I dunno, felt kinda indifferent on this one. I didn't think it was bad by any means but I don't really have the frame of reference to get a sense of this album fully. On paper it's interesting; jazz mixed with african polyrhythmic percussion. But it doesn't really emotionally affect me much, which is the main thing I'm looking for in music. I'm just going to chalk it up to being a little ignorant on this sound and style of music because I could see myself trying to give it another shot at some point in the future. Maybe that's a cop out, but also this era of jazz being referenced has never really appealed to me in any way. 3 stars because *shrug*
It's interesting to listen to this knowing that in my teens or early 20's I would have fucking hated this. Too happy, too peachy, too warm, lot of dated cliches. But that's not to say that I love it. I can just simply listen to it and it's generally unoffensive. But what occurred to me was that even more so I have the ability to enjoy this because I'm totally lost on the cultural context of this album. Not that I'm reaching for it either, this is the fruits of the internet age and also having only been born like 26 years after this album was released. That's how things are recontextualized and are reborn right? Nothing wrong in that. It's more emotionally relatable than the last album but it still doesn't stir anything in me. Not to keep harping on the context of the album, but I also haven't heard enough music from this time period to understand if this transcended or mundanely regurgitated the musical trends of the time. Again, I admit ignorance. Forgive me music gods, for I have sinned. I listen to black metal and experimental hip hop mostly so cut me some damn slack. It's pleasant. There. I said something positive. Fuck you. Ok, California Dreaming I understand why it's such a huge single. The melody is pretty nice. I especially love the descending group vocals on the minor key, that's my shit. Bring on the sadness and nostalgia. Jeez I'm such a miserable fuck. I love how the melody ascends from the "all the leaves are brown" section of the chorus into the 2nd half of the motif. Very dramatic. Spanish Harlem sounds like the sequel to Little Drummer Boy. There's some nice, brown atmosphere here. I have no idea how to explain it. It sounds like old coffee stains on old yellow napkins that have sat in an abandoned diner for 40 years. I can smell it too. Are we all just dopamine exhausted and really sweet and calm music like this doesn't do anything for us? I feel like in order to attach myself at all to this album on an emotional level I'd need to date some vapid wish it was the 70's Nashville transplant white girl and suffer through her taste in music until she left me for a much more handsome, masculine, cowboy looking motherfucker that works at a bar of some bougie hotel downtown, and when nobody's looking I throw on this album and silently weep for the days we used to screw on the 2nd floor of the tall skinny she used to rent with her Lifeway coworkers.
Yeah sorry I'm not listening to this one. I can't. I FUCKING CAN'T. NO.
Ok now this is what I'm talking about. Dirty, swaggering, rock n roll. Telecasters and bowl cuts and STD's. I've heard this one when I briefly tried to get into the Stones in my early 20's. I dunno why I never revisited this one because I distinctly remember liking this album the most out of all of them. First track kicks you in the fucking nuts; it might not be as loud or as crushing as modern rock music production wise but somehow the raw attitude sells it and it feels so much heavier than your run of the mill "rock" band these days. Suck my dick Royal Blood, Danko Jones, or whatever. This was when it was still dangerous and it was ok to be a self absorbed white guy with a guitar. I already love the song Rocks Off, let's hope that I don't suddenly remember why I stopped listening to the Stones in my initial attempt. Ok. I remember why I stopped listening to the Stones. Look, I love Bo Diddly's rhythmic guitar lines (to be fair the palatable context was provided by the first track off of VU so not that I'm trying to allocate any cool points here), I don't mind older rock n roll, but I just cannot fucking STAND the Chuck Berry dunga dunga dunga dunga guitar riffs. Fuck that shit. It's so fucking corny. But honestly it's not that bad here. I'm just not a blues guy, thanks to my dad who used to torture me with some of the worst examples of the genre (eat a dick Bonamossa, you're the blues version of pretentious metal guitarists that are more interested in speed and technicality than musicality), but maybe without that my guard would be down and I'd just stop being a hipster fuck and just appreciate it. Anyhow, it's all the more apparent how lost that glossy, but "clean" (by today's standards at least) tube amp sound isn't really prevalent in any kind of rock music that isn't indie or is trying to lean more on the masculine side of rock music. Perhaps I'm wrong because I've likely heard it in the afore mentioned shitty blues music my dad used to blast, but its swagger was probably completely ruined by the pristine production compared to this, which is a little grungier and rough around the edges, which is exactly how I like my standard guitar, drum, bass, vox album to sound like. Sounds organic and dirty and that shit hits my g spot. I'm more open to the classic country and blues guitar tropes these days, and now I get why I hated it so much in my early 20's despite being fond of guitarists that loved this era of the Stones, but yeah it's not rocking my world. Wouldn't call it average, it's just not singing to me. Except that first track, my God that shit gives me goose bumps. Intense attitude and swagger on that one. It's fairly difficult not to listen to this and hear it as a boring cliche'd classic rock album, but that's likely due to its age and my own ignorance on the subject. It's just hard to see it as a seriously creative thing, and it's not like I even believe that myself. Some of the tracks on here feel like they're meandering into obvious turns that I've heard a million times. Blame my generation's dopamine fatigued brain I guess. It's not horrible at all or even bad or even mediocre, it's just not for me. The piano riff of Loving Cup kinda rips. I gotta admit for how many songs are on this thing it doesn't feel for a moment that anything here was really uninspired, despite my previous remarks of how cliche'd it can sound at the same time. Ok, I'm nearing the end of the album and it kinda rips a lot harder than how I felt about it my first time hearing it. That's just how I am, either albums rip right out the gate or it takes me several tries before I can come up with an opinion.
What is there to say about this album that hasn't already been said? Post punk classic, through and through. I love the weird angular guitar work glued together with infectiously funky rhythms. Lyrics are on point and carry some significant weight; it's one of the better examples of politically driven lyrics without being whiny or preachy. Total shame what the band has become these days, a low resolution nostalgia cash grab. This album is extremely influential to me. I think Solid Gold has better songs, but as an album its the most solid of them all in their discography. Mandatory listening no matter who you are or what you like.
I dig it. It's very hard for me to put into words what I got out of the album but I think it's fairly representative of what this album achieves. There's just loads of good composition, arrangement, choice of instrumentation, and it all creates a really wonderful texture for my brain to get lost into. Lots of mental images, feelings, the kind of abstract things you might feel that you know would be unbelievably contrived to try to articulate. Will probably revisit this album as well as the rest of the Tortoise discography. I'm genuinely surprised I didn't discover and adore this album in high school, it would have been right up my alley. I guess this is post rock? The thing that really strikes me is the obvious krautrock influence, and I fucking love that genre of music. It's what immediately pulled me into the album. Good post rock is usually devoid of obvious, masturbatory build up and crescendos behind walls and walls of reverb and delay as a lazy attempt to create some kind of effective aesthetic and feeling of catharsis. This is a fine example of how to make stunning post rock without those cliche's. I wish I had better words to describe. There are a plethora of moments in this album that really get me into the moment and I'm in that holy trance of jam. There are a lot of unexpected left turns and stylistic choices but they don't clash at all, it never feels inconsistent. Tons of variety. I love this album actually.
For the kind of punk this is, it's pretty good. But I just can't really subject myself to punk that lacks any sense of grit or danger (I would even consider the Spiral Scratch EP to be more edgy than this and that's on the weaker end of it). Don't get me wrong, there are some bangers like Wrong Way or the opening track. Definitely not boring punk. I just need my punk to be way more abrasive. I find the lyrics to be pretty vacuous. Almost every fucking song is some kind of love song and ya that's just not my thing done in the traditional sense exemplified here. This might have came out in 79 but there are some things here that I associate with 80's corny white dude music. I dunno, I wasn't around when this album came out so I have no frame of reference. It's definitely not bad. Sorry John Peel.
Oh shit. I'm probably really gonna hate this one. I can already tell that this is gonna be VERY outside of my wheelhouse but you know what, this is exactly why I decided to do this. I'm so addicted to knowledge that just being aware of what this person sounds like as well as this album will be good enough for me even if I hate the music. Ok so the first track, the title track, is pretty damn good and exceeded my expectations. It feels genuinely sincere and tasteful, rather than the really boring, predictable, country rock I was expecting. I can fuck with it. Unfortunately the second track pretty much it on some of the things I was afraid of. I'm really just not into most country, blues, and whatever rock music that blends these together. I will say it's not totally cringe inducing beyond the aesthetic choices that I can't vibe with. Again, it really does feel genuine and authentic without trying to achieve some kind of market based outcome utilizing contrived and cliche'd concepts that are simply popular and arbitrarily novel. You can tell she means everything she plays and sings, and even if I'm not on board with the sound I'm hearing I'm completely on board with Bonnie as an artist. She's a good guitarist too. Ok, it's not completely without some cliche's that border on the uncomfortable (Love Letter's lyrics are noticeably less interesting than the opening track), and I've never really been for a lot of the conventions of rock music, which is just throw some good enough lyrics that fit nicely into the music, shut up, and play the damn guitar. There's a lot to respect in this straightforwardness but again that doesn't totally resonate with me and is rarely ever the kind of music that really hits me in my deepest parts (with the exception of maybe AC/DC or something, I dunno). It just goes to show how rock is basically dead. Bonnie seems like the kind of woman I would really like as a person and I can sense it in the music even if there are jarring cultural differences. But so far this album makes me wanna clean my ears out with a Coil album or something. It's definitely the most palatable "conservative" music I've ever heard, for sure.
I'm familiar with this album. All it reminds me of is horribly cringey moments in my teenage years. I think by today's standard's it's way too cliche but I have a weird appreciation for it where I can see past that because there was a time where this album had a much stronger effect on me. But I was never really a Pumpkins fan anyway. It's a genuine classic I don't deny the brilliance of it, but Billy Corgan is a chode that takes himself way too seriously and that's all hear in his music anymore
Highly influential album, especially to me. It's a damn shame everything they made after this was pretty meh; I suppose some groups are only destined to make 1 really great thing. But hey I'm not complaining, if the best I could do was make 1 album as incredible and timeless as this I'd be pretty damn happy. One of the best albums to ever come out of Manchester, period.
I'm already familiar with this album and man what a disappointment this album was. I remember being very much into this group from late middle school into high school, and I had already devoured every release they had made up to this point. From what I recall it felt overall a bit uninspired, much like all of their later work from here on out (with each release having a decreasing amount of good material). It's one of those trajectories that constantly makes me wonder how a successful group of artists could actually continue to stay at the level of inspiration required to keep making good shit. Not to say this is a horrible album but it definitely pails in comparison to the last couple albums, which contain front to back bangers, while this one only has maybe half of a good album at best.
It's not bad. But it does verge on the corny for me, as it ALMOST reminds me of electro swing which I find to be the most reprehensible form of music ever conceived. I think French music in general I've never really grasped or fully appreciated (except for maybe Satie) and probably due to my own ignorance, the type of music being referenced here as the basis just kind of goes over my head and comes off as a little kitsch. I can hear some Portishead at a superficial level as well which is probably the frame of reference that allows me to at least have some appreciation for it.
Man as much as I respect Motorhead and their influence on genres of music I like a lot more than the band themselves (namely, prototypical forms of extreme metal, especially that of black metal) I have never actually sat through an entire Motorhead album. It's that thing again where I don't really find any affinity in the kind of blues rock Motorhead tends to reference a lot. But I would be absolutely daft to not at least give this one a go. Three tracks in and honestly I'm sold. This shit fucking rips and I regret never getting into it during the peak of my interest in this style of rock music. It's not ultra fast, there's no cave man riffs and shrieking, not much darkness overall, which were all prerequisites for my interest in metal overall, but maybe I've just gotten to the age where I can look past my original tastes in metal and appreciate it for what it is. I think maybe what I missed from a lot of music in this vein was that it never sounded dangerous to me, and this album feels absolutely dangerous and swaggering.
I mean what can I say that already hasn't been said about this album? Honestly I don't think it's their best album, but I will give it due credit. I vastly prefer Defenders of the Faith and Screaming For Vengeance though.
