythm section. They're tight and they kick ass. Another plus--there's no horrid 80s synthesizers stinking up the joint. Ultimately, Echo & The Bunnymen and Crocodiles are a little too vanilla for my taste, but they aren't bad at all.

I've always had a soft spot for So You Want To Be A Rock 'N Roll Star, with it's comically rolling bassline, Latin beat and sardonic lyrics. Have You Seen Her Face has a lovely vocal arrangement and is Beatlesque in the best sense. My Back Pages is a stellar Dylan cover. And the Byrd's harmonies are just gorgeous. At their best, the Byrds' combination of folk rock, country, psychedelia and pure pop is a delight. But I'm sorry to say that Younger Than Yesterday is not a very good album. The attempts at psychedelia here are amateurish and juvenile, ruining the otherwise fine C.T.A. - 102. Roger McGuin's attempts at lead guitar throughout are an embarrassment. And other than the first two songs and the Dylan cover, the songwriting is weak. Two stars for the three strong tunes mentioned, zero stars for the rest. 2/5

I've always had a soft spot for So You Want To Be A Rock 'N Roll Star, with it's comically rolling bassline, Latin beat and sardonic lyrics. Have You Seen Her Face has a lovely vocal arrangement and is Beatlesque in the best sense. My Back Pages is a stellar Dylan cover. And the Byrd's harmonies are just gorgeous. At their best, the Byrds' combination of folk rock, country, psychedelia and pure pop is a delight. But I'm sorry to say that Younger Than Yesterday is not a very good album. The attempts at psychedelia here are amateurish and juvenile, ruining the otherwise fine C.T.A. - 102. Roger McGuin's attempts at lead guitar throughout are an embarrassment. And other than the first two songs and the Dylan cover, the songwriting is weak. Two stars for the three strong tunes mentioned, zero stars for the rest. 2/5

U2 sucks.

I don't get it. If you are going to pick 2 or 3 African albums for a list like this one, why would you go for the ones with the most Western influence, where the sophisticated intertwining rhythms characteristic of the best African music are blunted in favor of weak funk and jazz tropes and the distinctive sound palette of the various African countries is traded in for standard Western instrumentation, like a sub-Tower of Power horn section, and electric piano? That objection aside, there is nothing particularly wrong with Femi Kuti. It passes by painlessly enough. Femi Kuti is decent if unremarkable singer. The musicians are competent enough. But the music is a micron deep. There are no interesting rhythms to dig into. The horn section writing is unimaginative. Soloing is often a weak point in African music, and so it is here. Since the songs almost entirely of vamps, it's a whole lot of nothing. 2/5

I don't get it. If you are going to pick 2 or 3 African albums for a list like this one, why would you go for the ones with the most Western influence, where the sophisticated intertwining rhythms characteristic of the best African music are blunted in favor of weak funk and jazz tropes and the distinctive sound palette of the various African countries is traded in for standard Western instrumentation, like a sub-Tower of Power horn section, and electric piano? That objection aside, there is nothing particularly wrong with Femi Kuti. It passes by painlessly enough. Femi Kuti is decent if unremarkable singer. The musicians are competent enough. But the music is a micron deep. There are no interesting rhythms to dig into. The horn section writing is unimaginative. Soloing is often a weak point in African music, and so it is here. Since the songs almost entirely of vamps, it's a whole lot of nothing. 2/5

It's fashionable to rank on Billy Joel. Hell, he brought it on himself with the 2nd act of his career in the 80s. Actually, this is one of those rare times when it's legitimate to talk about an artist's personal life impacts his professional work. Billy Joel made bank in the 70s, but his accountant embezzled it all and fled with his ill gotten gains to Brazil. (Joel's wife Christie Brinkley, an astute businesswoman who happened to also be a model, was the one who figured out he was being swindled.) Just about the time that Billy Joel was set to wind down his career, he was forced to go back to work and rebuild his fortune. It showed in his subsequent work. All the accusations against Joel, that he was a hack, a journeyman without a soul, an expert at mimicking other better artists, a charlatan and a fake, were seemingly confirmed by tripe like We Didn't Start The Fire and Pressure. But it wasn't always so. Billy Joel's earnestness and tin pan alley style songcraft and slick and mannered performance style couldn't be less fashionable nowadays, but he was actually a skilled musician who had a knack for penning sharply observed working class vignettes. Nowhere was this more evident than in The Stranger, Joel's commercial peak. Aside from Just The Way You Are, which was inescapable in weddings for at least a generation, the album is stuffed with earworms and memorable tales like Moving Out, Only The Good Die Young, Get It Right The First Time, and Scenes From an Italian Restaurant. Only the closer Everybody Has A Dream, with Billy Joel channeling his inner Ray Charles, tips into unrestrained bathos. For those who despise Billy Joel, I get it, but the craft and skill here are undeniable. I myself prefer my music much less mainstream, not so slick, etc, so I'll dun this pretty much perfectly executed album a star. 4/5

It took me a while, but I kind of like Joan Armitrading. She is one of those rare artists that critics and record companies pull out all the stops for, plugging relentlessly, practically willing them into stardom. In fact, Joan Armitrading stands alone in this in terms of industry promotion. As I recall, the hype was that, as a songwriter, she was the 2nd coming of Lennon/McCartney. All the PR never really stuck--Joan Armitrading was never more than a minor figure in popular music. But what about the album in question? It actually isn't her first, but rather her third album, and has more or less the same mix of winners and duds. Armitrading's style was unusual, as it was a polyglot mix of a number of styles, wrapped up in an accessible package; folk, blues, R&B, country, and rock were the musical influences, and her lyrics had some of the confessional quality of the still recent singer songwriter era, but tended to be more direct and blunt. And then there was her voice, a plain but sonorous baritone. Her vocal phrasing was unusual, in that she would alternate between rapid fire rhythmic pulses and elongated phrases. Down to Zero has strong rhythmic hooks to start with, which Armitrading makes even more memorable by the way she stretches and contracts the melodies. Love and Affection boasts an earworm in the chorus that made it a hit, with the help of ceaseless industry promotion. Unfortunately, the rest of the songwriting is rather clumsy, which is the pattern for pretty much all of her albums. I generally prefer to listen to albums, but Joan Armitrading is one of those artists who are best enjoyed in a compilation. 2/5

Time is an interesting thing. When I was 8 years old, the Beach Boys sounded like yesterday's music to me, but they had been cutting edge only three years before. While the vocal sound of the Beach Boys has been appropriated by everyone from Van Halen to Animal Collective, this album is bound to a very specific cultural moment. So given all that, is it still worth listening to outside of its massive influence? Well, first of all, the vocals are still as gorgeous as ever, just in terms of the sheer beauty of the timbres. The brothers Wilson and Mike Love harmonize beautifully. We could use vocalists like them today. The disadvantage of the bell-like clarity of the vocalists is that the lyrics are all too discernable. They are simplistic bordering on moronic. At first glance, the music is just as simple. Certainly, the building blocks are, basic early 60s surf-rock melodies and chord progressions. But composer Brian Wilson throws in surprising harmonic shifts here and there, which provides some interest. The production has the bombast and echo so beloved by Phil Spector, which I loathe on general principle, but it's kind of appropriate for this kind of sunny California sound. So, how do you rate this sort of thing? I found the style boring 50 years ago, and I feel about the same now. That said, it's beautifully executed, and much more sophisticated than most music of its ilk. I'll hold my nose and give it 3 stars out of 5. 3/5

Reportedly, the members of Jefferson Airplane were not pleased with producer Rick Jarrard's efforts to discipline them, feeling that the results were unrepresentative of the band. If you ask me, he's a fucking hero. On opener She Has Funny Cars, the band all but falls apart. The vocals are wobbly, the rhythm section is shaky and the lead guitarist is mediocre both in terms of ideas and execution. The song structure is more complex than the composers can handle. Jefferson Airplane fares better on the more straightforward numbers, like the following Somebody To Love. Grace Slick vocals are passionate and I like her phrasing here, even if she only just pulls it off. My Best Friend is warm and charming, when it could have easily been sloppy, the more shambolic tendencies of the band reined in by the producer. The folk-influenced Today has a fragile arrangement, kept just on the side of coherence by, once again, the producer. Another folk ballad, Comin' Back To Me, much beloved by "sensitive young men" on the make because it was easy to play and sing, doesn't come across as particularly sincere, but then again, maybe I'm being too cynical. 3/5 Of A Mile In 10 Seconds is another thankfully straightforward uptempo rocker with some nice hooks. And so it goes. Throughout the album, the carefully pruned arrangements and short running times save the band from themselves time and time again. The selections are evenly split between folkie type numbers, uptempo rockers and mid tempo pop tunes, which was probably wise. It allows different aspects of the band to shine, and paired with the infallible instincts of the canny producer, make Jefferson Airplane seem far more competent than they actually are. Personally, I'd rather listen to a band that has its shit together and doesn't need to be shepherded into making a listenable album, which Surrealistic Pillow admittedly is. Surrealistic Pillow saves it's best song for next to last. White Rabbit has a genuinely innovative structure packed into a harrowing two minutes and thirty-three seconds. Then we're back to the wooly and half-assed psychedelia of Plastic Fantastic Lover. As noted elsewhere, Surrealistic Pillow was a commercial smash. Thanks to producer Rick Jarrard, Jefferson Airplane managed to get away with borderline amateurish performances, songwriting and overall musicianship and come out of it looking like geniuses, at least to the greater public. Ungrateful shmucks. 3.5/5

From the first song, I knew I wasn't the audience for this album. To my ears, the synthesizers are as ugly as it gets. I hate the vocals too, which are the unholy result that you would expect if George Michael and Bono had a baby. The torture continues with the second track, perky synths and drum machines essaying a reductive dance rhythm. I may vomit--I'm out.

You Want It Darker is not an unqualified triumph, but I still enjoyed it, mostly because of Leonard Cohen's take on mortality, (not) coming to terms with God, life and impending death. I'm sure I missed a few, but here's one memorable line: "As He died to make men holy Let us die to make things cheap" A short laugh out loud, followed by an internal groan. Sadly, the music actually diminished the impact of Cohen's poetry. It's old-fashioned in all the worst ways. It's overbearing when it should be spare, sentimental where it should be cold and bleak. Imagine the impact if Leonard Cohen had hired someone like Boards of Canada to do the music. Leonard Cohen was never much of a guitarist, but his accompaniment for Songs Of Leonard Cohen was a good fit for his poetry. If you want the full impact Leonard Cohen is capable of, watch McCabe and Mrs. Miller, a fable about our wonderful and plucky free enterprise system, which has the songs of Leonard Cohen as its soundtrack. By the end of the movie, you may want to kill yourself, but then again, Leonard Cohen was always tuned in to the more melancholy currents of life. On Accuradio, I used to hear a version of Democracy, a relatively modern Leonard Cohen tune, that I've never been able to find. That version was ghostly and gorgeous, deepening the themes of Cohen's poetry. The released version was a horrible patriotic march, intended as irony, I'm sure. You Want It Darker isn't as bad as that, but I regard it as a missed opportunity.

Oh, boy, I'm gonna get in trouble for this one. This album is considered by many as holy writ, and MC5 has a reputation as a forerunner of punk, and for good reason. MC5 has two cards to play: raw aggression and high energy. The singers can't sing, the guitarist can't play, the music is as basic as can be, and they still can't execute it worth a damn. These guys make The Stooges look like effete music snobs that attended Julliard. Hard pass. 0/5

I know that Mothership Connection is considered a classic funk record, but I beg to disagree. The first two tracks are ruined by overbearing Starchild raps, horrid synth patches, and wretched vocals. That's already 14 minutes shot out of a 38-minute album. Fortunately, things improve after that. Starchild's raps get less ubiquitous, and the synth patches and vocals markedly improve. It's a shame because the bass playing and the horn charts are tasty throughout. Unfunky UFO and Handcuffs are both downright funky. Ugh. Here we go again. The otherwise effective Give Up The Funk (Tear the Roof Off The Sucker) is spoiled by a wretched synth patch. It's a shame because the performance is full of energy and the arrangement is creative, especially that killer bassline and the propulsive drums. The otherwise fine closing track, Night of the Thumpasaurus Peoples, is marred by substandard vocals. I understand the horrid synths. Many an otherwise fine funk record was ruined that way in the mid-70s. For some reason, artists who should have known better actually seemed to like thin, metallic synth patches. But the vocals? There's no excuse for that. The decade was chocoblock with fantastic R&B vocalists. I think George Clinton made the deliberate decision to avoid slick R&B vocals in favor of rough vocals and unision singalongs to promote a party atmosphere. Commercially, it was a masterstroke. Artistically, it sucks balls. 2/5

Full disclosure: I should say at the outset that I'm a fan of both Sabbath and Ozzy. My big brother is a rock guitarist who has played in bar bands from the age of 16 and he loved them. The first two Sabbath albums were staples in our house when I was a kid. We didn't have Masters of Reality or Vol. 4 though, so I've never listened to either all the way through. From the beginning, Vol. 4 is quite different in tone from those earlier albums. Whereas those earlier albums specialized in monolithic headbangers like Iron Man or War Pigs, opener Wheels of Confusion/The Straightener feels more like a heavy metal fever dream the way it drifts through it's multipart structure. You can see where it's relatively complex structure might have inspired latter day rockers like Soundgarden. The third track, Changes is a genuine departure, an honest to God ballad with remedial block piano chords, a mellotron chorus, and a heartfelt Ozzy vocal. Truthfully, it's kind of lame but I find Ozzy's lachrymose and heartfelt performance funny as hell. FX makes a nice psychedelic pallette cleanser before the monster riff that anchors Supernaut. Oddly enough, there's a quasi calypso acoustic break stuck in the middle of the tune, but it's not enough to derail the tune. Snowblind is one of Sabbath's adorably lunkheaded proto Beavis and Butthead headbangers, a paean to the mountains of coke they were snorting during the sessions. As you might have guessed, I find Black Sabbath impossible to take seriously, but I love them anyway. On the one hand, I am amused by their dead serious lyrics about drug use, war, suicide, and the demonic, their well-meaning attempts at balladry and psychedelia, and of course, Ozzy's dotty wailing. On the other hand, I genuinely enjoy the catharsis of the metal riffing. On Vol 4, Sabbath clearly still has the metal goods, but they're branching out and experimenting. I'll have to struggle not to give this a higher rating than it deserves because I'm enjoying it so much. Clearly, Toni Lommi's Laguna Sunrise is a piece of fluff, pleasant enough, but really slight, but I gotta admit, in Sabbath's case, I actually enjoy the pretension. 4/5

My only familiarity with The Specials is from their appearance on Saturday Night Live back in 1980, which I really enjoyed at the time--it was fun and high energy. So, on to More Specials, the Specials' second album. I loathe pub singalongs, so album opener Enjoy Yourself (It's Later Than You Think) left me cold with it's overly busy, fumbling arrangement and belted choruses. Fortunately, the Specials are more competent than the opening tune would indicate. Man At C & A demonstrates their mastery of the dub style, with some spaghetti western affectations. With Hey Little Rich Girl, they're back to ska. The vocals and lyrics are very punk -- it's an interesting combination. For me, the Specials' version of ska is a little clumsy and on the nose compared to the Jamaican original, but I understand the appeal. Clearly The Specials love, love, love Jamaican music and have made a real effort to understand it. It's an extension of Britain's appreciation of Jamaican music, exemplified by the absolutely fantastic Tighten Up series, which I highly recommend if you have even a passing interest in Jamaican popular music of the late 60s and early 70s. The rest of More Specials proceeds along the same lines, a British working class take on ska and it's variations. For me, it's largely superfluous. I'd rather listen to the real thing.

I wouldn't describe myself a full-fledged Zappa fan. I gravitate to either his classical avant guarde phase (e.g. The Yellow Shark) or his very short prog phase (Roxy & Elsewhere). Most folks consider Hot Rats an example of the latter. Opener Peaches En Regalia has a complex structure, memorable melodies, and an elaborate and detailed arrangement. It has some rock/R&B feel, but frankly, the genre is impossible to peg. Too bad I don't like it more. Some of the sonorities feel awkward to me, and the humorous elements are unwelcome. But this is purely a matter of taste. It's certainly a competent piece of music. Willie The Pimp is another matter. I've always found Captain Beefheart's Howling Wolf impersonation irritating, certainly in a blues/rock context, like here. The rhythm section is fine, but how much you enjoy this tune will depend on your tolerance for the lengthy solos. I've never found Frank Zappa's guitar playing especially interesting. He just drones on and on with permutations of standard blues and rock licks. His tone is okay, I guess. I just can't get very enthusiastic about it. Son of Mr. Green Jeans is of the same ilk as Peaches En Regalia. If you enjoyed that, you will likely enjoy this. There's also another extended guitar solo from Frank. Sigh. I find Little Umbrellas more appealing compositionally with it's gently insinuating melody and non-standard modal content. Ruth Underwood has the solo spots here, which helps. She's a monster player. And I like the bassist on this number, too. His bass tone is fat and his note choices are tasty. The Gumbo Variations is another standard blues riff extended to over 12 minutes! I don't hate the sax player, maybe because he brings some welcome skronk to the proceedings, but 12 minutes is a long time for this sort of thing. Once again, the rhythm players do a great job of maintaining interest, but there's only so much they can do. With Don Sugarcane Harris' extended violin solo, he proves he can be just as tedious as Zappa. Thankfully, the album closes with It Must Be A Camel, which has the sort of thoroughly unconventional melodies and harmonies that I've only heard from Zappa. Drummer John Guerin has a major role here. He's by far the most tasteful and imaginative soloist on this date. Too bad the rest of the album isn't this good. Interestingly, Jean Luc Ponty put out an album of Frank Zappa compositions called King Kong the same year Hot Rats came out, which Frank also arranged, and I adore that. Go figure. How to rate? Well, the session players are fine. The three through-composed tunes (as opposed to the jam sessions) are competent and show some creativity. The engineering is first-rate. But the solos bore the shit out of me. Ditto the jam tunes. 2.5/5

It's difficult for me to assess the song Let's Get It On as it was ubiquitous for some thirty years after its release, and as such, practically beyond criticism, but I'll try. The first thing I noticed is how beautifully recorded it is. The way the instruments are miked and mixed is perfect. The next is the performances, which are exquisite, especially the guitarist and Marvin himself. The use of the wah wah pedal and the note choices are wonderful and Gaye's voice is in great shape, his vocal improvisations sinuous and soulful in equal measure. Whoever did the arrangement outdid him or herself--they are detailed but there is plenty of room for the song to breathe, a neat trick. The song deserved to be a smash. And it wasn't a one off either. Similary excellent performances and production continue on the first side of the album. Nothing quite as indelible as the hit, but quite good. Unfortunately, the quality takes a noticeable dip on the 2nd half of the album, not in terms of the performances, but rather the arrangements and production. There isn't as much space in the arrangments, and a certain syrupy, sentimental quality creeps in. I'm not a big fan of slow jams myself, and basically the whole album is nothing but slow jams, so that's another knock against Let's Get It On: musically and lyrically, it consistes of minor variations on the same theme. So, how to rate? This is a genre I don't especially care for, but the first side of the album is damned near perfect, while the 2nd half is merely very good. 4/5

If there was ever a singles band, it is ABBA. In terms of pure pop, Waterloo is one of the best singles ever--it's just nonstop hooks, high energy, and perfect execution from beginning to end. But ABBA is responsible for a lot of revolting music, too, so I didn't go into this review with high expectations. There is a fine line between exuberant and overbearing and ABBA consistently crosses it. Much of Arrival feels overstuffed, overproduced, and has a overly sweet, cloying quality. The combination of the perky choruses and the thumping bass on When I Kissed the Teacher makes my stomach ache. Same goes for the descending Liberace piano figures on Dancing Queen. To be fair, it's this very excess or to be kinder, ahem generosity of spirit, that ABBA fans find appealing. When ABBA slows down the tempo, as on My Love, My Life, their gooey sentimentality is brought into even harsher relief. This is a band that makes The Carpenters seem edgy. They've sanded down all the elements in their music, lacquered them and buffed them to a glossy shine, like a bubblegum pink cadillac. If you're getting the idea that ABBA rubs me the wrong way, you are 100% correct. But even on ABBA own terms, as a bubblegum hit making machine, Arrival falls short. There are only a couple of Pavlovian earworms here. 2/5

I'm been putting of this review for a few days because slaughtering sacred cows makes me uneasy, but here goes: American Beauty's standing in the pop music canon is more due to it's place in the cultural zeitgeist of 1970 and the ferocious loyalty of The Grateful Dead's fans than any intrinsic musical value. The harmonies are wobbly, as are the lead vocals, instrumental performances, arrangements, and compositions. If any of these guys had sung in church, the choir director would have slipped them a quarter not to sing. The music itself is an amalgam of early rock 'n roll, country, folk, and most importantly bluegrass. That's crucial because the Dead were the only high profile band to incorporate bluegrass into their music at the time (the Byrds and others of their ilk stuck to country). Together with the shambolic vocals and performances, this lent the music a ramshackle stoned charm that resonated with counter cultural audiences of the time. I know because I was part of that audience, even if I wasn't much of a fan. I can't count the number of times I heard Box of Rain or Sugar Magnolia or Friend of the Devil sung around a campfire or played at a party or on an eight track cassette in a Volkswagen van with a bunch of kids getting stoned. Actually, the more bluegrass oriented songs, like Friend of the Devil, tend to be the strongest. (An offshoot of the Dead, Old And In The Way, went on to make a very good bluegrass album five years later.) I actually find the music charming in a low key way, but a bona fide classic this is not. Frankly, the biggest accomplishment of American Beauty is that it made bluegrass cool to a whole new generation. My guess is that Bill Monroe owes his latter day career resurgence in large part to the Dead.

Any band that opens an album with a song called Multinational Corporations can't be all bad. Unfortunately, the entirety of the song is just a squall of admittedly fun noise. The next few songs let us know what we're in for. Napalm Death is all about Black Sabbath inspired metal riffing blanketed in distortion accompanied by unintelligible growling, often played weally weally fwast. Now, some of the riffing is actually pretty cool, but I would enjoy it a lot more if I understood the lyrics. As it is, the vocals are nothing more than pure aggression and rage, and I don't find that very interesting. The songs are very short, which is a good thing for this sort of speed metal. It's kind of a shame. There's unrealized potential here. If the songs were just a little bit better, with less incoherent thrashing, and the vocals were a little more like Husker Du (screaming, but intelligible), Napalm Death would be a blast. As it is, I can't recommend this.

With a band like AC/DC, which is really basic rock 'n roll, you can't dun them for not being more sophisticated. That wouldn't be fair. You have to evaluate them on how well they execute their concept. You need riffs which intersect with the vocals in ways that provide forward momentum to the tunes. AC/DC does this very well. Since you're going for basic, you have to make your point and get out--no long tunes, no extended solos. Check. You have to keep the proceedings high energy--check. The production has to be dirty enough to provide grit, but clean enough to put the tunes across--check. And it helps if you come up with choruses that beg to be sung along with. The title cut obviously qualifies. But even on the deeper album cuts, the band never lets up on energy or professionalism. AC/DC may not be breaking any new ground here, but they are very, very good at what they do. (It actually surprised me a bit that this band was famous for partying and substance abuse, considering how precise they are in the studio.)But I would be lying if I neglected to say I was bored halfway through. Okay, the hell with it. I'm going to break my own rule and subtract a point for lack of ambition. If it helps for fans of AC/DC, this is a perfectly performed and recorded album. If I was evaluating it on that basis alone, Highway To Hell would be an easy 5/5.

Believe it or not, I've never listened to Doolittle all the way through before today, and now my brain is fried. It's as disorienting as if I'd been on a half dozen rides at a carnival after getting drunk. Maybe it's the sheer number of influences Frank Black draws from on Doolittle, from country to reggae; or how the album whipsaws from pop to punk on a dime, from sweet to shrill, or it could be the highly original freakshow lyrics, but no--ultimately, it's that all of this winds up sounding not like a stylistic mishmash, but rather an astonishingly congruent and cathartic artistic statement. Some of the songs on this album burn themselves into your brain on first hearing--Debaser, This Monkey's Gone To Heaven, and Wave of Mutilation come to mind--but every last track contributes to the cosmic mindfuckery that is Doolittle. Let me see if I can explain a little how the Pixies pull this off. It's not that these are virtuoso musicians or anything. It's more about how they bring together disparate elements in violently imaginative ways. One thing that Frank Black does is he tends to cut out sections of songs that would normally be left in as part of conventional pop structure. For example, on Debaser, there are these little two or four bar sections that connect ideas--they're exactly as long as they need to be and no longer. It's as if Frank Black found a way to make ADHD an integral part of his songwriting. And then, there's the contrasts: on the same song, check out how the poppy countermelody of Joey Santiago's guitar co-exists with Frank Black's shouted vocals. Or the segue from a gentle reggae lilt to a demented hillbilly stomp on Mr. Grieves? This is twisted stuff, even before you factor in lyrics about sliced eyeballs, driving into the ocean, and interracial relationship fantasies. Doolittle is a blast from beginning to end.

OK Computer is one of those rare albums that actually deserves the praise lavished on it. Where to even start? How about the astonishingly layered arrangement of Airbag, the opening tune? Yes, it's guitar based, but there's snatches of electronica, electronic percussion alongside live drums, a cello, and I could go on and on. You could listen to this track a dozen times and hear something new every time. Compositionally, these songs are as strong as they get, which explains why they've been covered by the likes of Brad Melhdau. Take Paranoid Android, a multipart suite with odd meter changes, but which nonetheless rocks like a mother. And unlike many other bands, Radiohead doesn't get any less interesting when they slow down and do a ballad like the gorgeous No Surprises. On OK Computer, Radiohead makes most bands sound like hacks or toddlers, and that goes for most of the bands that have followed in their footsteps. If I had been in a rock band at the time, it probably would have made me throw up my hands in despair. An easy 5 out of 5.

I'm afraid this is going to be one of my less helpful reviews. To my ears, Pieces of the Sky is homogenized country music. Unlike the Grateful Dead, Commander Cody, or even the Ozark Mountain Daredevils, Emmylou Harris has nothing to add to Country music, such as rock or blues--she can only weaken it and dumb it down. If I wanted to listen to pure 70s country, I'd go with someone like Charlie Rich. That said, I have to grudgingly admit that the album is technically well performed from top to bottom. It's just flat and flavorless.

The Arctic Monkeys' Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not is appealing right out of the gate. It's got energy to spare, a nice direct sound, and the band is incredibly tight. But by the second song, I was getting worried. They are already recycling musical ideas. It turns out that the Arctic Monkeys are artistically monochromatic, reworking the same tropes over and over. It's dispiriting. Even old punk bands like The Clash had more arrows in their quiver than this. The Arctic Monkeys take limbs from the corpses of their favorite bands (Franz Ferdinand, The Strokes), which are themselves stitched together from other bands (The Clash, Ian Dury), sew them together, and then attempt to breathe life into it, pretending like it's something new. It's fucking boring. Now, I haven't yet addressed the lyrics, which seem to address various aspects of nightlife. Actually, the music is such a turn off, I don't think I will.

If you have to include a Rush album in a list like this, Moving Pictures is a bit of an odd choice--it marks the exact moment that Rush started to curdle, both lyrically and musically. Lyricist/drummer Neil Peart had been an Ayn Rand enthusiast since at least Hemispheres, but at least the objectivism on The Trees from that album was couched in a clever and picturesque fable. On Moving Pictures, we get couplets like "His mind is not for rent to any God or government" and "Everybody got mixed feelings about the function and the form; everybody got to deviate from the norm." It's bald speechifying, and hasn't worn well after 40 years of neoliberalism. Musically speaking, back on Permanent Waves, synths were used for flavor, and added a welcome futuristic sheen to the music. On Moving Pictures, they fight for dominance with Alex Lifeson's guitars, which is bad news since Geddy Lee is a bassist, not a keyboard player, unlike John Paul Jones from Led Zeppelin. After Moving Pictures, Rush went over to the dark side, becoming for all intents and purposes a keyboard based rock band. But, as I've alluded to, Moving Pictures is a transitional album, and since Rush's previous album was the masterful Permanent Waves, they were still capable of great music. The clear highlight of Moving Pictures is Limelight, a paean to stardom and its appeal. Everything comes together on this track. Geddy Lee does full justice to Neil Peart's evocative lyrics. Yes, I know he sounds like a guinea pig on speed, but he isn't afraid of the emotions in this song--it's a very generous performance. Alex Lifeson gives a guitar solo for the ages here, creative and passionate. I can't listen to it without getting a lump in my throat. And Neil Peart plays the hell out of his kit with his patented thundering and technically immaculate fills. But the rest of the album? Meh. YYZ is just okay compositionally, and the solos are nothing to get fired up about either, although Alex Lifeson's spot ain't bad. Tom Sawyer is vastly overrated, with awkward and bludgeoning lyrics and music to match. Red Barchetta is juvenile and boring. Even the epic The Camera Eye is dull, with themes that fail to engage on either an emotional or intellectual level. Witch Hunt is an outright disaster, a micky mouse attempt at social commentary. Actually, going into this review, I had mixed feelings about Moving Pictures, probably colored by how much I love the song Limelight. Revisiting Moving Pictures, I find that it's not very good at all. Disappointing.

The eponymous leadoff track for this album was originally conceived by an electronics company to demonstrate the capabilities of their new recording console, but after the fact, it was deemed successful enough to justify commissioning an entire album in the same style. They weren't wrong. It turns out the strategy of purposely including a wide range of dynamics and timbres with lots of space results in fairly listenable music. It helps that there are no truly ugly synths here, and a decent variety of instrumentation. Okay, I spoke too soon. The further along in the album you go, the uglier the synths and drum machines get. But the weakest link here is the songwriting. The melodies and compositions are bland and instantly forgettable at best, and at worst are actively unpleasant. Still, A Walk Across The Rooftops is conceptually interesting and considering it came out in 1984, one of the nadirs of popular music, it could have been a lot worse.

Goldfrapp reminds me of nothing as much as Portishead, minus the hip hop trappings, the edginess and the haunting and haunted quality of Beth Gibbons' voice. Instead we get Allison Goldfrapp, who is inoffensive but not especially evocative. That pretty much describes the music as well, which like Portishead is based on torch songs, exotica, spy soundtracks, and other assorted 50s and early 60s ephemera. I mean, this is not badly written or arranged, but it's been done before and much better. Felt Mountain is unforgivably bland. I never thought I'd say this, but I sorely miss the hip hop influence.

Leonard Cohen plus 80s synths, drum machines and production--what could possibly go wrong? As ever, Leonard Cohen's poetry is pointed and lucid. The challenge for Cohen has always been to come up with music that hopefully enriches his lyrical content or at the very least, doesn't make you want to hurl. Not surprisingly, he fails miserably here. Having listened to two of Cohen's later albums beginning to end, it's apparent that his compositional style has remained remarkably consistent throughout the years. All that really changes are superficial styles and instrumentation. This hasn't hurt Leonard Cohen commercially or critically, which is a bit surprising. Why is everyone so eager to give Leonard Cohen a pass? I'm reminded of a quote from the movie Chinatown: "Course I'm respectable. I'm old. Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough."

Supposedly, there has never been an album like Astral Weeks--certainly, I've never heard one. Compositionally, the songs are dead simple--they're just vamps, repeated endlessly over which Van Morrison vocalizes his poetry. There aren't a lot of real melodies--rather, Van Morrison improvises modally over the vamps. And these songs aren't short either--the longest is almost ten minutes and three others top the seven minute mark. So it's a minor miracle that Astral Weeks isn't a complete snooze. Why not? Well, probably the credit can be split between arranger Larry Fallon and the band. The band consists mostly of jazz musicians, which doesn't mean this is a jazz album in any way. It's pure, if ruminative pop. Rather, the musicians percolate through the vamps with subtle variations that average session musicians wouldn't have been able to manage. Bassist Richard Davis gets the honors here, with his full round bass tone and aggressive attack. And the inventive and tasteful arrangements of Larry Fallon makes these skeletal vamps seem more like full fledged songs than they have any right to. Okay, I'll give Van Morrison himself a little credit, too. His lyrics, mostly ruminations about places and people from his past--if you're in the mood to drift with the atmospheric vamps--weave an undeniable spell. And his vocalizations disguise the threadbare character of the compositions. I don't hear folk or the blues here, by the way. I'm more reminded of Sam Cooke's vocal inflections. So, how to rate something like this? Considering what Van Morrison is going for here, it's how to imagine how it could have been better done. But would I choose to listen to an album of poetry sung over vamps, however pleasant? Probably not. As usual, I'll try to err on the side of generosity.

I have lots of feelings about this being included in the 1001 Albums list. My family owned this album when I was a 10-year old kid and I was a fan, up to a point. I would have never dreamed this album would end up on any sort of must-listen-to kind of list though. This will be the first time I've listened to this album all the way through in about 50 years. The first thing that strikes me is how relatively deadpan and matter of fact Taylor's delivery is. When delivering emotional material, the tendency at the time (and since) was for singers to try and sell the emotion. James Taylor wasn't having any of that. He just said what he had to say like he's having a conversation with a close friend. I find that both moving and comforting. The second revelation is how much he likes country, the blues, gospel, and R&B. That wouldn't have occurred to me back then because I had no real knowledge of music genres at the time--I just knew what I liked. Taylor pulls off his attempts at different genres with various levels of success. He's aces at country (Sweet Baby James, Anywhere Like Heaven), surprisingly good at gospel (Lo and Behold), but his attempts at blues and R&B are more problematic. Oh Baby, Don't You Loose Your Lip On Me isn't bad, I guess, but it can get unintentionally funny sometimes: "Don't you loose your lip on lovin' man JT, whoo hooooooo...." The more subtle injections of R&B into folk material (Oh, Susannah) work, but when goes full throttle (Steamroller, the 2nd half of Suite for 20 G), the results are kind of embarrassing. It's apparent how much he loves R&B, but James Taylor is a Laurel Canyon singer songwriter down to the marrow of his bones. Listening to him to try be Wilson Pickett is like a little kid trying on profanity to seem more like an adult. The production and arrangements (with the exception of the latter have of Suite for 20 G) suit Taylor admirably. The sound is clean, clear and spacious, as are the arrangements. The backing is by Laurel Canyon stalwarts like guitarist Danny Kortchmar, drummer Russ Kunkel, and Carole King, as well as a couple of country specialists (Red Rhodes on steel guitar and Chris Darrow on fiddle). I should probably mention that Taylor himself is a decent guitarist. The playing is elegant and understated, in keeping with Taylor's approach. How to rate? Nostalgia will do doubt color my opinion. In a low key way, it was quite ambitious of Taylor to include so many genre elements in this music. More often than not, he succeeds wildly. Occasionally his reach exceeds his grasp, but I feel inclined not to punish him too harshly for that. So, I'll subtract a star for Taylor's embarrassing attempts at full on R&B.

More often than not, when bands attempt to manufacture campy music, the results are painful. Generally, camp has to be arrived at unintentionally to be funny. The opening tune of B-52's eponymous album, Planet Claire, is a case in point. It's anchored by an obvious Peter Gunn riff. To this, Fred Schneider adds unfunny lyrics in a self-consciously goofy voice, and Kate Pierson layers on keyboard lines which are intended to be redolent of 60s outer space epics but aren't clever enough to add much. 52 Girls is at least a little more pleasant, if inconsequential. A decent little rock 'n roll/new wave guitar line chugs along while Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson contribute high pitched charmingly off key melodies on top that periodically diverge or converge. I wouldn't be surprised if the members of Lush nicked their vocal style from this tune, so the B-52's earn some good karma there. Dance This Mess Around is pretty nondescript except for the vocals, which are once again, self-consciously goofy in a way that is designed to be amusing. On Rock Lobster, the B-52's push their approach of merging various strains of 50s and 60s ephemera with self-consciously goofy lyrics and vocal stylings as far as it can go, which resulted in a monster hit. Why? My guess is that the influences were so obvious that audiences felt like they were in on the joke, and it didn't matter that the song sucked. The rest of the album proceeds along the same lines, but the B-52's save the worst for last with a disastrous cover of Downtown, which drains the tune of any charm it might have had. How to rate? This album is a thoroughgoing stinker, but I'll add half a point for influencing Lush, one of the better shoegaze bands of the 90s.

It's tempting to dismiss Sunday At The Village Vanguard as safe, geriatric and boring, the sort of music you would expect to hear in an upscale hotel lobby bar. But that isn't really fair--the album deserves a closer listen. In most popular (as distinguished from classical) improvisatory music, the function of the rhythm section is to lay down a groove, keep time, and provide a rhythmic and harmonic structure for the soloist to blow over. Bill Evans has had a lot of trios over the years, but this is probably the first one in which each member of the trio could and was expected to fluidly take on any role: time keeping, harmony, soloing, holding down a groove or pulse, etc. This required intense listening from all the members of the trio and is actually very difficult to do well. A close listen will reveal that the trio is communicating almost telepathically, and that the playing is exquisite, which accounts for the legendary status of this album, especially among jazz buffs. That said, if you aren't willing to put in the effort to intensively listen to this music, it will most likely come across as safe, geriatric and boring. That is why I actually prefer other recordings of the Bill Evans Trio, especially Turn Out The Stars, which was recorded shortly before Evans died. Evans pours his heart and soul into those performances with unmatched ferocity, knowing he didn't have long to live. So, how to rate Sunday At The Village Vanguard? Well, for what Evans was going for, it's pretty much perfection, an easy 5/5. However, I have to be honest--I don't really enjoy listening to it that much.

Husker Du frontman Bob Mould had always married hardcore to a pop sensibility, but when he established Sugar, he reversed the emphasis and focused on pure pop with the energy of hardcore. My awareness of this album at the time was focused on the three hits from the album, A Good Idea, If I Can Change Your Mind, and Changes, so I wasn't overly impressed. Fortunately, these are probably the three weakest tracks, tending towards heavy handed and obvious pop tropes. As for the rest of the album, it's remarkably consistent. The songcraft, arrangements and performances range from very good to excellent, but what really makes Sugar and Copper Blue stand out is the hypnotic, trance inducing quality of the overall sound. Whenever possible, Bob Mould uses drones, pedal points, and moderate levels of distortion to create an appealing meditative quality, even on the hardest rocking tunes. I'll subtract a half point for the hits (which actually work better in the context of the album than as stand alone tunes) and the misguided synthy prologue of Hoover Dam, but this is really good stuff.

I'm always complaining about how basic most hip hop and rap is, but you can't easily level that criticism at To Pimp A Butterfly. The opening track is dizzingly detailed. Thankfully, the lame and childish attempt to parody early seventies soul only lasts a few seconds before a knotty swaggering rhythm kicks in. A sinuous synth bass is interwoven with a chorus that cuts against the primary rhythm (I'm hearing the influence of George Clinton here), the main rap, seemingly arrhythmic Fender Rhodes tinkling, horn hits, and so on. It's a pity the lyric content isn't more interesting, but you can't have everything. You could listen to this track a dozen times and not catch everything. More to the point, it's tastefully arranged and its interesting. Again uncharacteristically, the music that underscores the interlude that follows isn't tossed off. It's legit modern jazz with hip hop influenced drums. The rap is the usual bitches and money whinging. Boring, but musically it's interesting.Oh, okay, I thought I was losing my mind. The next cut King Kunta takes several steps back in terms of complexity and interest. This tune has a driving rhythm and bass line, but it's pretty darned straightforward musically. Can't fault the production--lots of bells and whistles, but it isn't enough to sustain interest.The album recovers nicely with Institutionalized. Broken rhythms, choral elements which cut against the rhythms, production tricks, subtractive strategies straight out of Stockhausen, evocative use of jazz samples, and for once Kendrick Lamar has an interesting subject, although he doesn't approach it with much insight or grace or wit. A missed opportunity.And so it goes. In terms of quality, To Pimp A Butterfly is all over the map. The production is consistently first rate. Kendrick Lamar is a poor lyricist and barely an okay rapper. Sometimes, the tunes are basic and boring--at other times, they point at the complexity and interest that's possible in hip hop. Every time I started to get drawn in by a creative arrangement or an original musical idea, I'd get pulled out by Kendrick's tedious raps or by a track which tried to get by solely on production tricks.It's frustrating, but at least there's some ambition here.

Let's set aside the fact that this album was massively innovative in terms of using the studio as an instrument and for integrating non-musical material into pop music. Also immaterial is how well it's done commercially. What matters now is, does it still work? Do the musical collages hold up? Are they tasteful? How are the performances? Does the music still draw you in? How about lyrically? Does the album as a whole cast a spell? Does the sequencing still work? The answer to all the above is, "Fuck, yeah!" This probably isn't even my favorite Pink Floyd album. The songs themselves are a little straightforward for me. I prefer Meddle, Ummagumma, and even The Piper At The Gates of Dawn, which were more experimental in terms of songcraft. But you can't argue with the execution, which remains flawless. The collages which drive the album are impeccably put together and produced. The playing is stunning, especially David Gilmore's guitar playing. It's easy to underestimate what he's doing here--he doesn't seem to break a sweat. But his taste, feel and note choices are sublime. Again, it's easy to underappreciate the subtlety of Roger Water's vocals, but the nuance is quite artful. And every element, every solo, every vocal performance, every production choice, works together to produce a seamless work of art.

This one is going to be hard to review because it's practically wired into my DNA. Sgt. Pepper's was one of the most played records in my house when we were kids, and of course it was constantly on the radio for 30 years at least. It's going to be hard to approach this with fresh ears from a critical perspective, but I'll try. The first thing you have to talk about is what Sgt. Pepper's is not: it's not a rock album, although it does have rock in it, and it's not an album of psychedelia, although it has psychedelia in it. Sgt. Pepper's is a pop album through and through, although with pretensions to art music. It draws from rock, psychedelia, music hall, classical, and even carnatic music traditions. Now, generally, the lessons from Sgt. Pepper's have been thoroughly absorbed, as you can tell by listening to any Sufjan Stevens album or any number of other modern artists. Fans of these artists would tell you that Sgt. Pepper's is boring and irrelevant and while it's historically significant, the Beatles have long since been surpassed. And in a way, they're right. Studio trickery is far more advanced. Artists confidently layer on dozens of tracks for any given song. But what they're leaving out is taste. Listening to Sgt. Pepper's for the first time in a long time, and critically at that, I was surprised at how sparse the music was for the most part. The Beatles don't dump everything but the kitchen sink into their tunes for the most part, not that they had the option--Sgt. Pepper's was made on a four track recorder. I was amazed at how much mileage they get out of so little. The music sounds really full if you aren't paying super close attention. And the variety of textures and styles they manage to eke out is kind of mind blowing. This speaks to incredibly cunning arrangements. Then there's the skill and taste of the playing. Listening to Sgt. Pepper's with a critical ear, I was in awe of McCartney's bass playing. He rarely explicitly maps out the bass notes of chords. More often than not, he's playing counter melodies and counter rhythms while still keeping the pulse and giving a sense of the harmonies. And all this with distinctly simple bass lines. And he has a beautiful, bell like tone. His work on Sgt. Pepper's is some of the most economical and tasteful I've heard. Then there's Harrison. Again, his solos are simple, economical, but iconic. You could never mistake his guitar playing for anyone else's. And he has a genius for finding just the right guitar tone for any given situation. But what about the songs themselves? They generally have strong melodies and structures, not terribly complex, but memorable nonetheless. Modern audiences are certain to be bored by When I'm 64 because it refers back to a music hall tradition that was 30 or 30 years old back in 1967, and so completely irrelevant to them. I don't blame them for that, but for me, the music hall influence in When I'm 64 strikes me as a charming throwback, basically because I'm old. Likewise, many will have a problem with the classical art music pretentions of She's Leaving Home. I don't because of what I'm assuming is McCartney's light touch and sense of humor about the material, reflected in melodramatic strings that accompany the lyrics \"She breaks down and cries to her husband 'Daddy, our baby's gone!'\" which recalls film melodramas McCartney would have grown up with. I have a bigger problem with Within You Without You. The philosophy in the lyrics, while not ridiculous in and of itself, comes off as second hand, heavy handed, and often clumsy. When paired with quasi-carnatic music, given its association with gurus, it's way too on the nose, and even a bit embarrassing. So, you've got a solid slate of songs with one clunker, gorgeous, clever, and economical arrangements, and first-rate musicianship. I'll dun Sgt. Pepper's half a star for Within You Without You, but it's hard to fault it otherwise.

As usual, I'm going to ignore how massively influential this album is in evaluating it. As I alluded to in my recent review of Dark Side of the Moon, I actually enjoy The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn more, which is not to say that it's a better album. Dark Side of the Moon is near perfect, but I prefer the boundless imagination of Piper. The structures of the songs are constantly surprising and yet tuneful and accessible. I can't think of another pop album this is more true of. Between guitarist Syd Barrett and keyboardist Richard Wright, the instrumental textures are kaleidoscopic, despite the primitive nature of the instruments and effects pedals and studio trickery available at the time. Drummer Nick Mason and bassist Roger Waters give some stability for Barrett's and Wright's flights of fancy. Not everything is successful. There are two outright duds right in the middle of the album, Pow R. Toc. H and Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk, which lack the grace and charm of the other tunes. Interstellar Overdrive squeaks by on the lengthy improvised middle section, despite the limited technical abilities and harmonic knowledge of the musicians, on sheer instinctive musicality. No such reservations need be applied to the album closer, Bike. The idiosyncratic tune gives way to a gorgeous psychedelic instrumental freakout, capped by an ingenious loop of what sounds like Canadian geese. How to rate? Although Barrett and Wright are able to bridge the gap between their technical abilities and their imaginations through sheer instinctive musicality and fearlessness, their limitations in regard to note choices sometimes grate. And two songs are basically a waste of vinyl. But the other songs are often breathtaking in their originality, the lyrics endlessly charming. Despite the technical shortcomings, the atmospherics conjured up by the group are by turns whimsical, ethereal and terrifying. The highs are so high, I'm inclined to cut Pink Floyd some slack.

Fair warning: generally, I loathe folk music with a passion. I'm actually neutral on hip hop and rap--stop snickering. Really. I mean, if someone came out with a great rap album tomorrow, I'd be the first to say so. But folk--especially the early 60s folk revival--look, my mom listened to Ian and Sylvia and the Kingston Trio nonstop when I was a toddler and it scarred me for life. Genre per se is rarely a barrier for me, but I'll make an exception for folk. Which is all to say that I make not give this album a fair shake. You've been warned. Sure enough, Joan Baez's debut album is pretty awful, but not for the reasons I would have expected. I was tempted to begin with praise because Baez actually has pretty decent taste -- she's curated a bunch of solid tunes from various folk traditions, and her voice is strong, but no. Baez has zero interpretive skills. She approaches every tune the exact same way--not counting shifts in dynamics and an irritating vibrato--and ends up flattening the entire folk tradition into an amorphous blob. She sounds exactly like what she is--a middle class white woman with negligible life experience. She drains the blood out of every song she sings and proudly presents the bleached white corpse like it's some kind of accomplishment. Actually, I'm glad I reviewed this album because now I understand why I loathed early 60s folk as a kid. Acts like Ian and Sylvia and the Kingston Trio and yes, Joan Baez, made their living by homogenizing and whitewashing any number of musical traditions that are well worth hearing. I'm sure Joan Baez had good and pure intentions, but she ends up loving this music to death.

Most of the way through Out of Step, I had a grin on my face. It has all the aggression you could want in a hardcore band, but the stop start rhythms, angular compositions, lack of cliches, turn on a dime performances, and thoughtful, angry lyrics give some nourishment for the soul and intellect as well. It doesn't hurt that, for hardcore, there's actually quite a bit of variety in the grooves and tempos. If I have a minor complaint, it's that I couldn't understand all the words, but that's kind of a given in hardcore.

I fully expected to love this album. I consider Ray Davies one of the great working class lyricists; he's capable of writing with great compassion and insight. He is also capable of snappy, indelible songcraft. But not here. The melodies are standard 60s pop and instantly forgettable for the most part. Same goes for the song structures. Although I appreciate his ethnographic focus on Face to Face, Davies' lyrics are not specific and incisive enough to have much impact. The performances are shockingly mediocre as well--they range from charmingly ramshackle to downright flabby. This is a classic? I don't think so.

After his first three albums with arranger Paul Buckmaster (self-titled, Honky Tonk Chateau, and Madman Across the Water), Elton John had nothing left to prove, artistically speaking. But Elton wasn't satisfied, setting his sights for superstardom, starting with Don't Shoot Me I'm Only The Piano Player. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road was Elton's swing for the fences attempt, and damned if he didn't succeed. Elton streamlined his style, jettisoning the cinematic orchestrations of Paul Buckmaster, de-emphasing roots music, and simplifying the structure of his tunes somewhat, all to great effect, commercially. Ironically, far and away the best song on Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is the eponymous cut, with it's complex, winding structure and soaring multipart choruses. For a change, Bennie Maupin's lyrics measure up to the music. Such is the magic of this collaboration is that these two men somehow managed to get most of America to emphasize with a gay protagonist who engages in survival sex in the big city, passed around among friends by a rich benefactor, in 1973 no less! And there are more treasures. Candle in the Wind, which has become identified with Princess Diana, but which was actually written about Marilynn Monroe, is as tuneful and emotional a ballad as you could want. Bennie and the Jets, aside from being laden with hooks, has some ingenious instrumental interplay in the fade out. Sweet Painted Lady is uncommonly rueful and adult for a pop song. And, while I don't personally much enjoy Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting, it's a wonder of pop construction. Most of it is fairly straightforward rock 'n roll, but the long sustained note before the chorus and the wordless vocalizing that ends the chorus are pure genius. The first delays and sets up the chorus so when it hits, it's ten times as powerful as it might have been. The latter skillfully demarcates the choruses the verses. Unfortunately, on the rest of the album, there is more perspiration than inspiration, more workmanship than passion. The bridge and verses on Gray Seal are clumsy and forced, as is the chorus on This Song Has No Title, and I could enumerate many other examples. The thing is, such is the consummate craftsmanship of Elton John that these moments pass by painlessly, even pleasantly. It is tempting to give Goodbye Yellow Brick Road a full five stars on the basis of a handful of superb songs and overall stellar craftsmanship, but I can't. There are just too many songs that just aren't all that good. But I'll err on the side of generosity, as usual.

Why is it that compilers of lists like this, when it comes time to pick an obligatory African album or two, always go for the ones that sound the most like Western music? Wait, I answered my own question. On Djam Leelii, there is little of the rhythmic complexity that characterizes African music or the typical interweaving of instruments. If it weren't for Baaba Maal's vocals, with its tell-tale scales typical of Senegalese music, you'd barely know this was African. Mansour Seck, the traditional griot who was Maal's teacher, accompanies him on guitar. Sadly, Seck isn't an especially inventive or skillful guitarist. You could throw a rock in Senegal and hit 3 or four guitarists better than Seck. There just isn't a lot to this music. Without even trying, I could find 10 or 15 albums of traditional Senegalese music better than this. It's not horrible or anything, just bland and uninspiring.

Not that long ago, I panned The Specials second album here because it was sloppy, unfocused, and had a drunken pub singalong vibe. I'm happy to report that the Specials debut is drastically better. The band is tight and energetic. Everything they try works, including interjections of rock 'n roll and even disco bass! Their covers (Monkey Man, Do The Dog, A Message To Rudy), while they won't erase anyone's memories of the originals, function as Brit fanboy versions, and they work just fine. Where The Specials really shine is their own compositions. They wear their ska and reggae influences like a second skin and fuse it with the anger and energy of punk. It's exhilarating stuff, just as I remembered from their performance on Saturday Night Live all those years ago. The lyrics are even intelligent, incisively taking on the vapid bar scene, racism, and teen pregnancy. This, plus the single \"Gangsters\" is all the Specials you will ever need.

This one's kind of an odd choice although I understand the impulse (Siamese Dream is also on this list, deservedly). Any time a group at the height of their fame makes a double album, there's a temptation for critics to proclaim it a masterpiece, especially if it's massively popular. Frankly, if I had to include another Smashing Pumpkins album, any of the others would be preferable, even the odds and sods collection Pisces Iscariot. Why? Because roughly half of MC&TIS is wretched and half of it's good to great--it's uneven as hell. Plus, even on the better tunes, Billy Corgan's nihilism is beginning to sound forced. It's hard to maintain that high a level of angst and anger with any honesty when you've succeeded beyond your wildest dreams, a problem Smashing Pumpkins shares with Radiohead. Let's survey the damage. \"To Forgive\" is wan and bland in a way that Corgan's ballads had never been in the past. The band performance on \"An Ode To No One\" is as furious as ever (including a snarling guitar solo from Corgan), but there isn't much of a tune to support it--the melody and structure are unmemorable. \"Love\" is another tune that should have been left in the can--whatever happened to Corgan's ability to compose earworms? A one bar hook repeated ad infinitum doesn't cut it. It gets worse. Cupid de Locke is a total loss--a lazy bundle of twinkling musical cliches that goes nowhere. Galapagos isn't awful, merely weak, a pale echo of the songwriting strategies Corgan used on the much superior \"Today\" from Siamese Dream. Honestly, \"Take Me Down\" is a pretty ballad, but James Iha's amateurish vocal tanks it. Thirty-Three is another misfire. In the past, Corgan had shown a great talent for alternating brutal Black Sabbath influenced headbangers with pretty ballads, but it doesn't work when the ballads are as musically simpleminded as this. It's too bad because James Iha's atmospheric twanging guitar work on the track is wasted. I could go on, but you get the point, and I didn't even get to the outright doggerel of They Only Come Out At Night. Every time MC&TIS threatens to gather momentum and knock you on your ass, one or more subpar tunes stops the album in its tracks. And yet, there are any number of powerful songs like \"Tonight, Tonight,\" \"Jellybelly,\" or \"Zero.\" I'd especially single out drummer Jimmy Chamberlin for praise, but really the entire band functions as one powerhouse unit. And it's not only the Sabbath and dream pop influenced tracks that work. The opening track, \"Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness,\" a pretty piano driven ballad, is a perfect introduction to the three headbangers that follow it. And \"In the Eyes of Ruby\" is a majestic example of the loud/soft dream heavy metal/dream pop amalgam that Billy Corgan often excels at. Truly, there's nothing wrong with MC&TIS that a ruthless editor couldn't have fixed. My advice is to make a playlist, leaving out the clunkers, and you'll have a first rate album on your hands.

Despite the cover art, Forever Changes could not be further from psychedelia. Rather, it combines two of my least favorite genres, folk and garage (and the occasional fillip of mariachi), albeit with more aggressive and convoluted rhythms and song structures than is usual with folk influenced 60s music. Still, regardless of how I personally feel about this music, I must admit that the songwriting is startlingly original. Arthur Lee and Bryan MacLean seem incapable of writing a cliched melody or chord sequence. The string and brass arrangements are also highly unusual for this kind of material and seem to be organic, not merely tacked on. One barrier to enjoying this album, at least for me, is how on a couple of the more full throttle tunes, singer Arthur Lee is perpetually a quarter tone off key. But on the more pastoral tunes, this isn't really a problem. A bigger problem for me is that none of the melodies really sticks to my brain. So, between the fact that I don't really enjoy the stylistic elements Love is using on this album, and that I don't find the melodies and hooks compelling or memorable, I'm left with admiring Arthur Lee's originality. And I have the nagging feeling that Love achieved whatever it is that they were going for. Forever Changes has the feeling of a fully realized work. It's just not for me.

I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You started Aretha's incredible run at Atlantic under the aegis of producer Jerry Wexler, and it's an indisputable soul classic in it's own right. For the first time, Aretha peerless gospel, blues and soul stylings are properly matched with production, instrumentation, and arrangements that accentuate rather than dull her edge. This album is every bit as much Jerry Wexler's triumph as it is Aretha's. I find it amazing that Wexler hit the sweet spot on his first attempt. Respect and I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Loved You) have a gutbucket soul feel, but aren't so raw that they couldn't be sold to the mainstream. But Wexler is flexible enough to arrange the pop soul of Don't Let Me Lose This Dream as well. But I don't want to shortchange Aretha's role in this. She wasn't just a great singer. She was a supremely tasteful keyboard player as well. And you can bet that she had a lot of say in the songs that were chosen along with Wexler, and there isn't a weak one in the bunch. Just how good are these renditions? When Otis Redding heard Aretha's cover of Respect, he hung his head and muttered \"She done stole my song.\"

Music history is replete with youthful innovators with a deep understanding of past music, displaying a sophisticated command of the genres they were working in. The duo behind MGMT, Andrew Van Wyngarden and Ben Goldwasser, are not that. Rather, they are clever debutantes, skimming along the surface of the last 50 years of pop music, plucking a bit of glam there, a touch of Prince there, a little disco there, some electronica here, a scintilla of psychedelia there, and weaving all these disparate elements into bright, summery pop music. They have an equal partner in Dave Fridmann, whose taste and firm hand on the keel is much appreciated. Fridmann balances analog and digital textures beautifully, and I didn't spot one single horrible synth patch, a small miracle in 2007. Another impressive aspect of Oracular Spectacular is that the duo composed all of the tunes, played all of the instruments, and did all of the arrangements. When I looked up the album on discogs, I fully expected to see session musicians. While Wyngarden and Goldwasser would never be mistaken for virtuosos on their instruments, between them they are competent on drums, keyboards, guitars and bass, at the very least. It doesn't stop there. The pair use their voices intelligently, sometimes going for mellifluence, sometimes a Bowie-esque whine, and still others a Prince-like falsetto. Their tunes are both catchy and display a keen understanding of pop songcraft. The tunes don't always develop in predictable ways. There are surprise changes in tempo, key, and time signatures. And their arrangements are canny, combining the old and the new harmoniously. The music on Oracular Spectacular may be light, fun pop, but there is quite a bit of skill under the hood. This kind of light pop really isn't my kind of thing, but MGMT and Dave Fridmann have done a great job with the concept and material.

Nixon is a wildly uneven album, oscillating between gentle country inflected pop and ill advised forays into Philly soul, but that doesn't even begin to describe how strange it is. On the country inflected pop songs, singer Kurt Wagner sounds a lot like Dean Wareham from Luna, who in turn took his cues from Lou Reed. He can be modestly effective in this mode, as in the opener, The Old Gold Shoe. But his falsetto, as on You Masculine You, is to die for, meaning it makes you want to die. And when he launches into a curdled attempt at Philly soul, as in What Else Could It Be?, I imagine flocks of birds dying in mid-air and plummeting to the ground like so many hailstones as an appropriate response. Then there are the arrangements. They are painstakingly worked out and quite involved, featuring a conventional core band, strings, horns, vibraphone, touches of atmospheric distortion, even a full on choir, but rarely has so much effort resulted in so little reward. Most of the way through Nixon, the arrangements and performances are quite gentle and the music tends to glide through one ear and out the other, leaving no trace. But at times, Lambchop allows a bit of distortion or some grungy guitar to bleed through, adding some much needed edge. It's hard to know what to make of all this. Clearly, Lambchop is capable of making listenable music. If they had spun out variations on pop numbers with a veneer of country, tempered by some grunge guitar and distortion, they might have come up with a modest, low key success. As it is, whatever is modestly effective is overshadowed by horrific, cringe-worthy attempts at Philly soul.

Before I heard this album, I would have never thought that acoustic punk was possible, but here we are, and really catchy hooky punk at that. Another plus: I can't think of another recording that better captures the sweaty, desperately uncool, paranoid, lust-ridden, powerless feeling of being a teenager, all the while making you laugh like hell. To top it off, frontman Gordon Gano and company manage to close off the album with a genuinely moving ballad, Good Feeling. There isn't a weak track on here. If I was forced to pick a favorite, I'd probably go with the big hit, Blister In The Sun, but Prove My Love and Promise are killer tracks as well. It may not be terribly ambitious, but on its own terms, this album is close to perfection.

For me, listening to this album for the first time all the way through was a bit like discovering as a kid that your dad cheats on his taxes or keeps porno mags under the bed, in other words that he's a not a superhero, but just a regular flawed human being. The problem is, I've had Devo's greatest hits collection for a decade or so and I guess a part of me was expecting that kind of unabashed brilliance from their debut album. Completely unfair. Most of Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! is merely very good rather than brilliant. One nice surprise is that, even though the songwriting isn't for the most part at the level of masterpieces like Gut Feeling/Slap Your Mammy or Jocko Homo, the production completely slaps. For a pop album, QAWNMWAD easily boasts the most well thought out synth patches of 1978. Yes, getting an appropriate synth sound is easier when your stock in trade is satire, like Devo, or tongue in cheek pop deconstruction, like The Cars, but the range of decent synth sounds on QAWNMWAD is impressive nonetheless. I suspect a lot of that is producer Brian Eno's doing. He also does a beautiful job of balancing the various elements of Devo's sound. The guitars are crisp and the vocals have just the right amount of echo and reverb. I love the way the bass is processed on Mongoloid, with a clean, springy sound up front with almost imperceptible tweaks that create depth. Eno's production manages to be both immediate and deep. You can elect to groove along on the surface, but there's a lot going on in these tracks if you care to drill down. Another thing I gained an appreciation for is the basic musicianship of the band, which is apparent even in the lesser tracks. Drummer Alan Myers is the glue that holds the band together. His big robotic beats are a major part of Devo's sound, and he handles the tricky time signatures and section shifts with aplomb. Singer Mark Mothersbaugh is a maniac--I love his phrasing and energy, which never flags. It's not easy to do full on satire and rock out at the same time. But what about the songs themselves? Well, most of the compositions, like Come Back Jonee, are built on short snippets with layered, interlocking rhythms. Much of the interest comes in these tunes comes from the performances, the arrangements, the production touches, and the amusing and thoughtful lyrics, which is admittedly far from nothing. But these songs feel like an additional section or two or some twist would have pushed them into classic territory. The one discovery here is Too Much Paranoias, which is possibly just as nuts as Gut Feeling/Slap Your Mammy although a lot less commercial. Yes, it's built on one riff, but the melody is practically atonal, and there's that improvised bridge in the middle of the tune. Pure insanity, in a good way. I dunno. Yes, Devo's style is unique and a lot of fun. The playing, production, and arrangements are first rate. And there are a handful of outright classics on this album. But I can't give this a 5/5 because of there are just too many songs that feel like underachievers.

I have some issues with Maverick A Strike. Finley Quaye's take on dub and reggae is so light it almost floats away; he makes someone like Alpha Blondy look like an exemplar of hardcore roots reggae, which takes some doing. While I was listening to this album, my immediate thought was, \"This is some Brit pretending to be a Jamaican,\" and it turns out that I was almost right. Finley Quaye is actually a born and bred Scot. He can't even claim to be a 2nd generation Jamaican because his dad was born in London and has Ghanaian roots. Now, this is not the same as what bands like The Specials were doing, because it was clear they were playing Brit fanboy versions of their favorite music. Rather, Finley Quaye is trying to pass himself off as a Jamaican singer. This is a little like someone putting on a Southern drawl to sing country when they were raised in Newark, NJ or Michael McDonald trying to sing soul. To be clear, I'm not offended or anything. Hey, if Finley Quaye can pull it off, more power to him. And he almost can, but his singing is by far the weakest element in Maverick A Strike. I suspect you could throw a rock in Jamaica and hit someone with more dub and reggae skills.Which brings me to the music itself. While, compositionally speaking, these songs are as simple as nursery rhymes, they sound amazing. I fully expected to find some star producer calling the shots in the background, but surprisingly, given his weakness as a singer, all of this is due to Finley Quaye himself! He arranged all of the tunes and wrote the originals. And the band consists of his buddies instead of studio musicians. His half-brother was a guitarist with Elton John, so that gives some indication of the pool of talent he had available. And you've got to give credit to Quaye for how tastefully and naturally he has managed to incorporate rock, soul, pop, and triphop touches into the dub and reggae. I've never heard this particular combination of genres--it's wholly original, and pretty darned cool. And the sound! There isn't one horrible sounding synth patch anywhere! The horns and strings are tastefully arranged, never overwhelming the slight songs.If Quaye had been as gifted a composer and singer as he is a producer and arranger, Maverick A Strike would have been a masterpiece, but I'm sorry to report that, as it is, Maverick A Strike is just listenable.

An album like Dirt is catnip to critics because the music seems to match the life experience of its creators, which gives them an opening to talk about personalities instead of music. And sure enough, Dirt is relentlessly queasy, claustrophobic and tortured. But I can say that without having listened carefully to the lyrics--it's all in the music. How does Alice in Chains pull it off? They create disorientation through odd and shifting time signatures and sections which border on the atonal. The queasiness comes from guitarist Jerry Cantrell's guitar tone, which is typically swathed in reverb and flange, and the almost melismatic singing style of Layne Stanley, which is compounded whenever he doubles or triples his vocals in parallel voicings. The claustrophobia is achieved by allowing almost no empty spaces in the music. Even in the quieter moments, Dirt is a non-stop assault. When you add in the killer hooks from singles like Would?, Rooster, and Angry Chair, and you have the recipe for one of the great rock albums from the grunge era.

When one of my music professors didn't like a piece of music, but it was competent, he would say it was "valid." Tidal is valid. All snark aside, Tidal is a really interesting album for a variety of reasons. There aren't really a lot of strong melodies, really, but that's okay. In their place, Fiona Apple has substituted a mixture of blues and modern pop phrasing, which reminds me of Van Morrison's singing on Astral Weeks, where he basically just riffed over vamps. Another thing that's immediately apparent is the breathtaking variety of musical textures and the consummate taste of the arrangements. The instrumentation is mostly acoustic, but when a synthesizer or other digital instrument shows up, it never sucks balls, and it's always integrated seamlessly. I luxuriated in Tidal's sound world. Yet another strong point of Tidal is that it's very original, but not at the cost of being accessible. By this, I mean that the way the songs are structured don't follow well worn patterns the way most modern pop does, thank God. Honestly, there is very little to carp about here (mind you, I didn't really pay attention to the lyrics, so I can't comment on them nor do I especially care). Maybe one thing--there are no songs here that wedge themselves into your consciousness. Tidal is an album that you very much experience in the moment. After it's over, all that lingers is the sense that you've been given a generous tour of a talented artist's musical imagination, and that your time wasn't wasted. Finally, I have to be honest and say that I appreciated this album more on an intellectual level than an emotional one. I admire it more than I love it. Update: I started writing this review 2/3 of the way through the album. Usually, artists frontload their most commercial songs and reserve their more esoteric artistic statements for the last few songs. Perversely, on Tidal, Fiona Apple did the opposite. As the album becomes more commercial, with more predictable and conventional song structures, it becomes correspondingly less interesting, so I'm downgrading it by half a star.

Is Oasis energetic? Sure. Do they sound good? Yeah, if you're into a wall of overdriven guitars. I like that sort of thing, even if Oasis' sound is rather one-dimensional. But how about the songs? They're pleasant enough, in an off the rack kind of way. And therein lies the main problem with Definitely Maybe: Oasis has taken the rock music of the previous quarter century and put it in a blender. It sounds okay, but there is nothing remotely distinctive about it. The song structures and melodies could have have been bought like so many yards of carpet. I'm not a lyrics guy, but even a cursory listen will reveal that these songs are nothing but a compendium of cliches. So far, this review is making it sound like I hate Oasis, but I really don't. How could I be roused to a strong emotion like hate when the music of Oasis barely exists? If this came on the radio, I wouldn't turn it off because there's nothing offensive about it, but it would cease to exist in my mind the instant the last chords faded. Definitely Maybe is well enough done for what it is--the 90s equivalent of bubblegum music--but it's hard to imagine more instantly disposable industry product.

In the summer of 1976, the radio propaganda drumbeat for Boston's debut was omnipresent: \"Better music through science!\" was the tagline--silly but memorable. When Tom Scholz presented the demos he had painstakingly assembled in his basement studio, the record company suits balked. \"You might have something here if you re-recorded it in a real studio,\" I imagine they intoned. Scholz dutifully re-recorded the music and gave the suits the original tapes: \"Much better!\" they roared. Scholz wasn't being a wiseass--he just couldn't recover the magic he created in his home studio. And Boston's debut album is kind of magical, in a low brow way. Yes, the prologue Foreplay is cheesy, bordering on risible, and the double time coda of Let Me Take You Home Tonight barrels right past that--it makes me cringe every time I hear it. But Boston's debut album functioned as the template for arena rock and for good reason. The playing is tight, the sound is impeccable, the melodies soar, and every song is crammed to the rafters with hooks. It richly deserved to be the smash it was. Now, I realize that by today's standards, this music sounds hopelessly naïve and sincere, but I can't hold that against it. Nor am I going to dun it because of a lack of ambition. For a poppy, candy-colored, rock 'n roll confection concocted to appeal to the masses, Boston's debut album is just shy of perfect.

The best thing about the Cocteau Twins is that their brand of dream pop laid the groundwork for better bands like Lush and My Bloody Valentine, (whether Kevin Shields admits it or not). Actually, Heaven Or Las Vegas isn't awful, exactly. The band manages some interesting textures, the singing ain't bad, the melodies could be worse, etc., but there's zero grit to balance out all of the cotton candy, and too much cotton candy will make you sick. The drum machines don't help either.

Artistically speaking, in general, it's difficult to justify extending the length of a piece of music past the ten minute mark. That's even true with classical music, which obviously has more content than most popular music, which is why most sections in classical music rarely last more than ten minutes. The first two pieces on Second Toughest In The Infants are over 15 minutes and this is dance music, which by its very nature tends toward repetition and lack of content. But before I get into criticizing this artistically, let's talk about its intended function. Could you dance to this? Yes. It's hypnotic. None of the musical textures are nauseating, which has to count as some sort of accomplishment in the dance music environment of the last 30 years. I could imagine, in the right circumstances, say in a packed club, allowing myself to be swept away into the mindlessness of it all and gyrate endlessly in a sea of humanity. So, it succeeds on that level. But how about artistically, as a pure listening experience? The first song, Juanita, is pretty much a dead loss. The beats, rhythmic development, and sound world, while not actively unpleasant, are almost completely devoid of interest. The 2nd tune, Banstyle, is much better. It's built on a simple two chord vamp, which thankfully has a pleasant timbre. The rest is layered rhythms. Ever so slowly, the vamp shapeshifts into a single chord. Within this extremely limited scope, Underworld crams in an impressive variety of textures, both acoustic and digital. The effect is a little like looking through a microscope at a drop of water, teeming with bacteria. It's only a drop of water, but there's a whole world in there. I could see where this might work if you just wanted to zone out or let your mind wander, but it doesn't rise to the level of being truly interesting, like We's As Is. It turns out that Banstyle is the best that Second Toughest In The Infants has to offer. Confusion The Waitress and Rowla spin minute variations on 1 or 2 bar themes. It's reductive, maddening, and boring beyond belief. Second Toughest In The Infants isn't an album. It's an endurance contest. I give up. Underworld wins.

Smokers Delight is an inoffensive blend of reggae, hip hop, Latin, soul, and downtempo that glides through the neural pathways unimpeded by any novel or challenging sonic concepts. It's mellow restaurant or club music. That said, it's all very skillfully done. Every sample, the way it's mixed, the sequencing, etc, is all calculated to make you relax and just groove with the music in the background. I find it depressing though that this album is on the 1001 list. I have no reason to doubt that Smoker's Delight is influential...on other artists who make inconsequential aural wallpaper. It would seem more appropriate to review an album like this in an industry magazine, like Restaurants Today. How to rate? I'll give it three stars for the obvious skill with which was made, but to me this falls in the same basic category as nu-jazz. It's music for people who don't really like music, who just want something in the background while they study or vacuum or take a dump.

This is one of those times when my rating is probably going to be more generous than is warranted. J Mascis sometimes seems to have trouble carrying a tune, unless that's an affectation. Who knows? The hit of the album, Freak Scene, is so simple, there is almost nothing to it. But honestly, this album hits my critical blind spot. I enjoy the casual nature of Mascis' vocals--it doesn't sound like he's trying to convince you of anything--he's just sharing his thoughts. And I find his blend of noise, rock, and pop appealing. The music on Bug rocks, it has plenty of texture, and it has a warmth that is missing from a band like Sonic Youth. And a funny thing--Mascis also makes me appreciate Neil Young a little more. Mascis has taken Young's blundering experiments with guitar noise and refined them almost beyond recognition. Like Young, Mascis doesn't have a lot of technical ability, but unlike Young, he's very talented at coaxing out a wide palette of sounds from his guitar. It's also pretty clear that Mascis also served as inspiration (along with Young) for Built To Spill's Doug Marsch, another wonderful guitarist. Guys like Mascis and Doug Marsch make the pioneering nature of Neil Young's experiments with noise obvious, even if they kind of sucked (sorry, Brian). In that way, Young's a little like Lou Reed, in that he's inspired a ton of wonderful music. But I'm getting sidetracked. I'm 90% through Bug and beneath all the noise, it turns out that the songwriting is actually pretty sturdy. I've also got to put in a good word for the band, which matches the ferocity of Mascis' guitar work. How to rate? Well, occasionally, the noise elements are overwhelming, but overall, Bug is surprisingly strong and consistent.

I've got to give credit to Howard Devoto for quickly coming to grips with the limitations of punk rock, and also for having the taste to be inspired by the best of glam and art rock, but he and the rest of the group aren't up to the task of infusing art rock with the energy of punk. The songs and the arrangements don't begin to approach the creativity, taste, and subtlety of their inspirational sources. Dave Formula's keyboard textures are horrible more often than not. And vocally, trying to pull off this sort of material invites unflattering comparisons to Bowie, Iggy Pop, and Bryan Ferry--any of these guys had more talent in their pinky on any given day than Devoto would have in his entire body in a lifetime. This kind of thing had already been done a million times better within the previous five years. It takes a special kind of chutzpah to try to pull this off. That said, Real Life isn't putrid, it's just boring and mediocre.

One of my complaints about hip hop in general is a lack of density and variation in the soundscapes. You can't really make that complaint about The Predator, but I think it's a bit dispiriting just the same. For example, the soundscape behind When Will They Shoot? is almost industrial in it's atonality. It's a brutal conglomeration of harsh beats and layered snatches of repetitive samples. But actually, that isn't quite the criticism it sounds like because it fits the subject matter of Ice Cube's raps, which revolve around the causes and aftermath of the Rodney King riots. Ice Cube's raps cut to the bone--they're unfailingly incisive and intelligent. But musically, how are his raps? Well, it seems a little unfair to criticize them for not being very sophisticated rhythmically. These were the early days of rap--and rappers are still using these same rhythmic patterns almost 30 years later, and typically with a lot less wit. The Predator is a hard listen. It's unrelentingly grim. There's little charm in the musical backgrounds, even if they are more rich and layered than is usual in the genre. But on it's own terms, as a straight up no bull dissection of the reality of early 90s America with music to match, it's pretty damned good.

Go Girl Crazy! cracks me up from very first song: the ridiculous lyrics and arch delivery alongside arena rock guitar just tickles my funny bone. I forgot that they covered I Got You, Babe, which is just pure mockery, richly deserved, if you ask me. The Dictators seems to be having such a good time that it's contagious. The Dictators are actually really competent musicians, but they choose to subvert that competence by constantly goofing off. It probably cost them popularity, but God bless them for being such goofballs. Some might have problems with songs like Back To Africa or Master Race Rock, but they're so gloriously stupid and so completely not mean spirited that it's hard for me to take offense, but maybe that just means I'm old and white. I dunno. It seems ridiculous to give an album like this a top rating, but it's hard to imagine how it could be any better.

I don't really care much for the timbre of Erykah Badu's voice, it feels thin and nasal to me, but that's the biggest criticism I have of her. I like her phrasing. Clearly, her voice is flexible and her pitch is enviable. But where she really differentiates herself is her music. She has appropriated and synthesized various threads of soul and funk from the past into something unique to her. For modern soul and funk, it's layered and sophisticated. She knows enough to hire first rate musicians to add complexity and depth to her sound. She's not content to stick with one style, which is a good thing. Still, too many of the songs on Mama's Gun feel underdeveloped, little more than glorified vamps over which Badu vocalizes. I've heard that she gets more experimental in later albums, which makes me hopeful. Maybe her songs will become more through composed as well. As it is, Mama's Gun is probably the best soul/funk hybrid I've heard in the last 20 years, which isn't saying much, but it's something.

Given my recent appreciation of Neil Young, it's appropriate that I'm reviewing On The Beach, but that album cover gives me pause. It's a clever and aesthetically pleasing cover, but it activates my PTSD over monstrosities like Eric Clapton's 461 Ocean Boulevard and ELP's Love Beach. I'll try by best to keep an open mind. As it turns out, On The Beach is a mixed bag. It's much more ragged than Harvest, but it never descends into outright slop like later Young releases. Thankfully, it's grounded in the solid musicianship of folks like Ben Keith and Rusty Kershaw. It also confirms my suspicion that Young's talents are much more suited to the country idiom than they are the blues/rock idiom. His guitar work on the blues songs, of which there are several, range from merely adequate to execrable. Another problem is that many of these songs barely have melodies and only the most rudimentary structures. On The Beach starts out strong with Walk On. The verses have a nice rhythmic lilt, there's an actual structure to the tune, and the arrangement has some welcome heft. See The Sky About To Rain, a ballad in the style of Harvest, continues the winning streak. Surprisingly, the tasty Wurlitzer piano work is courtesy of Neil Young! Good for him. And Ben Keith contributes tasty steel guitar on both tunes. The trouble begins with Revolution Blues. It's a nothing tune to start with, and Neil's lame guitar breaks don't help. Thank God for drummer Levon Helm, whose tight kit work gives the tune the illusion of structure. The bare bones arrangement of For The Turnstiles is surprisingly effective, with Neil Young struggling with his banjo part and croaking out the lyrics. There are a couple of reasons for the track's success. First, it's a decent tune with a solid structure and melody. The 2nd is Ben Keith's dobro--this guy is a treasure. And finally, it just seems like Neil Young's metier is country. With Vampire Blues, we're back to another dreary blues. It's made more bearable by Ben Keith's tasty organ work. From that point on, it's almost like Neil Young gives up. The songs drone listlessly on with barely an arrangement before the album mercifully comes to an end. This review makes it seem like I hated On The Beach, but that isn't really true. There are a handful of good songs, and the rest isn't actively painful, just lame.

Leaving aside questions of originality and influence, Pornography sucks. Must I count the ways? That horrid, echoey drum sound; the whiny anti-melodies issuing from the maw of chief villain Robert Smith; the monochromatic tonal palette. I'm told that Smith was depressed when he was making the album. Now I am, too. Mission accomplished. Can we call this review a wrap and go home? All kidding aside, this album pushes a lot of my buttons.: pseudo profundity, 80s production, the typical 80s vocal style. Can I think of anything nice to say? Well, the album manages to make me nauseated without the stereotypical hideous 80s synths (with the exception of Cold). Robert Smith manages some nice creative guitar leads towards the end of A Short Term Effect and on the title cut, using scales which are vaguely Arabic. That's about it.

Street Life is a jazz album for people who don't like jazz--makes sense it would appear on a list like this, like the African albums for people who don't like African music. That said, it's not bad. Street Life, the hit from the album, is well written, arranged and performed, in a New York Soul/R&B/Pop crossover type of way, with a standout vocal from Randy Crawford. My Lady benefits from a slightly unusual harmonic sequence in the chorus, which adds a little interest in an otherwise bland soul/jazz crossover track. The rest of the album is flat out bland, if inoffensive. Joe Sample, Barry Finnerty, Wilton Felder, and Stix Hooper, although fine musicians, take absolutely no chances on this album. The solos are tasteful enough in a toothless kind of way, the album is recorded beautifully, etc., but why on earth would this be on a 1001 Albums you have to hear list? It's pleasant but disposable pop, background music for cleaning fish tanks or scrubbing toilets.

I find the sound of this album kind of appealing. It's very garage-y. The three guitarists are kind of falling all over each, especially on the more uptempo tunes. It could have easily just been a mess, but instead it has a ramshackle charm. The song structures and melodies are poppy, and the harmonies are often strong enough to put it all over. Hey Grandma and Omaha are the obvious standouts--they have a relentless forward momentum and energy, but they're not the only strong tunes. I find it kind of impressive that this same band can pull off the highly specific tex mex influenced ballad 805--it's even kind of moving. There are some nice psychedelic touches here and there, too, although that hardly makes Moby Grape psychedelia. And then there's the sprightly, country flavored Ain't No Use. After that, the quality drops off, as if the members of the band were having trouble remaining focused. If the rest of the album were as good as the tunes I'd mentioned, this would be an easy 4.5 stars, but alas, not.

The Queen Is Dead starts out strong. The backbeat on the title cut is overly insistent, but the dense web of Johnny Marr's guitars makes this tune compelling, if overlong, and Morrisey's vocal is at least not offkey. Things swiftly go downhill from there. The ghastly oompah-pah beat of Frankly Mr. Shankly dooms it out of the gate. I Know It's Over is an update of 50s doowop, a nothing composition with a with a melodramatic delivery by Morrisey; he's constantly threatening to go out of tune; it's fucking awful. But what really sinks The Queen Is Dead is the uncreative songwriting; it's a compendium of cliches without a wrinkle of originality to be found anywhere, at least musically speaking. I didn't really pay attention to the lyrics. It didn't take me long to start to really resent Morrisey's melodies, though. They cycle through similar strategies. In particular, he's fond of endlessly arpeggiating between the tonic and the third of the song's key. Every song's melody is approached in this modal fashion. It's beyond boring. On Bigmouth Strikes Again, The Smiths find a new way to be annoying; the harmonies are sped up to sound like the Chipmunks. On the evidence of this album, it's a mystery why The Smiths had any sort of career. Wait, that's right, it was the 80s, possibly the biggest nadir of popular culture in the last 60 years. They fit right in. Other than my praise of the title cut, the only nice thing I can say is that the awful synthesizers are kept in the back of the mix and the production doesn't stink of the late 80s.

Nick Drake is often referred to as a folk artist, but he is a folk artist the way that Joni Mitchell is a folk artist, which is to say, not so much. Baroque acoustic pop comes much closer. His melodies and arrangement have a lulling quality. The way he often uses a pedal point contributes to a droning quality (this is a natural consequence of the non-standard tunings he uses). He also uses intricate, repetitive rhythms in his arrangements to trance-like effect. His melodies are unusual in that they aren't what the songs are built around; instead, they are woven into and are almost an extension of the arrangements. The final element is Drake's voice itself, which is intimate and confessional, insinuating instead of demanding attention. (I've ignored the lyrics, which I know are a huge part of Nick Drake's appeal.) The music on Pink Moon doesn't smack you over the head--it seeps into your consciousness. Unless you reject it outright, it irresistibly lulls you into its rhythms--in that sense, it's the ultimate mood music. It almost feels unfair to evaluate this music in terms of quality--it just is. But I can say that Nick is a competent guitarist, pianist, and arranger, and his singing is perfect for his music. I could complain that not one of the songs on Pink Moon stuck in my head, but that's almost besides the point. What matters here is atmosphere and mood, not earworm choruses. In fact, for what Nick Drake was going for, it's hard to imagine how you could improve on Pink Moon.

I have a confession to make. Before reviewing this album, the only version of "Enter Sandman" I had ever heard was the cover by...wait for it...Pat Boone. You haven't lived until you've heard Pat Boone cover heavy metal tunes. Anyway, suffice it to say that I'm completely unfamiliar with Metallica's catalogue. Before I get into my opinion of Metallica's "Black Album," let's get a few things out of the way. There's no disputing the musicianship on display here. This is not simplistic three chord metal headbanging by ham-handed clods. The arrangements are intricate. The playing is pretty much flawless across the board. Some of the songs are catchy, certainly Enter Sandman. James Hetfield's vocals don't move me, but technically, he's an excellent singer--the way I see it, it's my problem and my loss. The guitar playing on the other hand is a minor revelation. Kirk Hammett may not be my favorite metal guitarist, but he's really good. He has taste, a great sound, and chops to spare. With that out of the way, here's my opinion of the album. While there's nothing in particular to complain about, it's just not my thing. I mean, I plan to put their albums in all of my Spotify "year" stations, and I definitely plan to check out the earlier albums, and I wouldn't turn off one of their songs if it came on, but I can't see myself putting on this album and listening to it all the way through again. Why? I find the singer unappealing--it's just personal taste or lack of it. I don't care for the songs, which is oddly enough, where this album is supposed to excel. Again, why? Hard to say. There is little to complain about. There is nothing lazy or unintelligent about the ways these songs are constructed. And clearly some of the songs are hooky. Again, my loss. Actually, this album makes me feel inadequate as a reviewer. Usually, I have damned good reasons for criticizing an album. I hate it when reviewers slam a record for no good reason. And yet here I am. Sigh. Wait a minute. I just figured out what bothers me about this music. It strikes me as cartoonish but with zero sense of humor (now I get why they were used as the model for Spinal Tap). Okay, I feel better now

Give bassist Stephen Brunner aka Thundercat credit for being fearless: not everyone would have the guts to mix new soul with jazz fusion and lyrics about beating your meat, not to mention meow-ing choruses. But for now, let's ignore the silliness. Does Drunk work musically? I won't dispute that Brunner is a competent bassist. His songs twist and turn in unexpected directions harmonically. He has a fine falsetto. But some of his keyboard patches suck, as well as the drum machines. And as a personal matter, I loathe soul without grit, so this set is a hard sell for me. The sounds here are smooth, smooth, smooth. So, on an objective basis, Drunk isn't bad, but it rubs me the wrong way. As for the silliness, it's a nice distraction, as is the guest rapping. I actually enjoy Brunner's sense of humor. Thundercat does open up an intriguing possibility. What if someone created a deep soul style that incorporated jazz fusion, funk, and hip hop? Drunk isn't that album, but it's nice to dream.

At first glance, this is probably not the best Outkast album for me to start with, since it's actually two separate albums by the two members that comprise Outkast. Also, it's a double album, which is a tough sell for someone who doesn't particularly like hip hop. First impressions: one thing Speakerboxxx doesn't lack for is ideas. For example, GhettoMusick mixes soul and breakbeats in unpredictable and imaginative ways. Another plus is that there is a mix of samples and live playing, which introduces a layer of complexity and richness that modern hiphop often lacks. I have more praise to offer. The rap on Unhappy is rhythmically complex, which is a nice change, and the subject matter isn't the usual hardcore bullshit. On the next song, Bowtie, Big Boi channels George Clinton. Shocker, I'm actually kind of enjoying this. This doesn't suck. Technically, it's hyper-competent, it's relentlessly creative, and Big Boi stays away from the usual hiphop cliches. And it swings. Truly, I'm shocked. Big Boi takes you on a tour of the dominant styles in R&B over the last 50 years, filtered through a hip hop lens. There's actually very little to criticize here. The wordplay is clever. The singing is good. The arrangements are competent. The production touches are on target. Okay, it's not like I'm going to ever listen to this album from start to finish for my own entertainment, but this is the first modern hip hop album I've heard that doesn't make me want to throw a brick through my speakers. More praise. Big Boi's worldview is wider and deeper than a quarter. He shows some actual curiosity about the world. For this genre, that's huge. And his sense of humor doesn't suck. Another thing that distinguishes Big Boi from someone like say Kanye is that Big Boi actually seems to understand the genres he borrows from whereas Kanye is just kitchen sink sampling and montaging without a clue. Kanye makes my brain cells die. Big Boi actually engages me. Okay, finally, on Tomb of the Boom, guest DJ's Konkrete, Big Gipp, and Ludacris get to the usual hip hop cliches (DJ bragging, gangster tropes, misogyny), but their raps are firmly tongue in cheek. They know how ridiculous and mindless these tropes are. Good for them! Yet another thing to love about Big Boi -- alone among modern hip hop artists I've heard, there's almost no Prince influence. Prince himself combined and streamlined funk, jazz, pop and rock, eliminating most of the complexities in each genre, which made him commercially successful, but kind of shallow. Since most modern hip hop is overwhelmingly indebted to Prince, it too tends to be shallow. Instead of being influenced by Prince's predigested and dumbed down genre mixing, Big Boi goes back to the source, which goes a long way towards explaining the vitality of his music. Now, there is room for improvement. Big Boi could have brought jazz into the mix. Imagine if he had brought in some hip hop sympathetic jazzbos like Uri Caine, Tim Lefebvre and Zach Danzinger to play on these tracks. That shit I'd listen to for pleasure. Now we get to The Love Below, Andre 3000's disc. Careful what you wish for. The Love Below starts out with some lame-ass quiet storm jazz ballad. Andre 3000 sweetens the pot with a wicked wah wah guitar solo, but the underlying track still sucks donkey dick. I also don't care much for his sense of humor, either. It's smug, ugly and not nearly as clever as he thinks it is. Fortunately, the music improves. Happy Valentine's Day is a decent jam, although it's marred by Andre 3000's crappy rap. Still, it's not a patch on Big Boi's expert appropriation and mixing of various strands of R&B. It's clear where the talent lies in this duo. Sigh. Andre 3000 is eclectic in the way he stitches his tunes together from disparate elements, but unlike Big Boi, he lacks taste. As for his raps, they're technically nothing special, and the content is juvenile and distasteful. God, this is going to be a chore to sit through. I feel my brain cells dying. Alright, I give up. How to rate? Big Boi's disc is damned good, so 4.5. Andre 3000's sucks, so 1. I'll split the difference.

Thin Lizzy is the epitome of a bog standard rock band. There isn't a whit of imagination or innovation in the song structures, melodies, bass lines, riffs, guitar solos, or for that matter anywhere throughout the running time of Live And Dangerous. Nada, nothing, zilch. That said, they are a rock solid touring band. It turns out that in a live setting, Thin Lizzy displays an energy and frontman Phil Linott a charisma which is nonexistent on their studio recordings. 67 minutes is a long time to listen to boring, by the numbers rock 'n roll, but thanks to Thin Lizzy's surefootedness as a touring band, it passes by relatively painlessly. Seriously though, this belongs on ANY kind of list?

The Stooges are often cited as a major influence on punk, and I get why. The songs are deceptively basic and simple, but the main reason is probably Iggy's attitude, which is the platonic ideal of a sullen, vaguely hostile, bored teenager. The lyrics match: "Well, it's 1969, okay All across the USA It's another year for me and you Another year with nothing to do" Thankfully, there is more to The Stooges than that. For one thing, the rhythms, while primal, are tight. The other thing that differentiates The Stooges is the wall of noise emanating from Ron Ashton's guitars. Yes, there was fuzz, distortion and wah wah before this, but Ashton puts it to an entirely new use. He smears layers of fuzz, distortion, and wah wah over the songs the way a brutalist painter would smear colors with a palette knife, creating a thick texture that Iggy floats over. Iggy even wrote about Ashton in the song Dum Dum Boys: "Now I'm looking for The dumb dumb boys Where are you now When I need your noise" A lot of people say that this album is uneven, which would be a major problem with an album that's only 35 minutes long, but I've got to be honest--I love every minute of it, even the obvious space filler, We Will Fall. Why? I guess I would say because everything in the album, the aggressiveness, the brutalism, Iggy's sullen vocals, the lyrics, the primal rhythms, and Ron Ashton's masterful color work all combine synergistically to put across the theme of teenage alienation as perfectly as you could possibly want. And besides, it's a blast to listen to.

Solomon Burke is a perfectly fine soul singer, but on Rock 'n Soul, he's sabotaged by one of the sickening cliches of early 60s arranging, the "Ray Conniff Singers" style vocal arrangements. Another problem, which affects roughly a third of the songs, is the then fashionable tendency to fuse soul and country music. Ray Charles has a lot to answer for in this regard. In general, I'm no purist, but fusing soul and country isn't like peanut butter and chocolate, it's more like mustard and chocolate. Poor Solomon does his best, but he never had a chance.

Man, this is an incredibly stoned album, balanced on the edge of incoherence. I really don't give a fuck that Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, members of Jefferson Airplane and Santana took part--If I Could Only Remember My Name is as unfocused and messy as the title implies. In what universe is this an exceptional album? Nice harmonies on Tamalpais High, Laughing, and Orleans, though. I suppose that if you squinted really hard, you could read If I Could Only Remember My Name as some sort of document or portrait of a dissolute mind on the edge of collapse. You know, a series of rambling tone poems. Nah. I don't buy it. Not impressed.

The Modern Lovers' Roadrunner, which opens their eponymous album, is a straight up rip off of the Velvet Underground, right down to the overdriven organ. But here's the thing--I like what they're ripping off. I enjoy Jonathan Richman's geeky delivery and innocent lyrics. I enjoy their basic sound, which is wholly indebted to VU. And the song Pablo Picasso always makes me laugh. But is it really all that? Does it deserve a place on the 1001 Albums list? Nah. The idea that the Modern Lovers is some kind of groundbreaking release or album is revisionist bullshit. There's nothing here that VU hadn't already done. In fact, The Modern Lovers basically just took one aspect of VU and played variations on it. They do it consistently and well, but even though I enjoy this album, to claim some sort of exalted status for it is just silly.

I really like the Allman Brothers. They were a first rate blues band in their early days and they pretty much invented Southern rock. I love their sound. Their arrangements are tight and tasteful. And they could do it all live. For example, there is little to criticize about the opener of this album, Statesboro Blues. Greg Allman is an underrated singer and Duane Allman, contained in a short radio format as he is here, is an unbeatable slide guitarist. The problems come when they try to stretch out. Someone like John Coltrane or John Scofield can solo for half an hour and never repeat himself, relentlessly spinning out fresh melodies and variations. Or, to take an example from rock, Eddie Van Halen had the kind of imagination and chops to pull off an extended improvisation. But on a tune like You Don't Love Me, it becomes painful to listen to the soloists vamp, trying to ring something vital out of a stunted vocabulary of the small handful of pentatonic phrases. So, how to rate? The shorter songs are terrific. The epics are torture.

I have no reason to doubt Paul Simon's genuine affection for roots music, gospel, reggae, Andean folk, African music, jazz, etc, but I can't shake the conviction that he's the worst type of opportunist and carpetbagger. It's not really fair of me. I feel like I should be impressed with his musical curiosity, and his dedication to craft. But it all feels like intellectual condescension to me. What would I have Paul Simon do different? I'm stumped. Would I have him stick to pop songcraft, folk, and rock n roll, as in his Simon & Garfunkel days? Why should I begrudge him trying to stretch? And yet I do. To me, when he shoehorns Andean instrumentation and themes into Duncan, it feels forced. When he tries out unconventional song forms, it feels like a purely intellectual exercise, rather than being organic. I can't point to specific crappy or tasteless arrangements, but the whole thing just seems joyless. Oddly, the only song that works for me is Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard. I think it's the lack of pretension--even the Brazilian percussion (courtesy of Airto) works on this tune. Okay, how to rate? Paul Simon's craft is undeniable here, and the musicians he's picked to flesh out his compositions are terrific. But he overreaches constantly, blundering in his attempts to incorporate disparate styles and traditions into his music. His overt attempts at intellectualism don't help either. I can't help it. This music just rubs me the wrong way.

Day 139: John Martyn - Solid Air (1973) First impressions: I absolutely loathe John Martyn's singing. His mumbling, slurred delivery is like drunk easy listening baby talk. One thing I do like is the organic, tactile feel of the standup bass, guitar, and Fender Rhodes accompaniment. Unusual for this kind of music, the musicians were given the basic outlines of the tunes and they just improvised the rest. There are no arrangements as such. Okay, that was just the first song, Solid Air. With Over the Hill, the style completely changes. This is more or less straight ahead folk-pop, and reasonably pleasing. Martyn drops the grotesque vocal affections from the first tune. The interaction between the mandolin and guitar on this tune gives it a driving quality. The third tune, Don't Want To Know, starts out with just a guitar and Fender Rhodes and is then joined by drums. One of the things I like about this album is that Martyn gives a lot of attention to rhythm. A lot of folk feels inert. Not this. There is a constant tug between the instruments to create a groove. It isn't danceable, but it has real energy. Oh no! On I'd Rather Be The Devil, Martyn reverts to baby talk. This must be his "jazz" voice or something. It ruins an otherwise fine track, which adds elements of rock, a smidgeon of funk, and even a soupcon of psychedelia! Again, I appreciate the organic, tactile feel that the band pulls off. I really enjoyed the extended instrumental coda of I'd Rather Be The Devil. Ugh! With Go Down Easy, we once again get Martyn's "jazz" voice. Okay, this album is a real mixed bag. John Martyn, obviously inspired by jazz, went for an improvisatory feel on this album, along with some traditional jazz instrumentation, which pays off handsomely. The instrumental textures on this album have a real richness. This goes a long way, as the songs themselves are no big deal. Unfortunately, Martyn was inspired to adjust his voice for the more jazz inspired tunes, which is a disaster. So, you have an album which is musically pleasant more often than not, but with lead vocals that range from so-so to vile. 2/5

Now and then, I listen to an album that I used to be familiar with and I get surprised. Bookends is one of those surprises and a lot of them are unpleasant. Punky's Dilemma is a cutesy trifle--it made me gag a little. At The Zoo's heavy handed whimsy is only slightly redeemed by the sprightly 50s rock 'n roll rhythms of the chorus. A Hazy Shade of Winter is the kind of clumsy on-the-nose folk rock that might have been on Wednesday Morning, 3 AM. Overs offers a preview of Paul Simon's ambitions and pretensions, which would reek by the time he started his solo career. Perhaps the worst offender is Save The Life Of My Child, which is simultaneously melodramatic and flippant, a nauseating combination. I had never thought of Paul Simon as much of an innovator, but he does two very interesting things on this track. He uses bold psychedelic production touches, especially in the background vocals, which are bizarre in the context of a folk rock tune. It doesn't really work all that well, but kudos for the effort. Even more amazing is Simon's use of a synthesizer in 1968! Too bad it's so ugly. Much better is the sustained synthesizer tone which introduces Fakin' It. Fortunately, some of the tunes are as good as I remembered. The aforementioned Fakin' It is a cleverly composed, hooky, folk rock tune. It has an unexpected and fun horn arrangement and the fade out, which combines synthesizer and percussion, is pretty neat. Mrs. Robinson is another solid folk pop tune, with grace notes of blues and rock 'n roll. Old Friends is a low key folk tune and earns its sentiment, with a gorgeous arrangement by Jimmy Haskell and subtle production touches that gently goose the winsome mood. But best of all is America. Paul Simon plays to his strengths lyrically with his sharply observed portrait of two young people on the road. And instead of being a smart ass, he goes for honesty and vulnerability. Musically, it's a winner, too. The melody is lovely and the song structure mirrors the episodic nature of the lyrics in clever ways. Yes, of all bands, did a wonderful cover of this tune. So, how to rate? I really want to give Bookends the benefit of a doubt and score it as a 3 because it has some legitimately classic tunes, but the stinkers are pretty awful. Sigh.

Surfer Rosa certainly starts out with a bang. Bone Machine has irresistible forward momentum, hooks galore, and the idiosyncratic (no, bonkers) vocal style of Frank Black, which could be the result of a mild case of Tourette's Syndrome but it more likely influenced by Pere Ubu. There is a fair amount of variety in the songwriting, but one thing that sticks out is the way that Black pieces his tunes together from jagged phrases that could be any length. Oddly enough, it never feels haphazard, and all of the Black penned songs have a family resemblance. I'd bet if wrote these out in musical notation and compared them, they would visually resemble one another. The energy, aggression, and attitude feel punk, but what's going on here is far more complex than that. The now cliche soft loud dichotomy is threaded through the album, but it sounds as fresh today as it must have then. In fact, the music is full of dichotomies straining against one another, creating tension and release. There's the yin/yang of the Kim Deal and Frank Black vocals, the driving rock numbers and the gentler tunes like Where Is My Mind?, melodic phrases versus shrieking, and more. Another thing that must be noted is the consistency of the songwriting and performances. There are standouts, but there are no real weak links. I also appreciate the loopy, Lynchian lyrics on subjects that subjects that rarely if ever appear in popular music. Try as I might, I can't think of one thing to criticize about Surfer Rosa. Steve Albini's production sometimes strikes me as unpleasantly dry, but here, for this material, it's perfect. The performances are a tad rough around the edges, but that's part of the aesthetic. I can understand someone not liking Surfer Rosa or the Pixies in general. They're unruly and strange. But if you're open to what they're trying to do, it's hard to see how Surfer Rosa could be improved.

The Coral's debut album isn't absolutely horrible. There is a bare level of musical competence, which is to say that the members can sort of play their instruments and sing, which isn't guaranteed these days. I appreciate their attempt at tonal and stylistic variety, drawing from mostly genres prevalent in the 70s, a little garage here, a little psych there, a little ska over there. But they have absolutely nothing to add, they're vapid, and they don't approach the effectiveness of any of their influences. How bad is it? I'd rather listen to a random Paul Revere and the Raiders or Bachman Turner Overdrive album.

Whatever the merits of the artistic direction and songs on All Directions, it was an instant pleasure to be submerged in the professionalism on display here. The Temps themselves are all really strong singers, which wasn't such a big deal at the time because the 60s and 70s were awash in great soul singers, but it seems like a big deal now. Then there's the killer studio cats backing the session and the arrangements by Paul Riser. It's hard to imagine now, but there was a world class roster of studio musicians that arrangers that producers could and did call on to create widescreen, cinematic productions. But all that aside, it's perfectly possible to use those resources to make putrid records. Fortunately, that's not the case here. Papa Was a Rolling Stone is the tune everyone knows, but there is a lot more to like, depending on your tastes. All Directions, as the title would indicate, is not a unified artistic statement the way comparable albums from Stevie Wonder or Curtis Mayfield would be from this period. For example, Love Woke Me Up This Morning is a soul ballad in the style of the Delfonics. It won't change your world, but it's a solid piece of work. I Ain't Got Nothin' harks back to the 50s and doowap with it's "shoowap bedap" chorus, but it's been brought up to date. You could argue that the use of the N word is tasteless on Run Charlie Run, but it's an otherwise solid piece of funk, as are Funky Music Sho Nuff Turns Me On and Do Your Thing. Mother Nature is a mid-tempo feature for new lead singer Damon Harris and he acquits himself admirably with a passionate vocal. The only weak link on the entire album is a cover of Roberta Flack's The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face--it's almost always a mistake to try to cover a definitive version--she owns that song, and the Temps' listless version is a distinct dis-improvement. If there's a knock against All Directions, it's that, with the possible exception of Papa Was A Rolling Stone, there's little here that going to knock your socks off. Instead, All Directions is more of a steady groover, providing understated pleasure almost all the way through. Why is it on this list, then? My guess would be almost entirely because of Papa Was A Rolling Stone. Kind of a dumb choice, but nothing new there.

For a while now, it has been trendy to wax poetic over how wonderful this record is. It's not all that. There is nothing to be gained from listening to the acoustic versions of studio cuts About A Girl, Come As You Are, Pennyroyal Tea, Dumb, Polly, On A Plain, etc. No new depths are plumbed, nothing interesting is revealed about the songs. The value of MTV Unplugged In New York is in the covers, most of which are fantastic and rightfully celebrated. They are a showcase for Kurt Cobain's interpretive skills and savvy, which are impressive. Who knew? On Jesus Doesn't Want Me For A Sunbeam, he resists melodrama, almost like a grunge James Taylor, with a deceptively deadpan performance. For his next trick, he improves on Bowie--no small feat--cutting to the heart of the lyrics with tightly coiled restraint. Cobain blows the Meat Puppets out of the water with his interpretations of a trio of tunes from Meat Puppets II, revealing nuances of meaning and melody that were barely there before. But the biggest revelation is Leadbelly's Where Did You Sleep Last Night, where Cobain unleashes a climactic howl of anguish that chills me to the bone every time I think about it, let alone hear it. Although I prefer the music on Mark Lanegan's version, Kurt's vocal is definitive. Kurt's covers are so amazing here, I wish he hadn't bothered with originals. That album would have been a 4.5 at least.

Day 145: Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Ragged Glory (1990) It's with dread that I put on this album. I debated with myself whether to review it at all, given how little I appreciate Neil Young's aesthetic, apart from his brief country period. Two minutes into the opener, Country Home, I am already regretting my choice. Young's guitar is as maladroit as ever and his voice has coarsened appreciably with age, losing any charm it might have had for me. Okay. I can see this is a lost cause. Because I can't bear to sit through this album, it wouldn't be fair to rate it.

In between looking up lyrics to the songs on this album while listening to it, I glanced at Spotify to see where I was in the album and I was startled to find that I was only on the third song--I thought I was half an hour in at least. Emperor Tomato Ketchup has that effect. While the songs themselves tend to be structurally simple, Stereolab piles on layer upon layer of rhythms, and counter-rhythms, underpinned by a motorik beat. The layering is also textural--the buzz of a distorted organ, electronic burbling, strings, vibraphone, guitar, and much more. All of this is topped off by the sing song vocals of Laeticia Sadler and Mary Hansen. The result is hypnotic--you spin down into the music and time distorts. Most of these songs are rather short, but they seem to go on forever. This is not a criticism, just an observation. How do I feel about this album? It's not as tuneful or accessible as the sophisticated retro-pop of Sound-Dust and lacks the gruff charm of Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements, but I like it a lot just the same. Why? Specific to Emperor Tomato Ketchup, I get lost in the sheer beauty of the elaborate soundworld Stereolab has created. It's like a music narcotic. More generally, I'm blown away by how effectively Stereolab has combined their influences into something utterly unique. Lounge music, grunge, krautrock, grunge, chanson--it would never in a million years occur to me to combine these things and somehow, magically, Stereolab makes it sound like the most natural thing in the world. My only criticism of Emperor Tomato Ketchup is that you won't come away humming any of these tunes, with the exception of The Noise of Carpet. The songs tend to blend together and blur.

Full disclosure: I am absolutely not the audience for this album. I generally loathe 80s synth pop. Here are the main elements of Lexicon of Love: disco bass, the arch, pasty vocals of Martin Fry, ostentatious drum machines, thin and inorganic-sounding synths--I hate each and every one. And yet the ambitions of ABC are quite well realized. The music is danceable if you can keep from vomiting. There are ton of cringeable hooks, both melodic and rhythmic, that make this music memorable. There is nothing lazy, half hearted or timid about The Lexicon Of Love. And it's played and performed immaculately. Producer Trevor Horn (the man who remade Yes into an 80s AM pop band--there's a horrible thought) knew exactly what he wanted and achieved it in spades. How to score? 3 points for the high level of professionalism, -1 points because this music is so putrid it made my eyeballs ache.

Queens of the Stone Age's debut album comes tantalizingly close to being good. Unfortunately, in almost every area, from songwriting to vocals to lead guitar playing, they fall just short. Unlike most contemporary rockers, QOTSA can actually play their instruments. Josh Homme is clearly capable of writing interesting chord sequences and rhythmic hooks, but he stops short of where he needs to go. These tunes are screaming for a little more instrumental interplay and a little more melodicism, but Homme insists on keeping everything skeletal and basic. Again, the songs demand a charismatic frontman with vocal chops, like Gavin Rossdale, but Homme's vocals are flat and thin. Finally, these songs cry out for a guitarist on the level of someone like Metallica's James Hetfield, but instead we get barely adequate solos. I mean, I wouldn't turn this off if I heard it on the radio, but listening to an entire album's worth of what sounds like unfinished demos that have the potential to be great with two or three more revisions and a better vocalist and guitarist is just frustrating.

Recently, I was watching Jett (an entertaining Carla Gugino vehicle) and Simone's cover of Save Me was featured, touted as clearly superior to Aretha's! Apparently, in the last 10 years or so, the arbiters of the zeitgeist decided that anyone who thinks Nina Simone is dank is suitably fetch. Since even entertaining the idea that Nina Simone is superior to the Queen of Soul is a particularly nauseating example of cultural revisionism, and I've never been favorably impressed by Nina Simone to begin with, I was reluctant to waste 45 minutes that I would never get back by listening to this album. Surprisingly, it isn't completely horrible. True, Simone doesn't have an especially impressive instrument, a definite liability in a musical era that was littered with tremendous R&B vocalists. Her pitch wobbles, the timbre of her voice is borderline unpleasant, and her vibrato is irritating. Several of the arrangements are dated, and frankly are pretty rank even for the time. But Simone is capable of expressing and communicating feelings through her admittedly limited vocals. And I was moved by her lyrics on Four Women. It is obvious to me, even being completely ignorant about Simone's personal life, that Simone brings emotional authority to her interpretations, and a willingness to bare her soul. That is not nothing. Still, putting this album on any kind of list? Come on now. Really?

My previous familiarity with Gary Numan is limited to his hit from this album, Cars, which while it was grotesquely overplayed at the time, I actually like. It's a snappy, lowest common denominator distillation of Krautrock jammed into a four minute pop song. Interestingly, that description pretty much applies to the whole album. The robotic beats and chilly synths from Krautrock are wedded to disaffected vocals and succinct pop structures, surely a formula for mainstream success. Frankly, I'm surprised that more of the tunes on this album didn't make it onto the radio. And while everything here is fairly basic, it's not dumb, incompetent or tasteless, which is what I expected. The layers of synths are artfully constructed and anchored by a strong rhythm section, with occasional dollops of strings or piano to add dimension. Maybe the reason why I find The Pleasure Principle remarkably painless is because Numan has obviously taken so much inspiration for his sound from Low-era Bowie, which I love. Unfortunately, it's equally obvious that The Pleasure Principle has been massively influential up to the present, but the signifiers, like thin metallic synths, have been imitated but almost always without any of the taste or art that informs this release. Since The Pleasure Principle is rather shallow by design, it's hard to imagine that I will ever listen to it again all the way through, but I wouldn't mind if any of these tunes came on the radio. How to rate? Well, it's a perfectly realized album, but it's ambitions are depressingly modest.

Okay, in one respect, Sex Packets isn't all that impressive. The rhymes and rhythms aren't especially inventive, and since rap and hip hop are generally judged on these elements, that would seem to be a deal breaker. But Sex Packets has a few things in its favor. First, there is the amiable, relaxed quality of the raps. There is no misogyny or homophobia to be found here--this is a party record. On the breakout hit, The Humpty Dance, the subject is putatively sex, but the way these guys approach it, they're just joking around. The raps are reasonably humorous. It's a nice change. The second factor is, freed from the pressure to impress, the raps are fluid and effortless. Finally, and most importantly, the tunes are built on samples from the P-funk library and one Hendrix tune, so the musicianship is excellent by default. Okay, let's not get carried away. This is not a great record by any stretch. I mean, 90% of the music is by other artists, but even if it is good, but Digital Underground uses it in the least imaginative way possible. The lack of ambition, which allows Digital Underground to perform within their abilities, is a two-edged sword. While Sex Packets is a painless listen, it's a shallow one.

For me, Guns & Roses falls into the same category as bands like AC/DC and Aerosmith. These are basic, meat and potatoes rock 'n roll bands that revel in obviousness and basic hooks. But from the very opening bars of Appetite for Destruction, the competence of Axl Rose and company is never in question. The band is extremely tight, as if they had been playing these songs in bars for the previous five years. The antics of Slash and Izzy Stradlin wouldn't make titans like Eddie Van Halen or Rhandy Rhodes lose any sleep, but their snarling leads never lack conviction and they're concise and tasty. You could say the same thing about the songcraft. I hate to sound like a broken record, but Appetite for Destruction is a consistent, perfectly realized, rock record of limited ambition. Personally, it bores me to tears, but there's no denying that it's accomplished.

Not that I've paid a lot of attention, but Donovan always struck me as an artist with a handful of great singles going for him and not a whole lot else. Sunshine Superman does nothing to change that impression. Actually, I don't consider the leadoff tune, Sunshine Superman to be all that great. Basically, it's a simple blues form with a descending melody line--nothing special. Donovan blesses the tune with an uncharacteristically gutsy performance, but the lead guitar break is execrable, and the song's claim to be a forerunner of psychedelic is overblown. I'm not even sure what that's based on. Most of the rest of the album is winsome folky trash. I mean, the aggressive bass playing and thin overlay of sitar helps, but can't really disguise the wimpy nature of these tunes. Frankly, it really annoys me when something like Sunshine Superman is held up as a great sixties album, especially by an old fart like me. How on earth is anyone without an AARP card going to take us seriously if we champion garbage like this?

Queen of Denmark is the sort of album that I thought was completely extinct in 2010, an MOR album with actual melodies that might have been featured on adult contemporary radio station back in the late 70s, made with consummate craft and featuring the rich baritone of John Grant. The only thing that would be out of the place back in the 70s are the lyrics, which are often absurdist and/or profane. Now, MOR is far from my favorite type of music, and if there was ever a genre that was irrelevant in this day and age, it's MOR. It's almost as if John Grant was daring the cultural gatekeepers to throw a fit when he made this album. But damn if he doesn't do a good job of it. To be honest, I didn't really enjoy Queen of Denmark much, but it's hard to imagine how Grant could have improved on it, considering what he was going for. Okay, now that I've listened to this all the way through, I'm going to dock it a star for a couple of pretty awful songs, Silver Platter Club and Jesus Hates Faggots. Actually, I have nothing against the lyrics. It's the music, which gives away the joke. If you're going to subvert MOR with cynical, outrageous lyrics, you've got to play it straight, no pun intended.

I should start by saying that I admire Bjork much more than I enjoy her music. She typically has more ideas in one album than most artists have in their entire careers. She is painstaking in her professionalism and attention to detail. There is nothing lazy or half-hearted about her music. She is perhaps the most committed artist I know of and utterly fearless. And she draws inspiration from a bewildering array of sources. Given how strange her music is, I'm both shocked and grateful that she's had such a long and successful career. She's made room for tons of artists who aren't nearly as daring as she. So why don't I like her better? Probably because her eclecticism and general weirdness overwhelms my poor aged brain. Which is why Verspertine is such a surprise. Not that the album lacks ideas, but they're all pressed into the service of a singular and coherent vision. Listening to Vespertine is like listening to a teenager sing her diary in her attic bedroom at three in the morning, the needle on a record player repeatedly glitching at the end of an album, rain pattering on the window. Bjork's voice rarely rises above a whisper, but she sings with naked emotional intensity. She uses pre-recorded sounds heavily, the way Portishead did on Dummy, but Bjork takes it much further, recording antique music boxes, doors closing, and other found sounds, in addition to musical loops. In addition to the music/found sound loops, Bjork also employs percussive instruments like harpsichord and xylophone, and a full orchestra. It's a unique mix, extremely detailed like all of her work, and a lot to absorb in one sitting. More than any other album I've listened to recently, the music of Vespertine seems designed to support Bjork's vocal performance and lyrics, rather than be an end in itself. So, to really do justice to Vespertine in an review, I would really have to grapple with her lyrics and evaluate how well the musical accompaniment enriches them. That's too much work for me, but I can give my impression, which is that Vespertine is a very accomplished piece of work. Confessional and intimate, atmospheric ballads aren't really my thing, but Vespertine is pretty darned good.

EDM falls under the umbrella of functional music, along with movie soundtracks and Muzak, music meant to accompany an experience, like dancing in a club, watching a movie, or going to the airport. Nothing wrong with that, but by it's very nature, functional music is not usually meant for close listening. There are exceptions of course. Mouse on Mars or We come to mind in the realm of EDM, the works of Ennio Morricone or Jerry Goldsmith in film music, or Brian Eno's Music for Airports in ambient, the latter which has since blossomed into a full-blown genre divorced from its original function. Come to think of it, Mouse on Mars or We are categorized as IDM (Intelligent Dance Music), which can be read as an acknowledgement of the brainlessness of most dance music. Which leads us to Leftism. As usual, simplistic jackhammer beats overwhelm the music, although there is a patina of style and atmosphere laid over the tracks. I appreciate the eclecticism of including dub, reggae, and Johnny Rotten on these tracks, and there is some taste in the production (few cringe-inducing synth patches), but not enough to overcome the inherent limitations of the material, as explained above. I can imagine half paying attention to the musical content while dancing in a club with hundreds of other people and being okay with it, which is kind of a half-hearted endorsement. There's nothing here which is truly offensive, but as a standalone musical experience? Get me outta here!

First off, kudos to Sinatra for realizing that Jobim is a major songwriting talent and for having the balls to cover his songs. Sinatra even kind of pulls it off. There is a very delicate balancing act going on here. On the one hand, this is a Sinatra album, with all that entails, so it can't be too Brazilian, both because that would alienate Sinatra's fan base, but also because it would make Sinatra look foolish. But bringing Jobim himself aboard, and allowing him to accompany on guitar and vocals, gives the album a touch of genuine Brazilian flavor. Choosing Claus Ogerman to orchestrate was a wise choice as well--the strings have a more international flair than say, those of Nelson Riddle, one of Sinatra's usual collaborators. And while Sinatra's technical gifts were just beginning to falter, it's hard to imagine an American singer from that time period who would be a better match for the material. Frank had his brassy side, but he could also do delicate emotional ballads, as on his landmark album, Only The Lonely, and he was a master of the insouciance required for songs like I Get A Kick Out Of You, both of which play a large part in Jobim's material. So, in the end, Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim is about as good as you could possibly expect. Frank doesn't embarrass himself and even moves the listener a time or two. And, for those of us who don't speak Portuguese, allowing us to hear these wonderful lyrics in English is a public service. Really, for English language listeners who want to dip their toes in the ocean of Brazilian music, it's not bad. Which brings me to my main complaint. There are dozens, maybe hundreds of much better, real Brazilian albums that could have taken this spot on the list. It's a little like going to China to get Peking duck and getting it at Costco.

I was dreading reviewing this album, but I'm pleasantly surprised. The thing that I was dreading the most was the dreadful barking and screaming that has come to characterize screamo, and no doubt, I'm sure that Pantera was deeply influential on extreme offshoots of heavy metal like Black Metal and Death Metal, but vocalist Phil Anselmo is actually singing rather than simply shrieking or grunting--there is a difference. I'm also pleasantly surprised by the competence of the musicians. The rhythm section is powerful, tight and can turn on a dime. And I really like how cleanly this has been recorded. Lead guitarist Dimebag is a superior technician, even if he doesn't have a whole lot new to say in terms of melodic lines. The riffage is equally influenced by Black Sabbath and 80s speed metal, but more complex than either. Basically, Pantera doesn't suck. If I appreciate this more than I like it, it's because my taste in 90s bands influenced by Black Sabbath runs more to Alice In Chains and Soundgarden. Not that those are technically better bands than Pantera. On the contrary. It's just that the point of Pantera seems to be to pummel the listener or perhaps to accompany literal head banging against a wall. Basically, Pantera Vulgar Display of Power registers as a wall of undifferentiated rage, whereas the albums of Alice In Chains and Soundgarden feature distinctive songs that make you feel different things while not neglecting riffage or powerful emotions. Those bands are more nuanced. That said, considering what Pantera is going for, it's hard to imagine how you would improve on Vulgar Display of Power.

Full disclosure: I've never much cared for Dolly Parton's voice. I don't care for the way she uses vibrato and her voice is so sharp it could cut through steel. Which is not to say that she's a bad singer--her interpretative skills and phrasing are better than most and her pitch is dead on. It's really just a matter of personal preference, purely subjective. On Coat of Many Colors, while there is a fair amount of variety within the rubric of mainstream country (ballads, country-rock, etc.) it's all very generic, if well played but what I would guess are a bunch of Nashville studio cats. The melodies are nothing special either. The one area that Parton excels in is narrative songwriting. The opening two tracks, Coat of Many Colors and Traveling Man, are superb--I'd stack them up against the best of the giants of country music, like Hank Williams Sr., Lefty Frizzell, etc. Seemingly without effort, Dolly manages to cram in character writing, narrative, local color, comedy, and earned sentiment into three minutes or less! That's a rare talent and a golden ticket in popular music. Unfortunately, not all of the other songs she pens on the album are as magnificent. There's a nice ode to meeting God in the wonders of nature (Early Morning Breeze), but the rest of her lyrics could have come from a dozen other artists. To sum up, the terrific lyrics of the opening two songs overcome the bland music (although admittedly it might have sounded fresher back in 1971) and Dolly's voice (YMMV), but the rest of the album pretty much goes in one ear and out the other, not leaving much of a trace. Pleasant enough, but really slight.

At the center of Merriweather Post Pavilion is a paradox: it is both wildly experimental (even avant guarde) and accessible and poppy. On the one hand, Animal Collective dispenses with traditional song forms almost entirely. These \"songs\" are driven by a combination of interlocking Beach Boys melodies and electronic pulses. Without song forms to anchor the cuts, they are oddly immersive. You experience them more than you listen to them. They are resistant to analysis. While it's true that there are elements of electronica, tribal beats, psychedelia, synth-pop, the sound Animal Collective comes up with here feels sui generis, as if it had always existed and Animal Collective had simply discovered it. Another thing that has to be said is that, although the music on Merriweather Post Pavilion is probably 90% samples, it has a watery, extraordinarily organic feel. It also exudes joy. And therein lies another paradox: even though Merriweather Post Pavilion is adventurous and filled with brilliantly executed ideas, I find it profoundly depressing. You see, I like traditional song forms and I don't much like electronica and dance music in general. And though it is outside the scope of this review, Merriweather Post Pavilion's post song outlook and emphasis on electronic pulses has been extremely influential in pop ever since, usually absent the skill and creativity of Animal Collective. Still, I must be honest and give Merriweather Post Pavilion a high score, in spite of my personal misgivings.

In discussions of this album, the primacy of African polyrhythms is often mentioned, but that not quite correct. Strictly speaking, the polyrhythms are African-American because they derive from Afrobeat, which originated as a response to the music of James Brown. Fela Kuti and others took the funk rhythms of James Brown and added the polyrhythms and layering of traditional African music. With Remain in Light, Talking Heads returned the favor, emphasizing layering and interlocking rhythmic patterns even more, and not only rhythms but also sounds. Anticipating hip hop, Eno built up the tunes out of loops cut out from two live jam sessions from the full band. In producer Brian Eno's hands, the complexity of this layering dwarfs anything Fela Kuti ever did. Which brings up another point, which is rarely discussed. Remain in Light is one of the most sonically rich and gorgeous albums ever made--Eno takes his unique and patented electronic processing to new heights. But as much credit as Eno deserves for the success of Remain in Light, it's hardly a one-man show. Tina Weymouth's bass lines are deeply funky, as is Jerry Harrison's chickenscratch guitar. Chris Frantz' drumming seems less distinctive to me, which is perhaps why Eno and David Byrne decided to bring in percussionist Jose Rossy, who later played with Weather Report. And I suspect that the interweaving vocal parts are largely the work of Byrne, enriched by contributions from soul singer Nona Hendryx. Another thing: it's wrong to say that there are no solos on this record--they're just deeply untraditional. Adrian Belew's avant guarde outbursts on guitar are refreshingly non linear, thrilling and absolutely brilliant. And world music pioneer Jon Hassel's processed trumpet solo on Seen and Not Seen gives the track a suitably eerie edge. As if all that weren't enough, Talking Heads even include one track that miraculously manages to weave Afrobeat, pop, and the Velvet Underground into one of the most indelible singles of the 80s, Once In A Lifetime. Remain in Light is damned near flawless.

I should start by saying that this kind of low key adult contemporary music with the occasional country twang is absolutely not my thing. Not that I hate it. It just would never occur to me to listen to it. But I'll do my best. The first thing to note is that k.d. lang is an excellent singer. She has a warm timbre, tremendous vocal control, perfect pitch, and uses vibrato effectively (faithful readers will know this is one of my bugbears). The second thing is that the arrangements by lang, Ben Mink and Greg Penny are extraordinarily detailed, subtle, and sonically pleasant. That leaves the songs themselves. Perhaps Ingenue is the sort of album that requires several listens for the songs to sink in. While pleasant enough to listen to, nothing much seems to stick in my reptilian brain. That is evidently not what lang was going for, but still, if you're going to do what is essentially an album of pop songs, shouldn't there be some monster hooks, either instrumental, melodic or both? Maybe it's not fair, but that's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

I love me some Tina Turner, that smoking hot Buddhist grandma that starred in a Mad Max movie and prowls around the stage like a benevolent lioness. The other day I heard an old Ike and Tina song by chance and I was reminded that the woman is a powerhouse singer with enough energy to light up a small city. But Private Dancer came out in the darkest days of the 80s, with textbook mainstream 80s production. The songs almost don't even matter, and even Tina herself can't redeem this music. I say all that without having listened to a note of the album, because the incessant radio play of her hits from that period is burned into my brain whether I like it or not. Okay, I'm gonna take one for the team and listen to this and report back.Later: Private Dancer is a lousy album, but the picture is far more complex than I first thought. For one thing there are five producing teams, and out of 9 tunes, 4 are covers! Clearly, the goal here was to restart Tina Turner's career and bring her up to date, and the strategy was to throw everything against a wall and hope something stuck. The only thing unifying the album is Tina herself. The Rupert Hine produced tunes are aerobicized, machine tooled arrangements that wouldn't be out of place on a Jane Fonda workout videotape. In their defense, there aren't any horrible synth patches and Hine uses the rockist guitar of Jamie West-Oram to anchor the tunes. Producer Terri Britten distinguishes himself with the mid tempo hit What's Love Got To Do With It, which has a reggae lilt--he also wrote it. He does less well with the Ann Peebles classic, I Can't Stand the Rain. The orchestral hits bring it up to date all right, but we're talking about disgusting 80s production, so that's no accomplishment. Better Be Good To Me and Show Some Respect are indistinguishable in style from Rupert Hine's work. Next up is producers Greg Walsh and Martyn Ware. They desecrate the Al Green standard Let's Stay Together with gated drums, nasty synth breaks, and chickenshit disco guitar. Their other contribution is a totally unnecessary retread of Bowie's 1984, one of his lesser works in any case. The tune features the most egregious and tasteless synths on the album and the most overblown, icky production. Probably the most interesting cover is the Lennon/McCartney standard Help, from the producing team of Joe Sample/Ndugu Chancler/Wilton Felder. Instead of simply updating the tune to 80s standards, they completely rework it, slowing it down and turning into mid-tempo gospel pop, complete with a chorus and a sax solo. It doesn't really work, but points for creativity. The last producer, John Carter, comes up with a minor gem, Private Dancer, written by none other than Mark Knopfler, of Dire Straits fame--respect! It's a good tune to start with, and Carter has the sense not to ruin in with stupid 80s production tricks. It's actually fairly restrained. The other Carter-produced tune is Steel Claw, and we're back to the slick style of Rupert Hine. Sigh. There's a few things I can say about the album overall. Practically every track has gate reverb on the drums to some degree or other, and I hate it a lot. The album is crammed to the gills with synths, both keyboard and percussion. The production is uber-slick and airless for the most part. One good thing is that there are fewer than expected wretched synth patches on the album, which is doubly surprising because there aren't any amazing synth programmers on the album, like Larry Fast, but rather a number of them who I've never heard of, none of whom have particularly impressive technical credits. In the end though, Private Dancer is a tedious album to sit through. For a change, the best songs are the big hits, Private Dancer and What's Love Got To Do With It, but that's not nearly enough to put it over the top.

There are some albums that, like Electric Ladyland or Remain in Light, if someone tried to tell they were lame, I'd say \"Sorry, bro, you're just wrong. Get the wax out of your ears.\" John Barleycorn Must Die is not one of those. JBMD is a little hard for me to review dispassionately because it was one of my favorite albums when I was ten years old. I still like it, but I'm willing to admit to its shortcomings. Conceptually, I think it's fantastic. Gone is the psychedelia of the first two albums and in it's place is a sophisticated mixture of R&B, pop, rock, jazz, folk, and even a little avant guarde. You'd think that would be a mess, but the group manages to combine these genres seamlessly. That's largely due to excellent songwriting and canny arrangements. And that's where the group successfully hides its most glaring weakness--these musicians are not technically that great, which is a problem when you're trying to incorporate jazz or avant guarde, both of which require a high level of skill to be successful. They get around that with tightly written sections with minimal free playing, just enough to get the feeling of jazz and avant guarde. As an older listener, I can tell when they're faking it, and I'm both amused and tolerant. Others might be less generous about the vamping and weak solos. But to me, the most important thing is that they got the feel right. That's better than a great jazz player trying to play rock or R&B and getting the feel wrong, for example Joe Farrell and his album Upon This Rock.

Siembra is an example of the most mainstream salsa imaginable, which utterly dominated Latin music in the 70s. A casual search from the period would turn up literally hundreds of similar recordings. The good news is Siembra is a very competent example of the genre. The musicianship is impeccable. The arrangements are sophisticated and marginally more imaginative than the bog standard salsa of the period. One of the shortcoming of this album for me is that it emphasizes songs, dancing, and arrangements at the expense of virtuosity. Much of the fun of salsa, for me, is the instrumental breaks, usually played over an ostinato. As you might expect, Latin music of the period was overflowing with talented percussionists. There were also a number of great pianists. But it's a little unfair to criticize Siembra for what it's not. In addition, unfortunately for me, mainstream salsa is probably my least favorite type of Latin music. Still, competence is competence, even if it's in a genre I don't happen to like. Here's my real complaint. Once again, the makers of this list have made the least imaginative possible choice in international music to put on their list. There is nothing groundbreaking about this music. It's not even the best possible example of it. There is nothing especially innovative about it. What it is is achingly mainstream. I strongly suspect that the makers of this list don't really like Latin music or African music or Brazilian music or French music any other kind of non-Anglo music. They just put a token example of it on their list so that they don't look like the pig-ignorant parochial anglophiles they are. Here's an idea. If you want to put examples of international music on a list, why not learn something about the music culture of the countries that will be represented first? But the makers of this list are too smug and lazy for that.

Another predictable choice for this list--SEBTP is the most direct, least eccentric, and least complex release of Genesis' classic period that started with Nursery Cryme and ended with The Lamb Lies On Broadway. Either Nursery Cryme or Foxtrot would have been better choices (The Lamb Lies On Broadway is in fact on the list). Which is not really a knock on SEBTP--it's still a very good album. Genesis' mastery of extended song forms is still evident if not as obvious as on the other albums. Even at their strangest, the members of Genesis seem incapable of penning a melody that isn't hummable, and one flows into the next with an enviable inevitability. Considering the amount of whimsy and sophistication here, the music rocks really hard in places, quite the accomplishment. Then there is the sound, which is incredibly expansive--credit goes to all the musicians, but the MVP here is clearly Tony Banks, with his--ahem--banks of keyboards, including piano, organ, a Mellotron, and an ARP Pro Soloist synthesizer. Banks is one of the unsung master synth programmers of the 70s. His synths never sound cheap or thin. And the arrangements from the band are intricate and emotive. As usual, Peter Gabriel sings his heart out--he's one of the all-time great angsty singers. And I haven't even gotten into the lyrics, which are unusually literate, thoughtful and witty. Still, although Dancing With The Moonlit Knight probably comes close, there aren't any indisputable knockouts like Watcher of the Skies from Foxtrot or Seven Stories from Nursery Cryme.

Psychocandy is the kind of album music critics tend to fawn over. Why? Because it's really basic rock 'n roll, so they don't have to talk about music or deal with any complexities. In Psychocandy's case, they can prattle on about the innovation of drowning the songs in echo and distortion and how brilliant it was to fuse Beach Boys melodies with Velvet Underground sonic violence. Even better, they can laud the album for setting up shoegaze, etc. The thing is, for once, I basically agree with the critics. These basic, basic songs, which would sound like nothing if they were recorded straight, are like a warm bath for me. I luxuriate in the swirl of noise. I wouldn't blame anyone for dismissing Psychocandy as style over substance and repetitious to boot, but to me, for what they're going for, it would be hard to improve on. One last point: this came out in 1985, arguably the nadir of Anglo music, so Psychocandy gets points simply for not sucking.

The opening minutes of Apocalypse 91 filled me with dread and not because of harsh and scary content. No, the beats on the opening cut, Lost at Birth are reductive, the lyrics are a nothing burger, and the only thing that distinguished the track at all is some reasonably creative scratching that also incorporates spoken samples, bouncing from speaking to speaker. Fortunately, things improve. On Night Train, yes the beat is as basic as they come, but the dense web of well chosen samples elevates the track and gives it some urgency and swing, and more importantly, since this is rap, the poetry isn't just the usual mysoginistic, homophobic, dumbass gangster fantasies--it actually has some content and relevance and shows a functioning, restless intelligence. And thus, the pattern is set for Apocalypse 91. The beats are basic, the expert and creative use of samples consistently elevates the material, the scratching is hip, and Chuck D's raps, while rhythmically remedial, are at least lyrically sharp, which is enough. Taken all together, Apocalypse 91… The Enemy Strikes Black is actually invigorating. A lot of this is down to the samples, but someone had to choose them and arrange them, and they do so beautifully. Also, the record sounds good, which again, has a lot to do with the samples, but the vocals, scratching, samples, and beats are all well balanced, which also takes skill and taste. Honestly, for this style of rap, it doesn't get much better than this, but I'm reluctant to give this a 5 or even a 4.5 because this something like Apocalypse 91 isn't even in the same universe as something like Electric Ladyland in terms of quality, imagination, etc., but then again, I really should be evaluating this against the genre it's in, not by some imaginary universal standard.

Well, this is awkward. I feel like I should like this a lot better. It's basically pop classicism dressed up in late 90s attitude, meaning the vocals have a certain punk by way of grunge attitude, a certain snottiness. To be clear, I have nothing against that per se. Supergrass have clearly listened to a lot of music from the late 60s and early 70s and they've bothered to learn to play their instruments, and they're going for a relatively wide stylistic range, which theoretically already puts them way ahead of most of their contemporaries. And In It For The Money even sounds good, in terms of production--it's warm and balanced. But Supergrass doesn't have anything really new to say. They haven't figured out a way to make this music from the past truly their own. It's a pastiche without a point. None of the hooks or melodies really stick. It's pleasant enough going by, but I retained absolutely nothing. But at the same time, I'm reluctant to give this a poor rating. It's highly professional in terms of overall musicianship and production, and some real effort, thought and craft was put into it. It's obvious that these guys are playing and singing their hearts out. There is plenty of perspiration here but precious little inspiration. It's a shame, and really there's no one to blame, really. If you'd added in that X factor, In In For The Money might have truly been great.

This is undoubtedly one of the better attempts to incorporate funk into Brazilian music, but that isn't saying much. It just means that it isn't outright embarrassing like Tony Tornado's output, another James Brown imitator. Actually, that's not quite fair. Jorge Ben is more taking the path of tackling American funk by way of Fela Kuti, which is to say that he's diluted and dumbed down the American funk elements before incorporating them, which probably also accounts for Africa Brasil's appearance on this list. (It also probably doesn't hurt that the opening track from Africa Brasil was included on the David Byrne anthology Beleza Tropical: Brazil Classics 1.) That Fela strategy isn't as difficult as straight imitation and allows for a more balanced fusion as well. There's another reason using Fela as a touchstone makes sense. The call and response elements so central to Fela's music are also central to the Samba-de-Roda style that came out of Bahia, which is explicitly African in origin. That's all well and good, but the unfortunately, the result is rather bland. The funk aspect is generic, and the main thing, aside from Jorge Ben's voice, that gives this music some Brazilian character is prominent use of the Cuica drum, with its characteristic talking squeak. Also, the melodies are undistinguished, even if Ben's singing is fine. All this makes for a pleasant enough, if dull listen. But when you think of of all the absolutely magical Brazilian albums they could have picked for this list, it's a real head scratcher. Well, actually not so much, if you want to be lazy and follow mainstream critical thinking, led by tastemakers like David Byrne (nothing against him). The sad thing is, as weak as Brazilan/funk fusions usually are, there are much better attempts at American funk/Brazilian music that could have been chosen, like Banda Black Rio's Maria Fumaça or Dom Salvador E Abolição's Som, Sangue E Raça. But that would require actual taste and critical thinking

One of the frustrating things about listening to Monk is how difficult it was for him to find sympathetic collaborators. Monk invented an entirely new way of approaching rhythm, harmony and melody that few musicians had either the ability or interest to approach on its own terms. The three that came closest were Coltrane, Art Blakey and Wilbur Ware, none of whom is present on this recording. Monk's rhythmic innovation was to break and subdivide rhythms in unexpected ways, while still maintaining swing. His conception of harmony most likely grew out of what would be considered by most to be a liability, his unusually large fingers, which resulted in what were probably initially unintended chord clusters. Genius that Monk was, he incorporated these clusters into his harmonies and melodies, using puckish humor. The problem is that most collaborators came from a time keeping/ changes background, which Monk had largely broken away from, so there was usually an amusing tension in his music between Monk's intentions and his collaborator's inability to grasp or execute them. Apparently, this came to a head with the title tune, which took 25 unsuccessful takes, after which the producers threw in the towel and just cut together the usable parts. These days, Brilliant Corners doesn't sound particularly difficult or esoteric--I've heard it as background music at Starbucks, for goodness sake! But in 1957, it certainly threw these musicians for a loop. They couldn't execute the head worth a damn and when it came to the solos, they tried to impose conventional logic on Monk's structure, which just sounded silly. While drummer Max Roach takes a conventional approach on the form of the tune, he at least gets into the spirit of the thing on his solo. The more conventional tunes fair better. Sonny Rollins makes a game attempt to follow Monk's logic on Ba-Lue Bolivar Ba-Lues-Are and actually tackles both Monkian rhythm and harmony on the lovely ballad Pannonica. So far this isn't reading like a rave, but Brilliant Corners succeeds in spite of its flaws. The songs, while being unconventional, are memorable and hummable, one and all. And Monk's playing is undiluted magic. I'll take half a point off because of the sometimes maladroit accompanists--if only Monk had played more often with sympathetic musicians like Art Blakey, Wilbur Ware, and John Coltrane--but this is still a great album.

I remember when Nevermind broke through the zeitgeist, it was unavoidable. Everyone was talking about it, and images of Cobain and the album cover were everywhere. I wasn't listening to radio much, and I was deeply suspicious of anything too popular, and I was deeply repulsed by the cover art, which I took unironically, rather than as social criticism, so I studiously avoided all things Nirvana. At the time, I was working an overnight shift, and the store I was working in happened to have the tape lying around, so I put it on out of morbid curiosity and an impulse to give it a fair chance. (This is also how I discovered Beck's Mellow Gold and Odelay). I was blown away. First, there was Dave Grohl's titanic drum sound. Then there was Cobain's anguished howls, which were somehow always musical. Then there was the sense of humor, lack of self pity, and empathy in the lyrics. And the songs, while being simple, didn't feel stupid simple, more like stripped to essentials with just wall to wall hooks. And then, towards the end of the album, there were haunting ballads, like Something in the Way. It felt like Kurt was channeling the angst of an entire generation of kids, and it was totally cathartic. There is a tendency these days to downplay Nevermind as "simply a great modern punk record," no doubt because Kurt himself compared his band to The Knack, but that's a little like saying that Exile On Mainstream is just a rock 'n roll record. Likewise, some will say that it's too slick, but Butch Vig's studio sheen created an unbearable tension with Nevermind's punk intent that exponentially increased its power. No, Nevermind is absolutely one of a handful of indisputably great grunge records.

Station to Station is the sound of an artist searching, exploring, reaching for the next thing. It takes guts, arrogance, or the unearned confidence brought on by significant chemical enhancement (ahem) to spend a producer's money when you go into the studio with nothing specific to say. One could speculate that Bowie knew this on some level--even the title Station to Station implies being between two destinations, with this album being about the journey. Bowie doesn't start from zero--he keeps some of the rhythmic techniques he picked up from soul music, but with the exception of Golden Years, his last word on the subject for a while, nothing here could reasonably be labeled blue eyed soul, though there is groove involved for sure. The title cut, a kind of mini-suite, flirts with prog and art rock, while glancing backwards at glam. Word on a Wing is a twisty ballad with Bowie's most impassioned/melodramatic by way of Anthony Newly vocals. He gives a similar treatment to Nina Simone's Wild is the Wind, with underwhelming results. Stay grooves beneath glam, with an overlay of rock guitar--it's an attempt at a fusion that doesn't quite gell, but it's interesting. The one cut that most clearly points to where Bowie was heading, and the high point of the album, is TVC15, which starts from a modest piano boogie and gets progressively more aggressive in its stylization from there. There's no doubt that Station to Station is an interesting album, and especially so for Bowie-philes, since its so obviously transitional and seat of the pants, but that doesn't mean its great. The price for making it up as you go along is you sacrifice the laser sharp focus of the Berlin trilogy or Hunky Dory. I'm actually inclined to give Station to Station a higher rating than it deserves, just out of gratitude for the masterpieces that came out of the process of making it, but screw that. I'm going to judge Station to Station in isolation, and that's that.

Love the covert photo of the exploding egg! And that just about exhausts my praise. I would call It's Blitz a failure except that you have to actually attempt something to fail. It's Blitz is deeply mediocre in every imaginable way: songcraft, synth textures, arrangements, and production. This is kind of the late oughts version of bubblegum music like the Archies, but with shitty synths and inferior songwriting. Except for the vocals, this album could have been generated by a reasonably sophisticated AI. That's how generic and uncreative it is. I complain a lot about modern hip hop in this channel, but It's Blitz makes those albums look like the height of sophistication and ambition. If I could give this half a point, I would. Mind numbing.

Cross may be goofy, cheesy, and often tasteless, but it isn't completely boring either. Whether it's the chopped and screwed antics borrowed from Aphex Twin for more populist purposes on Let There Be Light or the disco thump and girlish vocals of D.A.N.C.E., there's often something to surprise, amuse, or hold one's interest. One thing I should mention--with the exception of the vocals, easily 90% of the music on Cross is composed on laptops from samples. That these samples come overwhelmingly from house, 80s R&B and techno goes a long toward explaining how texturally ugly and cartoonish Cross is. This is offset by the high level of detail in the arrangements. Cross may not be IDM, but it's not blazingly obvious and stupid either, which is more than I can say for most dance music. And if you can stomach the sound world, you might even describe Cross as fun. Sure, that's a low bar, but Justice just clears it, so I'll hold my nose and give Cross 2.5/5.Okay, I wrote the previous paragraph just a few songs into the album. Unfortunately, Cross gets more conventional and less daring as it goes along.

Of course I'm familiar with Song 2, which was unavoidable when it came out, but before I started this review, my strongest impression of Blur was how much Brian hates them. :joy:Listening to Parklife is a really odd experience. A high level of songcraft is immediately apparent. The rhythmic hooks are jagged and the melodies and harmonies are cunningly constructed, so why is it that they leave next to no impression? What does leave an impression is the arrangements. Blur weaves together crunchy, grungy guitars, snaky 80s synth lines (thankfully in the background), sing-song choral backgrounds, Manchester accented talk-singing about British everyday life, chugging rhythmic parts, churchy organ overlays, and more into a sound that somehow manages to encapsulate the previous quarter century of British rock without sounding like a simple pastiche. On Parklife, Blur has come up with, like it or not, a unique sound.So what do I think of Parklife? Not a lot, actually. Clearly, Blur is a competent band, and I can appreciate what they're doing on an intellectual level, but they just don't appeal to me.Okay, I wrote the previous paragraphs a few songs into the album. Blur frontloaded the most driving, pop-oriented songs. As Parklife goes along, the songwriting and arrangements get increasingly less energetic and more anonymous and twee, not a good combination. At least until London Loves, and then we're back to the punchy sound of the opening tunes. Blur is much better at these sort of uptempo songs, which are at least cheeky instead of wan.I just had an insight--Blur is the 90s version of XTC, not as horrid, of course, but still with a tendency towards the twee and cutesy, best disguised with crunchy guitars. Best in short doses.

I became familiar with Jane's Addiction in the 90s, when they were mainstays on the radio. I was shocked when I found out that they were actually an 80s band. It must have been a shock (no pun intended) when Nothing's Shocking came out in 1988. Nothing sounded remotely like it at the time. The rhythm section is massive and thunderous. Dave Navarro's blazing leads ratchet up the energy to nosebleed levels on tunes like Standing In The Shower...Thinking and Had A Dad. And Perry Farrell, as irritating as he can be, has the voice needed to cut through it all. If that was all there was to Jane's Addiction, it would be enough, but they excel at atmospheric brooding as well. Jane Says is the most heartbreaking, truthful song about addiction I know of. Summertime Rolls is haunting. They even include a little bit of funk in Idiots Rule. And as varied as it is, Nothing's Shocking is remarkably consistent in quality. The only dog is the mercifully short Thank You Boys, a tongue in cheek lounge tune which quickly reveals the limits of these musicians. Other than that, Jane's Addiction take no prisoners. Given their obvious talent and passion, they should have had a long career (they self-destructed after Ritual De Lo Habitual), but at least they left us a near perfect album in Nothing's Shocking.

Jack White is the default heir apparent to Jimmy Page and the White Stripes to the Stones. Jack White has a rudimentary grasp of his instrument at best. He's an imitator, not an innovator, unless you count dumbing down the music of his predecessors, which was already roots music. Wonderful. Which leads us to White Blood Cells.Naturally, the execution is garage-y and crude--Jack White is incapable of anything else. This leaves us with the songs themselves, which is where the strength of White Blood Cells, such as it is, lies. What Jack White has done here is to create songs that are the equivalent of the platonic ideal of a stool, i.e. having three legs and little else. To his credit, he creates punchy rhythms and melodies in the style that he's indebted to, cribbing liberally from the Stones and The Who, but there's literally nothing else. No grace notes. No solos worthy of the name. No innovations. No borrowing from other music traditions. This is basic, basic, basic, basic, basic stuff. Why in God's name would anyone listen to a Cliff Notes version of roots rock when there's so much of the real thing lying around? Beats me.

It's not really helpful to think of Being There as a collection of pop songs, although it is that. It's more the first step in the direction that culminated in Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Like Pavement, a very different band to be sure, Jeff Tweedy had a fascination with how songwriting and the studio worked, how you could take the most basic changes and melodies and dress them up in the studio and come out with something that sounded like a song, and conversely, now much you could stretch and distort a tune in the studio before it fell apart. To me, it's the self-conscious and blatantly artificial vibe of the album that makes it work (And I say that even though there are no samplers, drum machines, or synths involved). In song after song, Tweedy will call attention to a studio artifact or choice, as if to say "Someone made a decision to add distortion here, echo there, add an instrument here or subtract it--and this is what makes the song sound the way it does." I mean, the songs are pleasant enough, drawn from Stones-y blues rock or country or whatever, but they are hardly the point, and they wouldn't be enough if they were. There's a generic, 2nd hand quality to Tweedy's writing here. I'd like to think it's deliberate, to point out what he's doing in the studio and in the arrangements, but who knows? Anyway, I like the meta aspect of what Wilco is doing, and the songs are pleasant on their own

My knowledge of The Germs up until now was limiting to knowing they were featured in Penelope Spheeris' film The Decline of Western Civilization, and that they were a hardcore band. Shamefully, despite their importance to the hardcore scene, GI isn't on Spotify. GI doesn't sound like a band that barely knew how to play their instruments when they were formed. For punk, this is not simple music. Compositionally, it has more in common with the Pixies than the Clash. There are start and stop rhythms, odd time signatures, and the chord sequences are not the standard I, IV, V beloved by punk bands everywhere, and all of this is played at breakneck speed, with energy to match. It would be tempting to lay this at the feet of guitarist and co-composer Pat Smear, who later went on to tour with Nirvana, but the truth is that bassist Lorna Doom and drummer Don Bolles match him step for step. They're a damned good rhythm section. As for frontman Darby Crash, he sustains a near inhuman level of energy, even if you can hardly understand a word he screams/sings. I feel like I'm not doing a very good job of explaining how good this band is. The thing is, Smear writes really strong riffs and instrumental hooks, and there's a wide range of stylistic variety for hardcore punk. It's just a shame you can't understand what Crash is saying and that he isn't technically a strong singer. Also, as fun as GI is, it starts to wear you down after four or five songs and there's sixteen tracks! At a mere 38 minutes, GI feels really long, even punishing. One last thing I should mention. Joan Jett (yes, that Joan Jett) does a great job of producing, imparting GI with a clarity of sound that reveals that the Germs were not just mindless hardcore punk thrashers.

I'm not a big Who fan, so I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed The Who Sell Out. Blissfully ignorant of the album's concept, I used to make mixtapes with commercials in them, comedy snippets, news reports, etc, so you can see why I might be susceptible to its charms. The commercial spots are consistently amusing. Another surprise for me: the songs are consistently good. For me, The Who was never much of a rock band as I understand the term, more like a pop band with an especially powerful drummer, and songwriter Pete Townshend is in unusually good form here. The songs are tuneful and varied, including a surprisingly effective stab at psychedelic on the album's opener, Armenia City In The Sky. The songwriting gets slightly weaker towards the end of the album, but there are no outright stinkers, unusual for a Who album. The Who Sell Out probably won't rock your world, but it's a pleasant and amusing listen.

For someone who cares so much about musicianship, it might seem odd that I like Exile in Guyville so much. Liz Phair isn't much of a guitarist, and has a rough voice, to be generous. But the songwriting! The way Phair structures the songs on Exile is clever, interesting, and wholly original. The skeletal arrangements actually work in the album's favor, accentuating the songwriting and lyrics, which are uniformly wonderful. And for all of Phair's technical shortcomings as a singer, her interpretive skills set these songs on fire--she's completely naked emotionally. And, if that weren't enough, there's tremendous range in these songs, from rockers to drones and everything in between. Damned near perfect for what it is.

The older I get, the more I like noise in music, but my relationship with it is complex and ever-evolving. In general, I enjoy noise as a way to deepen the emotional content of music or to provide complex sonorities that are unachievable any other way, rather than noise for its own sake. Sonic Youth challenges this idea, making noise the central component of their music, overshadowing composition, or even being an element in composition. That's a bit much for me, which is why an album like Goo (or Dirty) is an ideal entry point. On these albums, Sonic Youth retreats a bit from their initial focus and subordinates the noise elements in favor of pop songwriting, at least to some degree. But there are some problems here. Not every song is as assured and magnetic as Kool Thing, Tunic or Goo, and it's no coincidence that those songs are fronted by Kim Gordon, an infinitely more charismatic vocalist than Thurston Moore. But for me, the more conventional songwriting provides much-needed ballast for the varied guitar squalls of Moore, Lee Reynaldo, and guest guitar terrorist J Mascis. The tug of war between traditional rock conventions and sonic terrorism makes for an invigorating listen.

The first thing to note about MHTRTC is how gorgeous its soundworld is, and we're talking about a fucking synth album. Somehow, through sonic manipulation, Scottish wizards Marcus Eion and Michael Sandison have managed to make machine music sound warm and human. The sounds seem distressed and decayed, an echo of a distant, dimly remembered past--these guys are synth poets. They complete their presentation with treated samples, rudimentary hip-hop beats, and light scratching. For me, the beats are a little too upfront in the mix, considering they are hardly the point. They kind of function as an entry point for listeners who are too impatient for pure ambient. Well, that's not entirely true. The beats and the loops of samples draw the listener in and induce a trance state that serves as a medium for Board of Canada's synth ruminations. I didn't love MHTRTC quite as much as I remembered--the overly literal, thudding beats prevent full immersion in Board of Canada's soundworld at times, but it's still pretty damned good.

The first things I noticed on Renaissance is that the music has a refreshingly live, organic feel and it's nuanced. Of course a lot of it is sewn together from loops, but the loops were obviously recorded specifically for these tunes by actual bassists, keyboardists, drummers, and guitarists. That beats the crap out of wall to wall drum machines, synths and samplers. Even when Q-Tip does use synths and drums machines, they never outright suck. Also, these tracks are layered--they are designed to be listened to more than once and discarded. I like how, especially in the 1st half of the album, the music will drop in and out unexpectedly, woven together with spoken word samples. He's also borrows a bit from experimental hip hop artist Prefuse 73's chopped and screwed approach, which is cool. This isn't instantly disposable product the way most mainstream hiphop is. Another thing about Renaissance is despite the variety of sounds, production touches, and editing strategies, it's cohesive. It feels like Q-Tip is trying to make a real album as opposed to a string of Spotify singles. All in all, Renaissance is a pleasant listen. Notice that I haven't said a thing about Q-Tip's raps yet. That's probably because musically speaking, they are the least impressive thing about Renaissance. He isn't doing anything interesting rhythmically. How about lyrically? Well, there is very little juvenile bragging, mysogyny or gangster huffing and puffing, which is a relief. But how is his wordplay? I mean, it isn't terrible, but there are few of the zingers you would expect from a rapper like Chuck D. Now, some people might take issue with Renaissance's lack of edge. And they have a point, kind of. It does have a smooth, New Soul kind of vibe. Personally, I would have preferred the jazz influences to be a little more trenchant, more Herbie Hancock than Robert Glasper, more Ben Monder than Kurt Rosenwinkle; I would have liked a bit more funk, a bit more grime, but that wasn't the album that Q-Tip wanted to make. For what he's going for, he's done a good job. And it's worth noting that Q-Tip is all over this record, as a composer, as a musician, as a rapper, as a producer, even as a recording engineer.

I'm going to out on a limb and say that more albums have been ruined by off the rack synths than by any other single factor. And yet The Cars, on their debut album, managed to make off the rack synths sound not just funny, like Devo, but actually--gasp--cool! How the hell did they do it? Most importantly, they used synths for either single note contrapuntal lines or color, never chords. Secondly, guitarist Elliot Easton was almost always way up front in the mix. These are very guitar oriented tunes--the synths are generally secondary. The arrangements are like the interlocking gears of a watch, cunningly constructed. There are no extraneous lines or pieces. Everything fits together perfectly. It turns out that Roy Thomas Baker was the perfect producer for The Cars. There is a clarity in the production that encourages the listener to pick out the separate lines in the arrangements. The only way that Baker deviates from this plan is with the vocal choruses, which are big, full, and vibrant. It's a magical combination. Notice I haven't said a thing about the tunes themselves yet. That's because if the elements I mentioned hadn't been present, this album would have sucked big time. As it is, the music gods were smiling down on The Cars because every last tune is a knockout with strong melodies and big fat, rhythmic hooks, performed to perfection by the band, so that the album comes off as loose, hip, modern and most of all fun. And to top it all off, the lyrics are simple enough to understand on a first listen and yet sardonic and multi-layered. There are plenty of albums that are more complex, more ambitious, and more innovative than The Cars' debut, but it would be hard to find one more perfect.

After I wrote in my review of Parklife a week or so ago that Blur was the 90s version of XTC, I found out that the band actually sought out XTC front man Andy Partridge to produce Modern Rubbish, the album preceding Parklife, so apparently that was what they were going for. Yuck. Supposedly, their self-titled album was Blur's attempt to break away from the Britpop style they pioneered after the genre imploded. The result is reminiscent of a chameleon changing colors. Blur is the same creature as it always was underneath, but on Blur (1997), it's taken on the protective coloration of Indie rock's stylistic quirks, i.e. grungy guitars, noise experiments a la Sonic Youth, Stephen Malkmus' vocal yelps, Pavement's deconstructive strategies, warped electronics, et al. This could be read as a cynical strategy to stay relevant, and it probably was, but damned if they don't do a convincing job of it, making the cloying Britpop at the core of their sound more palatable. Unfortunately, the most thorough transformations are front loaded, so as the album grinds on, Blue reverts to its shallow, twee Britpop roots. Look, there's a lot of craft and skill on display here, but it's in the service of what is ultimately a pretty vacuous take on British pop. You can polish a turd to a high gloss, but well, you know what I mean.

There is no doubt a great album that could have been made fusing Irish folk music and pop/rock. I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight is not that album. It manages to dilute the strengths of both Irish music and rock. The rock half of that equation should need no further explanation--anyone with a passing familiarity with rock or pop could see the weakness of the presentation here, if not the tunes themselves. Richard Thompson is a mediocre vocalist, full stop. Linda's voice has a pleasant but slight timbre and isn't very expressive. The musicianship barely struggles to rise above the level of amateur musicians in Ireland of the time. I suppose we ought to give the Thompsons credit for trying, though. To hear what a great fusion of pop and Irish music actually sounds like, check out The Ninth Wave from Kate Bush's Hounds of Love, also on this list. Or better yet, check out a traditional Irish band with truly great vocalists and musicians, like the Bothy Band. The bigger question is \"Why is this album on the 1001 list?\" Once again, we see the pattern of including music from another tradition, but only if it is mixed with traditional Western pop, and a weak example at that. I've got to cut the list maker a little slack because there is no truly great album that's a fusion of rock and traditional Irish music, as far as I know. But there are a whole bunch of great albums of traditional Irish music, if they wanted something undiluted, or quite a few great examples of traditional English folk music fused with rock, e.g. Gentle Giant, Jethro Tull (to their credit, Aqualung is on this list). I was blissfully unaware of I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight before today--no great loss.

My first impression is that, given Jerry Lee Lewis' reputation as a wild man, Live At The Star Club, Hamburg is downright sedate. Okay, I'm exaggerating, but as a vocalist, Jerry Lee doesn't begin to approach the energy level of a performers like Little Richard and James Brown. Lewis' piano playing is another matter. I'd never appreciated it before, but it's clear from this recording that Lewis laid the foundation for virtually every stylistic aspect of rock 'n roll piano. The staccato repeated chords, the driving boogie pattern played by the left hand while the right adds ornamentation, the sweeping, crashing glissandos added for punctuation, the omission of the 7nth in block chords, all these stylistic devices were repeated virtually unaltered by every rock 'n roll pianist that followed. Okay, maybe all of these innovations were present in the blues and honkytonk before Lewis got hold of them, but the aggressiveness and manic energy he imbued them with were all his.Okay, having listened to the whole album, Lewis does get more animated and energetic as a performer as the album goes along, and at the time, hearing a white performer shake the rafters like this must have been astonishing. But having witnessed virtually the entire history of rock 'n roll, this set can be described as merely energetic rather than crazed, otherworldly, an act of violence or similarly over the top descriptions. On the other hand, in terms of rock 'n roll piano, this recording has never been equaled, much less bested, as far as I know. How about the songs? Well, what can I say? They're basic rock 'n roll, nothing special. So, we've got okay songs, a good vocal performance, a good band performance, and incredible rock 'n roll piano. For that last part alone, I'll give LATSCH a 4/5.

Given the inclinations of the writers of this list, I'm a little surprised to see Deep Purple in Rock here. For one thing, there were no hits on this album. It wasn't all that popular at the time either, as far as I know. It wasn't a presence on album-oriented radio. It doesn't even have a hipster reputation, like Dr. John's Gris Gris. Could it be that it was included because of the actual quality of the music? Shocker.On DPIR, Richie Blackmore got his way and molded Deep Purple into a hard rock band with a nasty edge, both musically and lyrically. His leads, heavy on whammy bar and feedback, were pretty revelatory at the time, and are impressive even now. Child in Time is a particularly brutal anti-war song. Living Wreck's depiction of a drug-addled groupie is downright ugly. And Ian Gillan's operatic wails, no doubt inspired by Arthur Brown, are the rancid cherry on top. But the pop and progressive leanings of early incarnations of the band weren't completely abandoned. In essence, the songs on DPIR are inventive, tightly constructed pop tunes, albeit with a blues foundation. This isn't the blundering, overly literal blues of all too many British bands.Frankly, the ungainly combination of elements in DPIR was a bit much for me as a kid and even now it makes me queasy, but the tension of the push and pull of the seemingly irreconcilable is large part of what makes DOIR such a bracing listen. Deep Purple would never make another album as balls out and uncompromising as this one.

I can't really blame Bowie for being inspired by late 60s and early 70s soul music, but Young Americans is soul the way that the Bee Gee's Main Course is soul or 3 Dog Night is soul, that is, not so much. Only Fame is genuinely funky. I remember feeling a bit queasy when the other hit on the album, Young Americans, used to come on the radio. I was uncomfortable with how much fuss people made about it when much better real soul music came and went in a matter of weeks. But ain't that always the way it is? And come to think about it, part of what bothers me so much about the 1001 list is how colonialist it is, how small-minded, how parochial, giving an inordinate amount of space to anything white, male or anglophile and when they do include music which isn't, more often than not, it's a compromised, bastardized token example. Anyway, enough of my bitching. The rest of the album, with the exception of Fame, is just as inconsequential as the title cut. I will say that the session players acquit themselves quite well, and the album is beautifully recorded. I mean, the album isn't actively unpleasant to listen to, but this is a pretty shallow take on soul. Still, the only outright stinker is the out-of-place Beatles cover Across the Universe. I know it's fashionable to venerate Bowie these days, but not everything he did was wonderful, e.g. the Thin White Puke years. I'm just glad Bowie got Young Americans out of his system and went on to make the Berlin trilogy.

Oh, boy. I can barely stomach early Springsteen. And it's all downhill once you get past Darkness On The Edge of Town. The Boss, my ass.I'll give Springsteen credit for one thing: he doesn't approach this material tentatively. The martial, strident, echoey drums and the droning plastic synths of the title cut are a perfect fit for Springsteen's shout singing. I know the lyrics are critical, but I don't care. I can't get past how vile this is. I prefer Joe Piscopo's version. At least it's funny. Things don't approve as the album goes along. Humorless, strident, lacking any subtlety or nuance whatsoever, fully buying into his own myth, Born in the USA is unbearable.

With Kid A, Radiohead went directly from inventing and mastering a variant of modern prog rock with OK Computer to fully assimilating the innovations of Aphex Twin and harnessing them to a new form of pop music. It's one of the most astonishing one-two punches in all of rock history. Even more amazing is the subtlety and depth of human feeling Radiohead brings to electronica. Kid A is hypnotic and dreamlike. It also sounds gorgeous, which producer Nigel Godrich probably deserves a lot of the credit for. It's also brilliantly sequenced. I should mention that electronica is not the only influence here. There's Mingus, ambient, a brief appearance of guitar rock, and even an orchestra, but it's all subsumed and blended into as cohesive an artistic statement as I've ever heard. Stunning on every level.

Guitar Town came out in 1986, one of the worst years for music ever, and it doesn't outright suck. That's some kind of accomplishment, right there. First off, the sound of the album is pleasing. There's a nice balance between guitar, keyboards, singing and drums, which is down to producers Emory Gordy, Jr., and Tony Brown. Yes, the backbeat on the drums is overly literal, but I'd be shocked to find an 80s mainstream album that didn't have that. The songs and musicianship are pleasant enough. Oh, another thing: the keyboards are period-specific, but they don't make me want to puke. And yet, I've got to ask, why is this album on any kind of list? It's bog-standard mainstream country from start to finish. Nothing musically interesting about it. And Steve Earle doesn't have anything new to say lyrically. Still, you could do a lot worse. If this came on in a barbecue restaurant, it wouldn't make me want to take my ribs to go. One last note: The most assertive, appealing songs are frontloaded, so the album steadily gets weaker as it goes along.

I've long heard that Eliminator is THE ZZ Top album to beat, but I've never listened to it, so here goes. The sound of the album is a bit of a shock. It's pure 80s corporate arena rock. The rhythms are robotically precise and thuddingly literal. There's that 80s sheen and slickness, the gated reverb and chorus on the vocals. The sound is compressed--my guess is that if you looked at a waveform of this music, it would look like a brick. And yet it still sounds like ZZ Top, just the MTV version. If all of this sounds like a putdown, it really isn't. Somehow, ZZ Top went for the biggest, dumbest, most commercial sound possible without coming across as sellouts. They even manage to incorporate synths and sequencers into their sound without making you want to barf. How? Wisely, the traditional guitars and vocals remain paramount--on Legs, for example, the sequenced synth comes across as a grace note, a single layer of modernity in the typical Texas boogie. Same goes for the drum machine on Thug. Interestingly, ZZ Top opts to steadily make the drum machines, synths and sequencers more prominent in the arrangements as the album wears on, but never so much that they lose the essence of their sound. As it turns out, Eliminator is a master class in updating a band for the MTV era, a path that is littered with the corpses of 70s era bands. Good for them. The songs themselves are sturdy constructions without being especially memorable, with the exception of Sharp Dressed Man.

Of course I'm familiar with the hits off this album and I've seen the movie, but I've never listened to The Wall from start to finish. I'm about twenty minutes in, and what stands out for me is how immersive it is. Roger Waters, the driving force behind the album, has taken the incorporation of extra-musical cues pioneered in DSOTM to it's logical conclusion here. The album flows like a dream, which is exactly what it's meant to do. Criticism that the majority of the "songs" on this album are filler is beside the point. The music is meant to tell a story about alienation and mental illness, and it succeeds grandly. Although there are very few songs that can stand alone here, there is a lot of beauty in the sound collages that have been painstakingly assembled. And in terms of production, The Wall is gorgeous, one of the best-sounding albums imaginable. And although the hits aren't my favorite Pink Floyd songs, I do like Another Brick In the Wall, Goodbye Blue Sky, Hey You, etc. But ultimately, The Wall earns its inclusion on the list by its groundbreaking production and by its success at realizing an incredibly ambitious concept. Oh, and guitarist David Gilmour is brilliant here--it's some of his most expressive work. The biggest weakness of The Wall is also its greatest strength, that it almost demands to be experienced as a unified work. For example, if you were to listen to one of the interstitial songs like Bring The Boys Back Home in isolation, although you might admire the skill of the sound collage, your overall reaction might reasonably be "huh?" Perhaps less fairly, listening to the album all the way through is a claustrophobic experience, akin to being trapped in Roger Water's brain. But that's kind of the point. It's even worse if you have a low tolerance for a rich and absurdly successful rock star whining about how tough it is to be a rock star, although that isn't my take. I'm giving The Wall 4/5, which is probably too low. Sue me.

I was astonished to find that Time Out came out as recently as 1959. To think that odd-metered jazz tunes didn't exist before then amazes me, since they've always been a part of my musical experience. I would have thought that Time Out was from the early to mid-50s. And I also thought that there might have been a few outliers sprinkled in jazz history before then, but apparently not. So, Time Out belongs on this list if only because it marked the very beginning of odd meters in jazz. But other than that, is Time Out noteworthy in any way? Well, it's not ugly. The arrangements are spacious and the sonorities of the instruments are contrasted adroitly. On the other hand, the improvisations are what you would expect if someone were to make a recording specifically to introduce jazz to elementary school children. This is not to say that the improvisations are bad. On the contrary, they are tasteful, but all of the risk-taking is exhausted on the high concept of odd meters. Ironically, that makes Time Out accessible to folks who don't necessarily like jazz, which I'm betting includes the makers of the infamous 1001 list. For me, it's kind of boring. I'm extremely glad that Brubeck took the leap, and I wish that more jazzers delved into odd meters, but subsequent composers and players leave Brubeck in the dust in terms of sophistication and power. It's not fair, but Time Out, which was once legitimately experimental, now ranks with the tamest of Starbucks Muzak.

I suspect that full appreciation of The Downward Spiral requires an ability to access your inner enraged thirteen old. For me, Trent Reznor's carefully cultivated bleakness seems a bit on the nose. I tend to appreciate more what's going on in the margins, i.e. the ambient industrial textures, which are often masterful, rather than the songs themselves, which combine jackhammer dance beats with agro posturing recorded deep in the red. Unfortunately, the ambient pleasures of The Downward Spiral are incidental. The overriding vibe of this album is, as Rolling Stone would have it, "tortured death disco howl." Sorry to plagiarize, but I couldn't possibly improve on that description. Anyway, this is the sort of thing they use to abuse political prisoners at Guantanamo. Pass. Okay, I actually did kind of like Closer, but I prefer Rezner's soundtrack work, especially on Se7en.

Headhunters can best be understood as a reaction to being ignored. In a 1974 interview, Herbie Hancock said, "One thing became apparent to me last year. I’d go to friends’ homes and see my albums on the shelves with lots of other people’s records, and they’d play all the others except mine. My intention at the time was to play music to be listened to with undivided attention; but how many people have the time to approach music that way? Before, I was so interested in spirituality that I didn’t recognize that a person puts on a record with his hands and not his spirit.” So the emphasis shifted from “heavy musical trips that try to expand people’s minds” to “making people feel like getting up in the morning and going to work.” Yep, sounds about right. If you really want to hear something heavy and groundbreaking, try Herbie Hancock's Crossings, not Headhunters, but Headhunters does have its charms. It's undeniably funky, with music grounded in the best selling artists of the day, like James Brown and Sly & The Family Stone. The keyboard sounds are varied and they don't suck, even the synths, at least in this context. For sake of comparison, listen to some of the synths on the Ohio Players' mid to late 70s albums, which totally stink up the joint. Why? Well, those old jazz players had ears like an elephant and apparently the patience to program synths. And even though these tunes are long, Hancock keeps things interesting introducing contrapuntal lines in the arrangements and of course he's a world class soloist. And I shouldn't forget to mention that Herbie's band are wonderful rhythm players and being jazzers, the groove is constantly shifting and evolving. Aside from the intrinsic value of the recording, which is pretty high, Headhunters is also hugely influential, not only for putting funk front and center in jazz, but for its use of synthesizers. It easily earns its place on the 1001 list.

Master of Puppets is universally considered a masterpiece, and it's easy to see why. James Hetfield's rhythm guitar playing is technically flawless, executing intricate, rhythmically complex, lightning quick parts adroitly, but always with a human feel. His vocal performance is aggressive, but the farthest thing from sloppy. Cliff Burton matches Hetfield on bass, step by step. Drummer Lars Ulrich isn't as subtle or as tasteful as Hetfield and Burton, but he does fine. Kirk Hammet's leads are impeccable, although I personally would prefer that he take more chances harmonically, given Metallica's obvious ambition. These are complex, tightly written songs with a wide stylistic range--within metal, of course. And the lyrics match, ruminating intelligently on various aspects of the misuse of power. The band is blessed with crystal clear production from Flemming Rasmussen that allows you to luxuriate in every last note, and which neatly sidesteps all the worst aspects of 80s production. There is literally nothing to complain about on Master of Puppets at all. Why then does it leave me cold? I really don't understand. Still, on a purely intellectual basis, it's obvious that Master of Puppets (which I'm told is largely a consolidation of previous album Ride the Lightning's innovations) pushed metal into new levels of complexity and virtuosity. It obviously influenced virtually every metal and thrash album that came after it. It richly deserves its inclusion on the 1001 list. Which leads me to a conundrum. How do I rate Master of Puppets 5/5 when I didn't even really enjoy it? Here's my non-solution: I'm not going to rate it at all.

I've got to say--I don't really get the fuss people make about R.E.M. To be clear, I enjoy Man On The Moon, The End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine), and some of their other tunes as much as the average person, but to me, R.E.M. is about as standard as jangle pop gets. The structures of their songs and their melodies aren't innovative in the slightest, merely competent, and the window dressing of skronky sax and minor time signature shifts on a song like Fireplace doesn't change that one iota. Sometimes, R.E.M. stumbles on a hook or two. And this pretty much describes Document. That said, this came out in 1987, and by the standards of that time, it's a minor masterpiece. The only giveaway that this came out in the darkest days of the 80s is the mind-numbing echoey backbeat that accompanies almost every song. The guitars have a bit of grit. The lyrics are unusually literate and intelligent. I like jangle pop. And, while Document is nothing to write home about, I do appreciate craft, and this album has plenty of it. It's a meat and potatoes pop album. But over the course of 11 songs and 40 minutes, it all gets a trifle dull.

A handful of great tunes does not a great album make. Eight Miles High, the big hit, has much to recommend it: thoughtful lyrics, a memorable tune, and Indian influences, although Roger McGuin's 12 string guitar solos haven't aged well. The rollicking Mr. Spaceman is genuinely funny and makes great use of country conventions. Best of all is the title track, with its moving description of a psychedelic epiphany and relentless structural momentum. And of course, the harmonies are gorgeous throughout. Unfortunately, the rest of the album is filler or worse. Wild Mountain Thyme, John Riley, I Come And Stand At Every Door are pleasant enough but forgettable folk-rock. I See You is a lesser attempt at the psychedelia of Eight Miles High. 2-4-2 Fox Trot (The Lear Jet Song) and the instrumental Captain Soul are throwaways. The country-tinged cover of Hey Joe falls completely flat, verging on self-parody. Worst of all is the cringy What's Happening?!?!, a pompous and condescending screed from David Crosby. Why anyone considers Fifth Dimension a classic is beyond me. Maybe people are seduced by the well-known hits and overlook the rest. I dunno.

I can understand why people might like Be. It's remarkably consistent and competent. The raps are never dumb or ugly, but neither are they particularly expressive or pointed. Common's rhythms fall comfortably within the mainstream of rap--he does this kind of thing as well as anyone, but that isn't saying much. Considering that the artistic raison d'etre of rap is clever phrasing, pointed commentary and rhythmic innovation, most artists aim pretty low. Sonically, producer Kanye West provides layered samples based on old-school R&B, and it's pleasant enough. There are no jarring samples or icky synths to stink the joint up. The transitions between tracks are seamless. On the other hand, there is little here that is innovative or exciting. Be is the equivalent of hip-hop comfort food. It's business as usual, but you could do a lot worse. The one deviation from the norm is the closing track, a spoken word benediction for the next generation, accompanied by the NuJazz piano stylings of James Poyser. It's both moving and soothing, a fitting end to the album.

Before this, my familiarity with The Band pretty much ended with "The Weight," which got played to death on the radio throughout the 70s. I never could figure out why it was such a staple, except the chorus lends itself to drunken singalongs. Listening to this self-titled release provides a clearer picture. The Band is a roots-rock band, mining pretty much the same territory as The Grateful Dead at the time. In fact, I had heard Up On Cripple Creek before and mistook it for a Grateful Dead track. Both bands share a loose (some might say sloppy) approach, with wobbly vocals, but I'd say that's intentional--they're avoiding slickness in favor of feeling and authenticity. Both bands approach various genres with respect, but aren't afraid of modernizing the textures, let's say with a clavinet on Up On Cripple Creek. And like the Dead, they don't restrict themselves to any specific genre like country or honky-tonk, but feel free to borrow from a variety of genres. This album is a modest, low-key effort, which tends to camouflage its strengths. One is that The Band has a real feel for Americana, unlike most modern attempts at the genre. Paradoxically, that makes the then modern interpolations of organ, clavinet, horn charts and so on an enrichment instead of a distraction. Another is that they're equally adept at ballads as rockers and everything in between. Over the course of an album, The Band builds up a ramshackle charm. The problem, if you can call it that, is that this music is comfortable like an old ratty coat. It's not designed to impress. It's meant to envelop you and keep you warm. I can't imagine ever going back to listen to this album from beginning to end, but I am going to put it on my 60s Spotify station.

Even if you don't know anything about Jamaican music, chances are you know Bob Marley. He's far and away the most popular Jamaican musician of all time. You can kind of understand why listening to Natty Dread. The musicians lock into these gentle grooves like they've been playing together forever. Marley has a knack for writing simple lyrics that evoke an idea while not actually saying a whole lot. The musical textures are as slick as whale shit. Put together, these attributes make Natty Dread accessible as hell. But for me, it comes across as protest music for the Benneton crowd. I'm sure Bob Marley & The Wailers were perfectly sincere about their music and weren't intentionally pandering to the lowest common denominator, but it sure comes across that way. Thankfully, compared to previous albums, Natty Dread is more focused, with shorter song running times, the arrangements are more varied, and the first two tunes, Lively Up Yourself and No Woman No Cry actually have decent melodic and rhythmic hooks. Still, even putting my personal distaste for this kind of mainstream reggae aside, over the course of even a relatively short 42 minutes, my eyes rolled up into my head with boredom.

Connected actually sounds good, with is no small thing for a dance record. That's thanks to liberal use of horns, flutes, electronic piano, in addition to scratching and basic hip hop drum beats, and no horrid synths. In addition, the elements really are tastefully layered, and the textures are varied throughout the album. The vocals are pretty white bread and the raps are bland, but who knows, many that helped Connected cross over to a more general audience--it's not a deal-breaker for me. There really isn't all that much more to this music, but it's enough really. After all, nobody is actually going to listen to this, they're going to dance to it, right? Right? This stuff has a danceable beat, and sonically speaking, it doesn't make you want to hurl. What more do you want? I dunno. How about an album that doesn't bore you to tears?

Any album that features a fire-breathing takedown of God himself (Dear God) can't be all bad, right? Well, no, but Skylarking still turns my stomach. Why? I should love Skylarking. After all, it's considered by many to be the best post-psychedelic pop album since Sgt Pepper's. (Actually, it's more like a curdled mixture of The Beach Boys and Joe Jackson with an overlay of Rundgren at his most cute.) On the plus side, Alan Partridge and Colin Moulding's melodies and song structures are idiosyncratic and unpredictable. The production by Todd Rundgren is lush. And yet. For me, the trouble begins with Alan Partridge's plummy vocals--it's that pasty, Anthony Newly theatricality so prevalent in the 80s--eccch. The songs structures may be unpredictable, but rarely has baroque pop had so little payoff. There's nothing I would ever hum here, although Earn Enough For Us comes close. It sounds like something Bob Mould might have written--too bad it's performed with none of his toughness. The production is overstuffed to no effect except nausea--it's like a bacon sandwich with maple syrup poured over it. XTC's stab at raga rock--Big Day--is especially bilious. And the self-importance and grandiose self-regard on display is enough to sink the project on its own. It's clear that XTC is going for a masterpiece--fat chance. Still, I've got to give them some credit on the level of craft--Skylarking must have been a mind-numbing amount of work to put together, although it's almost as much effort to listen to. And then there's Dear God. Not a great song by any means--it's too self-consciously pedantic for that--but at least it's fun.

Certainly, there is nothing profound about the Undertones. This is basic punk shorn of rancor and politics. But The Undertone's energy, sincerity, and utter lack of pretension won me over. The way they attack these big dumb hooks and elemental arrangements as though they were brand new and original is endearing. There are plenty of bands whose members are teenagers but here it's painfully obvious and kind of sweet. As to why they are on this list, I can only imagine that it's because the band is influential. Without them, would a band like Blink 182 even exist? Not that the world especially needs punk-pop or anything. How to rate? I mean, The Undertones executes their concept perfectly--the hooks and energy never flag, and the musicianship, while basic, is solid. But surely ambition counts for something? I can't bear to give them more than a 3.5/5, but I'll put this album on my late 70s Spotify station.

It was on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot that Jeff Tweedy's obsession with deconstruction and the studio reached its apotheosis. Tweedy always wrote simple songs, often based on Americana, which gave him the freedom to screw around with attenuating the structures, adding dissonant elements and noise, and subtracting or layering elements, all in the service of asking the question, "What makes a song work?" and laying bare the artifice of the studio. Fortunately for us listeners, Tweedy's obsessions aren't simply academic--his layering is often gorgeous and never more than on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Nowadays, it's common for bands to have heavily ambient elements and noise jostling for attention alongside more conventional song structures. I would bet that Yankee Hotel Foxtrot has a lot to do with that. Also Eno, industrial music from the 80s, and a bunch of other influences, but I digress. The songs on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot work both as deconstruction and as catchy tunes. You don't have to be a music geek to enjoy Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, but it definitely deepens the experience.

It's tempting to make a crack about this music being by the numbers, but it's just not true. Colour By Numbers is easily identifiable as 80s pop no doubt, but Culture Club is very much its own thing. It's definitely not punk and it's not new wave. It's unabashed, pure pop. It's slick and heavily produced, but the synths are mostly in the background. It avoids instrumental textures that smack of darkness or depravity--cotton candy all the way. The vocals by Boy George are...oh, no! Is that supposed to be...soul???? Good Lord. Okay, there's a long history of non-black performers who attempt soul vocals and they sound like anything but. That doesn't mean that they're terrible, they just kind of accidentally create a new genre. And that's what's happening here. The tipoff is the background vocals by Helen Terry, who halfway kinda pulls off soul shouting. Colour By Numbers is kind of hard for me to evaluate. I wouldn't listen to this music on my own initiative in a million years--I generally don't like pure pop, and pseudo-soul-pop even less. But I'd be lying if I said that the arrangements, performances, or production were incompetent. You also can't fault the catchiness of Karma Chameleon. Do I hate it? Yes. I find Colour By Numbers tasteless and disposable. But on the level of craft, it isn't bad at all.

Ute Lemper is best known for her interpretations of Kurt Weill, so covering artists influenced by Kurt Weill might turn out to be either inspired or reductive. Looking at the track list, I was like "Oh, yeah, Elvis Costello's later work is influenced by Kurt Weill," which had never occurred to me before. I'll be interested to see if that's true about Philip Glass. Of course, everyone knows that's true of Tom Waits and Nick Cave. But who are Noel Scott Engel and Neil Hannon, both of whom have the lion's share of composing credits? Oh, shit--Noel Scott Engel is Scott Walker, who Americanized the songs of Jacques Brel and who never met a 72 piece orchestra he didn't want to masturbate to. Neil Hannon is the founder of the contemporary group The Divine Comedy, a throwback to the days when melody was paramount and kitchen sink arrangements were the norm. Worse, the members of The Divine Comedy are the backing musicians! I dislike The Divine Comedy and both of the latter composers, so now I'm more than a little apprehensive about Punishing Kiss. Here goes. Predictably, it all falls flat, but it's difficult to accurately apportion blame. Of course, no song would have had a prayer of withstanding the overwrought orchestrations and performances of The Divine Comedy, but the effect is to make all the songs seem slight and jejune, even the Kurt Weill piece, which can't possibly be true. Ute Lemper strikes me here as melodramatic in her readings instead of deadpan, which is more appropriate for a Weill-influenced set, but she really had no choice given the accompaniment. At least she's better than Neil Hannon, who is pure ham in his duets with Lemper. Pretty fucking awful.