1001 Albums Summary

There are no tears for Danny Whitten or Bruce Berry here, only a wised-up, hard-bitten rue. But there is some consolation amidst the loss, and it builds across the tuneful Mellow My Mind/Roll Another Number/Albuquerque heart of the record, which gave me a lifelong love of the pedal-steel guitar. I have listened to this record more than any other by a wide margin.

Catchy melodies and tight playing but an overall experience that is square to the core. This sure isn’t “Tonight’s the Night,” or the bad-boy Stones. If this band has a future, it’s in “Money,” the only song here with an edge.

Not the mopey lugubriousness I expected. Liked the urgency of the playing, the way the songs build in counterpoint with the studiously unperturbed vocal and the dash of sly wit. Would give it 3.5 stars if I could.

Literate hard core from a band that hit its marks like a soul act. Not many bands could pull off this level of precision in a single take. Who in the world went to their shows? Rating capped at 3 because I only listened to the first two sides.

Plenty here that’s interesting, but they’d get a higher adjusted r-squared if they removed a few variables. 2.5 stars

My favorite of their four records

I was looking forward to putting the needle down on “Thunder Road” all day long. The record that made The Boss a star, and deservedly so.

Electric guitar is a good thing, but the old saying was right after all: you really can have too much of one.

Holds up spectacularly well on a first listen in years after touting it to one and all upon its release. Restive and off-kilter but always compelling. There’s a conventional song somewhere inside “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart;” thankfully the band and the producer stuck to their guns to give us this one.

A lack of affect isn’t necessarily fatal for a vocalist — David Byrne built a hugely successful band around it — but this isn’t the right material for Ms. Pfaffgen.

Every bit as precious as the title suggests. Give me Mrs. Miller singing the praises of the bossa nova over this any day.