Journey in Progress
Discovering music one album at a time
1071
Albums Rated
3.26
Avg Rating
195
5-Star Albums
98%
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18 albums remaining
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4.9
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1522
Days Active
Reviews
1068
Written
100%
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vs Global
0.04
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3.26
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Which era do you prefer?
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1950s
Favorite Decade
Reggae
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53
1-Star Albums
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Rating Style
You Love More Than Most
Albums you rated higher than global average
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duck Stab/Buster & Glen | 5 | 2.03 | +2.97 |
| Playing With Fire | 5 | 2.54 | +2.46 |
| Raw Like Sushi | 5 | 2.7 | +2.3 |
| Cut | 5 | 2.71 | +2.29 |
| Sweetheart Of The Rodeo | 5 | 2.83 | +2.17 |
| Sweetheart Of The Rodeo | 5 | 2.83 | +2.17 |
| Songs The Lord Taught Us | 5 | 2.84 | +2.16 |
| Songs The Lord Taught Us | 5 | 2.84 | +2.16 |
| Grievous Angel | 5 | 2.86 | +2.14 |
| Bone Machine | 5 | 2.86 | +2.14 |
You Love Less Than Most
Albums you rated lower than global average
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brothers In Arms | 1 | 3.74 | -2.74 |
| Hotel California | 1 | 3.6 | -2.6 |
| Straight Outta Compton | 1 | 3.51 | -2.51 |
| The Marshall Mathers LP | 1 | 3.49 | -2.49 |
| On The Beach | 1 | 3.47 | -2.47 |
| Crime Of The Century | 1 | 3.41 | -2.41 |
| Doggystyle | 1 | 3.37 | -2.37 |
| Joan Armatrading | 1 | 3.33 | -2.33 |
| The Chronic | 1 | 3.33 | -2.33 |
| The Chronic | 1 | 3.33 | -2.33 |
Artist Analysis
Favorite Artists
Artists with 2+ albums and high weighted score
| Artist | Albums | Avg | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stevie Wonder | 5 | 5 | 4.25 |
| Public Enemy | 5 | 5 | 4.25 |
| Led Zeppelin | 5 | 5 | 4.25 |
| Black Sabbath | 5 | 4.8 | 4.13 |
| David Bowie | 11 | 4.27 | 4 |
| Beatles | 10 | 4.3 | 4 |
| Brian Eno | 5 | 4.6 | 4 |
| Prince | 4 | 4.75 | 4 |
| Curtis Mayfield | 3 | 5 | 4 |
| AC/DC | 3 | 5 | 4 |
| The Stooges | 3 | 5 | 4 |
| Pixies | 3 | 5 | 4 |
| Jimi Hendrix | 3 | 5 | 4 |
| Elvis Costello & The Attractions | 6 | 4.33 | 3.89 |
| Pink Floyd | 5 | 4.4 | 3.88 |
| Miles Davis | 5 | 4.4 | 3.88 |
| Deep Purple | 4 | 4.5 | 3.86 |
| Roxy Music | 4 | 4.5 | 3.86 |
| Tom Waits | 4 | 4.5 | 3.86 |
| Motörhead | 3 | 4.67 | 3.83 |
| Fela Kuti | 3 | 4.67 | 3.83 |
| Beastie Boys | 3 | 4.67 | 3.83 |
| Nirvana | 3 | 4.67 | 3.83 |
| The Rolling Stones | 8 | 4.13 | 3.82 |
| Kendrick Lamar | 2 | 5 | 3.8 |
| New York Dolls | 2 | 5 | 3.8 |
| Ella Fitzgerald | 2 | 5 | 3.8 |
| Carole King | 2 | 5 | 3.8 |
| The Lemonheads | 2 | 5 | 3.8 |
| Soundgarden | 2 | 5 | 3.8 |
| Dusty Springfield | 2 | 5 | 3.8 |
| Violent Femmes | 2 | 5 | 3.8 |
| The Cramps | 2 | 5 | 3.8 |
| Aretha Franklin | 2 | 5 | 3.8 |
| Funkadelic | 2 | 5 | 3.8 |
| CHIC | 2 | 5 | 3.8 |
| Cocteau Twins | 2 | 5 | 3.8 |
| The Velvet Underground | 4 | 4.25 | 3.71 |
| Queen | 4 | 4.25 | 3.71 |
| Talking Heads | 4 | 4.25 | 3.71 |
| Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds | 4 | 4.25 | 3.71 |
| Leonard Cohen | 7 | 4 | 3.7 |
| U2 | 6 | 4 | 3.67 |
| Spiritualized | 3 | 4.33 | 3.67 |
| Iggy Pop | 3 | 4.33 | 3.67 |
| The Specials | 3 | 4.33 | 3.67 |
| Bob Dylan | 8 | 3.88 | 3.64 |
Least Favorite Artists
Artists with 2+ albums and low weighted score
| Artist | Albums | Avg | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bee Gees | 4 | 1 | 1.86 |
| Morrissey | 5 | 1.4 | 2 |
| Ice Cube | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| Scott Walker | 3 | 1.33 | 2.17 |
| ABC | 2 | 1 | 2.2 |
| The Icarus Line | 2 | 1 | 2.2 |
| Rocket From The Crypt | 2 | 1 | 2.2 |
| Dr. Dre | 2 | 1 | 2.2 |
| Eminem | 2 | 1 | 2.2 |
| Eagles | 2 | 1 | 2.2 |
| New Order | 3 | 1.67 | 2.33 |
| Dexys Midnight Runners | 3 | 1.67 | 2.33 |
| Joan Armatrading | 2 | 1.5 | 2.4 |
| The Fall | 2 | 1.5 | 2.4 |
| Doves | 2 | 1.5 | 2.4 |
| Robert Wyatt | 2 | 1.5 | 2.4 |
| Grateful Dead | 2 | 1.5 | 2.4 |
| Aerosmith | 4 | 2 | 2.43 |
| Yes | 4 | 2 | 2.43 |
| The Kinks | 5 | 2.2 | 2.5 |
| Emerson, Lake & Palmer | 3 | 2 | 2.5 |
| Pavement | 3 | 2 | 2.5 |
| TV On The Radio | 3 | 2 | 2.5 |
| Genesis | 3 | 2 | 2.5 |
| Def Leppard | 3 | 2 | 2.5 |
| Rush | 3 | 2 | 2.5 |
| Arcade Fire | 3 | 2 | 2.5 |
| Bruce Springsteen | 6 | 2.33 | 2.56 |
| Neil Young | 4 | 2.25 | 2.57 |
| Blur | 4 | 2.25 | 2.57 |
5-Star Albums (195)
View Album Wall
Popular Reviews
Einstürzende Neubauten
3/5
Around 1990-91, I was a volunteer at 2SER student radio. Mostly, I did technical work helping my mate, Tim. Panelling, editing, that kind of thing. In 1991, Einsturzende Neubauten were touring Australia and there was an offer to do a radio interview with 2SER. I could actually pronounce “Einsturzende Neubauten” and knew a little bit about the band, so it was decided that I would do the interview. Which was not really my thing, but it came with perks; tickets to their show at the Phoenician Club and a copy of the Strategies Against Architecture LP, so I said OK. I knew the legendary Blixa Bargeld has a reputation for not suffering fools, so I tried to prep questions that were interesting. So, on the day of the show the plan was to go down to the club after soundcheck and interview Blixa. It was a bit intimidating. I mean, EN were one of the world’s most dangerous bands, and Blixa also played in the Bad Seeds, which made him an underground legend. Tim and I were in the equipment room gathering up a portapack and mics and whatever else we needed, when someone comes running in the room whispering “There’s a vampire in the lobby, and he’s looking for you!”
And sure enough, there in the lobby, stands Blixa, in full stage outfit, pale as death, six foot six in cuban heels and his hair teased up, and 100lbs wringing wet. He has a bottle of schnapps and a filthy look in his eye. He’s staring death at everyone. And then I hear my name called. Standing next to this imperious vision in black is a smiling Japanese man in bright green overalls with a flower appliqued on the front. His voice is oddly familiar; it is Rick Tanaka, former presenter of the Nippy Rock Shop, a collage-like radio show from Triple J in the 80s. I was a fan. Turns out, he is the road manager for this EN tour, and he is asking for me. He hands me his business card: Rick Tanaka, Private Guy.
We hurriedly shuffle Rick and Blixa into a meeting room and turn on the recorder, and I attempt an interview. It did not go well. Blixa did not want to be there, was much smarter than me, and was not very patient with my attempts at questions that were more engaging than the usual stereotypical “who gets to go to the junk yard for your stage show?”. Eventually, he just started ignoring me and chatted to Rick. Tim and I kept the tape rolling for their conversation, and afterwards edited it up into something resembling proper radio. And then they left. Tim and I packed up, and then walked down the road to the Phoenician Club.
(En route, we bumped into the Beasts of Bourbon, who were playing support. They were intensely focused. They clearly knew what was coming and determined to put on a good show. They were the best I ever saw them play that night; tight, ferocious and angry, showcasing material from their Low Road album, that was not yet released).
And then on came Einsturzende Neubauten. It was possibly the most intense, frightening show I ever seen. I confess I was a little freaked out by my encounter with Blixa, and not really prepared for the experience of an EN show. By the end, I was pressed up against a wall with my fists clenched and my eyes shut. The sound from the stage was so brutal and overwhelming. I can’t recall much of what went on, except for a bit with shopping carts with contact mikes crashing into each other repeatedly. It was really loud. I know I left the venue about 11.30pm. At 2am, I turned up at my girlfriend’s house, tapping on her window. I assume I spent the intervening hours walking the streets in a daze, but not really sure of what I did in that time. She yelled at my for waking her up for a good 15 minutes, but I was unable to put a sentence together, let alone explain what had just happened to me. It was a heavy, really heavy, performance.
Ok, so given that background of my relationship with EN, what do I think about this album? I have listened to it once or twice before. EN is really influential on me. I love noisy things, really noisy things. I played in industrial bands through most of the 1990s. And this is like the ur-text for much of what industrial music became. It still sounds frightening and surprising now. That said, this is a massively difficult listening experience. I am reminded of Brian Eno talking about Steve Reich (I think), and how hearing one of his early tape pieces was massively influential, but he never listened to it again. Early EN (and this album in particular) is like that for me. It opened up a world of possibilities to explore, but I don’t need (or probably even want) to listen to it much. I certainly was much more enamoured of their early 1990s material, which contains actual songs, rather than just this scary barrage of crashing rhythms and screaming. Kollaps is an important record for me, but I would not recommend it.
100 likes
Carole King
5/5
I'm about 800 reviews into this project, and my wife keeps asking me why on earth do I persist with Dimery's clearly flawed list which regularly infuriates me. The most obvious shortcoming is the under-representation of female artists. Every time I have to suffer through another album of 70s classic rock or a cult psychedelic band or a gangsta rapper or over-rated male songwriter (have you seen how many records Neil Young has on this list?) or some other boring bunch of blokes strutting around showing off their allegedly enormous cocks and badmouthing the women in their lives, I get frustrated that there are so few female artists here. I mean, did you realise that Paul Simon has seven albums on this list and Nina Simone only has one? How does _that_ work?
I want to quote here from Jessica Hopper's massively insightful essay 'Emo: Where the girls aren't' compiled in her book 'The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic':
"Can you ignore the marginalization of women's lives [and artistry] on the records that line your record shelves in hopes that feigned ignorance will bridge the gulf, because it's either that or purge your collection of everything but free jazz, micro house 12"s and the Mr. Lady Records catalog?"
Actually, there are a hundred bits of that essay that I want to quote here, so you should just go read it right now (published under a different title): https://lithub.com/classic-jessica-hopper-emo-comes-off-like-rimbaud-at-the-food-court/
Ms Hopper posits a really great question, and a hard question: how do we justify the exclusion of female voices and perspectives from our listening? I am now going to talk to my straight white male rock fan homies as a straight white male rock fan myself; where are the female artists? where are the queer artists? the artists of colour? the indigenous artists? the differently abled artists? the artists who speak languages other than English? How did the musical canon become so focused on a particularly Western white male perspective that we would deny ourselves of the artistry and perspectives of the diversity of artists? Yes, there are a few examples of those groups in the 1001 list, but let's get real; it's not truly representative. If you are curious, if you want music to show you new and different things, then a diversity of artistic voices provides a wealth of treasures. Things you haven't heard or experienced or thought before. We are all richer for it. There should be, there _must_ be more women on this list.
</rant>
Ok, now that I have that out of my system, let's talk about Carole King's Tapestry. It is a breath of fresh air to listen to this record. This album is embedded in the basic DNA of the culture. A classic easy listening album. Carole King would be a songwriting legend even if she had never released a single record under her own name. But it is a great pleasure to hear her perform some of her greatest songs herself, in her own voice. The band is relaxed and understated, playing as friends rather than hired guns (even though they were all crack session players). The Sound Opinions show celebrating the 50th anniversary of Tapestry (https://soundopinions.org/show/799) interviewed several band members who, even 50 years later, clearly had fond remembrance of the sessions and their friendship with Carole. That makes a pleasant change from the number of albums I have listened to recently by men who were talented artists but real arseholes. Thanks, Carole, for proving that you can be a successful artist and a decent human being. It restores my faith in humanity.
I don't blame Tapestry for the thousands of pale imitators that followed. This is up there with 'Blue' as one of the greatest and most influential singer-songwriter albums of all time. I think Smackwater Jack is a bit out of place on the record, but, other that, it is difficult to fault. This album is warm, human, and comforting.
Every home should have a copy.
31 likes
Nina Simone
5/5
Ok, so this is a five star for me.
It's hard to believe that this album was constructed over tracks left over from recording sessions across the previous few years. The material is understandably eclectic, but held together by Ms Simone's authoritative voice and piano playing. There are standards, ballads, folk songs and one (astounding) original, mixing love songs with the political. She is completely in control of the dynamics and presentation of the material, and it comes out with a consistent and definitive voice.
Four Women is a powerful song of racial inequity and discrimination (banned on many radio stations at the time, with the still common conservative tactic of claiming that material calling out racism is, itself, racist.) Subsequently sampled by Jay-Z on The Story of O.J., picking up on the themes of racial discrimination (although there are elements of his message I find a little baffling. Art speculation as a cure for racial inequity?)
Her version of Lilac Wine is definitive and was clearly massively influential on Jeff Buckley, who lifted her arrangement intact for his album 'Grace'.
David Bowie was also a massive fan, covering Wild is the Wind on 'Station to Station' in explicit tribute to Nina Simone. And it obviously stayed close to him; he released it as a single in 1981, opened his 200 Glastonbury set with it, and performed it at his final ever live show in 2006.
I have listened to this album straight through three times in a row, and I hear more from her performances every time. She is so in control of her performance, even when she goes slightly out of control, such as her screamed "my name is Peaches!" at the end of Four Women. This is a masterclass in how deeply a musician can understand and project a song. She is at the height of her formidable powers on this record. A five star classic, perfect and massively influential. My hidden gem on the album: If I Should Lose You. It's beautiful and heartbreaking.
A moment of reflection on the 1001 albums list; why does Paul Simon (the adjacent artist on this list) rate six album inclusions, and Nina Simone only one? More evidence of the white-boy rock critic bias of this list. I cannot understand why an artist of Ms Simone's stature and breadth of material only rates a single inclusion.
29 likes
Guided By Voices
2/5
This one is complicated. I have tried to dip into the GBV back catalog before, and have been hindered by two factors;
1) the massive size of their catalog (35 albums, plus 22 solo Robert Pollard albums, plus all the miscellaneous stuff), and
2) the critical praise. I mean, look at this review of Alien Lanes from Sputnik Music (https://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/34199/Guided-by-Voices-Alien-Lanes/)
"The genius of this is that the album is a bombardment of staggeringly good songs, with nothing less than the staggeringly good anywhere to be found. That they managed to preserve so much brilliance, without giving it a vacuum-packed feel and managing to do the thinking justice with their delivery in such a small space of time, is astounding. And what’s more – oh, so much more – is that everyone involved has an absolute ball doing it."
This is just bullshit on the plain face of it. There are, in fairness, a couple of pretty good songs on this record; Game of Pricks, Motorway, Little Whirl. But there is some awful throw-away shit as well; Hit, Gold Hick, etc.
And so badly recorded. This is where this gets complicated for me. I like a grungy, lo-fi aesthetic. I love that this is an album of sensible duration (41 minutes) with short songs (28 songs in 41 minutes!). Pollard can write a good tune when he tries, and the band can crank out some passable rock and roll. But, and this is a big 'but', some editing would help. Does EVERYTHING need to go on tape, and does it all need to be released? And I am looking at the GBV fanboys here: does every note need to be praised to the heavens?
Really, this is the demo tape for a potentially good album. A decent producer would listen to this, identify the good songs, send the band into rehearsals to work up some arrangements, which could then be captured for posterity. How good would this album be if you picked the best 12-15 songs and recorded a passable 2 1/2 or 3 minute version of each, once it had been thought through a little? All I can hear is wasted potential.
I really feel for Bob Ludwig, who is the unsung hero of this album. I bet Bob was pretty surprised when the record company asked him to try and make a silk purse out of the shitty tapes he was handed. I did a quick A/B comparison with Bee Thousand, the GBV album immediately prior, and you can really hear the difference that great mastering has made. He did a pretty good job with what he was given.
I also want to point out that embracing a lo-fi aesthetic doesn't justify cover art as deliberately ugly as this. This is just bad.
I think this album infuriates me because it could have been great, but it deliberately chooses to be shit at every turn. And the way that every hiss and sonic fart is hailed by the Cult of GBV as a work of goddamn genius just gives me the irrits. I'm giving this 2.5 stars for being an album that shows some promise, rounded down for the annoying fanboys.
26 likes
4-Star Albums (259)
1-Star Albums (53)
All Ratings
The Human League
4/5
minimal, clean synth sounds, cool production but still warm to hear. Surprisingly good tunes beyond just the singles, especially 'The things that dreams are made of' and 'The Sound of the crowd' and 'Get Carter/I am the law'.
Pantera
3/5
Tight, crunching riffs. Great 90s guitar production fork Terry Date. Could be the great lost metallica album (if they hadn't gone down the Black Album accessible route). Tends towards "all loud, all the time", with some exceptions with greater dynamic range, such as "this love". The Rollins-like yelling gets a bit wearing after a while.
Sisters Of Mercy
4/5
operatic goth rock. great drum programming, huge production stage.
Brian Eno
5/5
Absolute classic. Proper songs, but with a fresh approach to sound that makes them pop through as something both familiar and different. Some tracks are surprisingly funky (\"No One Receiving\", \"Kurt's Rejoinder\"), and often catchy (\"Backwater\", \"King's Lead Hat\").
When I was about 14, I borrowed from the library a compilation of Eno's 73-77 song-oriented albums. I did not get it at the time, but since have learned to love the tangential approach to song-writing. I still love this album every time I listen to it.
Spiritualized
5/5
Minimal krautrock songs, with massive (and noisy) orchestral arrangements. The thing that elevates this particular album is the raw emotion of the lyrics. then hurt of lost love, compounded by an unhealthy relationship with drugs, leaves the narrator of this extended suite completely laid and vulnerable. The emotion is exhausted, sung in a deadpan delivery as an exhausted calm after the (musical storm). A masterpiece.
Louis Prima
5/5
Funny, energetic recording of Prima's legendary live show. It's loose and irreverent, uptempo and hilarious. Prima takes liberties with his own material and jazz standards to create a raucous big band experience that leans towards the coming RnB.
Deep Purple
4/5
\"Can we have everything louder than everything else?\"
Deep Purple at the height of their live powers. Tight, dramatic, possibly even histrionic (\"child in time)\". Cracking tunes (\"smoke on the water\"), powerhouse rhythm section (\"black night\"), loud as hell (speed king), with a genuine fire. Does feature some unfortunate solos (drum solo on \"the mule\", or organ intro to \"lazy\", best skipped), some questionable (call and response on \"strange kind of woman\", leading eventually to Gillan's mighty acapella wail), much is inspired as this band stretches out its considerable powers (\"space truckin'\" or \"black night\", for example).
Scott Walker
1/5
Overly theatrical voice, schmaltzy arrangements. At best, tracks are like mediocre Bond theme songs ('best of both worlds'). Unconvincing country pastiche ('black sheep boy'). While the music is cheesy and cliched, the ;lyrics are often strange and unfiltered ('next'). Weirdly honest, yet highly artificial. I did not enjoy this album.
The Modern Lovers
4/5
Like a fun, poppier version of the Velvet Underground (a clear and direct influence on Richman). The classic songs are deadset classics (roadrunner, pablo picasso, she cracked). Obviously influential on many, many subsequent bands. One of the key proto-punk albums. Loose and energetic recording.
Little Richard
4/5
More restrained versions of some his classic songs. I'm sure there are more raucous recordings from a similar vintage. That said, Little Richard is the duck's nuts.
Megadeth
3/5
I like this better than Metallica. It's tight as tight, but with a bit more noise to it. Funnier, in a deadpan, angst-ridden way. Lightning fast guitar shredding, but without descending into mere typing exercises. Punk attitude and not-dumb lyrics make this tolerable. just melodic enough to make re-listenable.
1/5
ugh. Not to my taste. Too 80s schmick. Almost funky. Almost soulful. Almost sophisticated. Trying too hard to be polished. Just not there for me.
The Rolling Stones
3/5
The beginning of the Stones really sounding like the Stones. Recording is still a little rough, although Brian Jones' use of whatever instruments were around lifts the sound into something fresher than most of their contemporaries. Going home is waaaaay too long, just a noodly blues jam. It shows the beginning of their dynamic playing style and playing off each other, but I'm not sure we needed 11 minutes of a under baked idea. I think I prefer either their earlier less polished and more bluesy records, or their later material where they are more confident in their own thing.
And the misogyny is staggering. Women are either berated and belittled, subjugated, or raised onto pedestals (setting them up for failure?) I'm really not sure I could listen to this frequently.
Primal Scream
4/5
Dubbed out skeletons of songs, mixed upside down and sideways. I love it, but this is deeply weird for a band of this profile. Taking the remixed template of screamadelica, but with a more industrial and dubbed out version. Noisy, spacey, groovy. I love it. Some 'real' songs (eg 'Medication', 'motorhead' cover), with some instrumentals (eg 'trainspotting')
Red Hot Chili Peppers
3/5
It is certainty way better than any of there (more successful) albums that followed. But I find the horror of the albums that followed (and much of the garbage that precedes this) can taint the memory of perfectly listenable funk-rock album. "mellowship Slinky in B Major" or "suck my kiss" are probably the best examples of the agreeable funky nonsense on offer.
Traffic
2/5
Interesting... I am not familiar with Traffic's oeuvre, and have been recently considering spending some time with their back catalog, based on the occasional track that pops up in my listening (eg, covers by Tigers at the Edge of Time).
OK, I have listened to some of their previous records, and then this one all the way through... and I'm not thrilled. It meanders, more folk-jazz and less rockin' r'n'b than previous records. Unfocused, not well structured, a bit too laid back for my taste. The guitar leads are (at times,) pretty awful. Interestingly, the live tracks on disc 2 of the deluxe version are far superior. A bit rougher, better playing, and more focused even when stretching out.
Black Sabbath
5/5
Michael Jackson
3/5
This album is really on the cusp; the first of the massive 80s block-busters, it showed how big an album could be int eh video-enabled new music world. But it sounds still quiet disco. The sound is super-polished, but not as ground-breaking as the presentation. All the single,s all the videos, and MJ's massive charisma. Is it all a bit safe (perhaps)? Well, that's how you sell a bazillion albums. Some songs (Baby Be Mine, The Lady In My life, the Girl is Mine) are middle-of-the-road, inoffensive pablum. But the stronger singles (Billie Jean, beat and Thriller) have a slight edge that makes them stick above the most. Quincy Jones' production is slick, funky, and has aged really well. The Girl is Mine (duet with Paul McCartney) is, frankly, horrible. The spoken word in the middle 8 is... just not credible.
This album and MJ himself set a precedent for how big a star could be. Not to anyone's benefit; record companies chasing bigger and bigger (and more irrelevant) mega-hits, and had MJ chasing a dragon of success that led him to some VERY unfortunate places. This is the last time that I find MJ to be a relatable human, and his descent into celebrity freak begins in earnest. In retrospect, PYT is a bit creepy. Clearly, a deeply damaged person, the evidence of this damage starts to become unavoidable, and reflects in his song-writing, which becomes less and less relatable. And the joy seems to disappear from his work.
Do I actually ever listen to this album? No, I don't, but think it is required listening in the history of music.
Bob Dylan
5/5
I don't listen to this album very often, but every song is a classic. Is it because they are that good, or because Dylan is the patient zero of smart rock and roll? This album in particular, where he has moved past folk and truly into rock and roll (this is his first all-rock record), really is a template for soooo much that comes afterwards. It is no surprise that Hendrix was obsessed with this record, and plays Like a rolling stone at Monterey to (re-)introduce himself to America.
I love the immediacy of the playing, that really becomes a blueprint for so much rock to come. Recorded quickly, it has genuinely rocks, and the lyrics are still fresh all these years later. Fave tracks: tombstone blues, highway 61 revisited.
Joan Armatrading
1/5
oh, this is not for me. Snooze. Love and Affection is a good song, but the rest of this record just makes no impression on me.
The Doors
3/5
God, I totally don't know what to do with the Doors... Morrison is a total pretentious prat and not nearly as deep as he pretends, the band are a glorified lounge act... and yet, and yet, THIS record is surprisingly listenable. Most songs are 3 minutes or under, not enough time to outstay their welcome, and the tunes are catchy, the band can swing a little bit and their dynamic interplay is not too bad. The lyrics are not TOO dumb (for the most part). Light my fire and The End have a tendency to drag on a bit. I really want to hate the doors, but this album is kinda fun. I can forgive the band for this record.
(Footnote: Alfie did point out that the opening of Soul Kitchen sounds a lot like Walking on the Sun by Smashmouth. Just sayin')
Supergrass
2/5
This album is perfectly fine. A bit rock and roll, decent tunes, but an all time must hear classic? i don't think so. It reminds me of a slightly less rockin' You Am I. it was OK while I was listening to it, but I can't remember a single tune. And it really long. Much longer than it needs to be.
The Icarus Line
1/5
Oh really? this sounds like a willfully obscure post-hardcore band much like any other. Alan Moulder mix helps it sound a little better than many. But, I mean, really, this album was barely released, and is not even on spotify at present. How is this a "must hear" album? I mean, they rock. And I'm sure they are heap of sweaty fun live... but this is really a stretch. All attitude and no songs (exception: Kiss Like Lizards)..
Marvin Gaye
3/5
So, this wasn't what I expected. I had read about this great \"divorce settlement\" album, that was supposedly a lost masterpiece. Often, I find that wreaks of hipster-obscurantism (cf. the Beach Boys's Vegetables), where \"unrecognised masterpiece\" often equates to self-indulgent, un-edited piffle from a flailing artiste. So, my expectations for Marvin Gaye's double album commercial and (contemporaneously) critical flop, meditating on his divorce would be... flabby, self-indulgent and painful. But, surprisingly, while it has aspects of all those attributes, it does stand up. It is a largely mid-tempo funk/soul album, with touches of disco (unsurprisingly for the era). It is unhurried, with extended soloing (including some, ahem, marginally competent keyboard solos from Mr Gaye himself), but well recorded, with some great playing from his backing band (uncredited. Who ARE they? LA based Motown regulars?). It is certainly not a phoned-in contractual obligation album (Van Morrison could learn a lesson from this). I could see myself listening to this again. It's not \"What's going on?\", but a pretty solid album from a great artist. For once, the hipster revisionism has, actually, winnowed some grain from the chaff.
(The one song that is really out of place was the single, \"A Funky Space Reincarnation\",, which is delightfully bonkers.)
Common
3/5
I can listen to this. Didn't set my world aflame.
Kendrick Lamar
5/5
Living Colour
4/5
So, I loved this band when they first came out. I generally preferred Time's Up, which I thought had stringer songs across the board. But, listening again, it does have Cult of Personality, Glamour Boys, and Middle Man, all of which are very strong. Some dated production choices aside, it still sounds great. Everyone's playing at their peak. Contemporaneous live records tend to cut loose a bit more, which si wild. It has the advantage of a metal album that incorporates other influences (most notably funk, which was pretty fresh at the time, if later to become cliched) and not-dumb lyrics (occasionally a little heavy handed, but forgivably so). Politically aware, energetic, heavy. Still a great listen
The Pretty Things
3/5
Thank you, 1001 albums, for making me listening to another record that I had meant to get around to for ages, but never listened too. And it's 1967/8 at Abbey Rd Studios. Norman Smith (producer/engineer) really had a sound going at the time, and this is strongly reminiscent of contemporaneous albums by the Beatles and Pink Floyd, also with strong involvement from Smith at Abbey Rd. Experimental for the time, but still tuneful and often surprisingly heavy (old Man Going). A lost treasure. Favourite track: Baron Saturday.
Anthrax
3/5
This takes me back. My mate Tim loved this record when it came out, and we listened to it a lot. We both liked thrash, but were much more attracted to the skateboard friendly end of the genre (Anthrax, plus local faves like the Hard-Ons, Massappeal, the Hellmenn) ratehr than the metal-dude end (Metaliica, Megadeth, Slayer). I didn't skate, but Tim did. And they were a bit funnier and relatable. This album really took me back, and I enjoyed the clean, unpretentious production (by Eddie Kramer, which surprised me to read).
This is a really minor note, but I find the use of double kick on this album tasteful. many bands just run the double kick the whole way through songs, and I find it exhausting and, ironically, reduces the impact of the speed.
John Coltrane
4/5
I was really expecting this to be homework, but I found it really easy to listen to. A few too many bass and drum solos, perhaps, but it is largely fairly succinct and coherent, even for someone not as sophisticated in their jazz appreciation as I am am. (Hal understands this better. It is seems fairly straightforward to him, I suspect). I can understand the stretches. It's a bit more challenging than wallpaper jazz, but not so free as to be incomprehensible. Would listen gain.
Pere Ubu
2/5
I understand how this is an important album in the history of post-punk, but generally forgettable. Caligari's Mirror and Blow Daddy-O have moments of being a recognisable song, but I find this album mostly not memorable or compelling.
New Order
1/5
It's the emperor's new album. The sound of a a band indulgently reveling in past glories, with a halo effect of too many nights in Ibizan dance clubs giving it an accidental glow of summery dance-ability, polished off with some expensive production at Real World studios. There are only really two songs on this record (out of three singles), and they aren't that memorable. Ho hum.
Roxy Music
4/5
I really enjoyed this. I was more familiar with Roxy's musics first two albums (with their wild Eno-isms and sideways approach to art-rock), and the later Ferry-led super-slick radio hits. This album, I really enjoyed. Great recording, still rockin', a bit of weird edge, great tunes. Track highlights; Thrill OF It All, Casanova
Primal Scream
4/5
I have loved this record since it came out. The songs are, perhaps, not that strong, but the production and mood lifts this into the all time classic range. Its a night in the clubs, with the chill-out come-down at the end. The spaced-out, dubbed-out, extended dance mix production turn this into an album that I can listen to over and over again. Loaded is a staple of my DJ sets, but in context, event he weaker songs on this album work because of the way they contribute to the mood and journey of the record. love it.
Stevie Wonder
5/5
This is an actual classic album. Stevie Wonder in his imperial period. It is hard to over-praise this record.
Bad Brains
2/5
Is this one of those ones where you had to be there? I like the more punk tracks, like'I Against I', but the more metallic songs are technically accomplished, but I find less compelling. Do I need it a bit rougher edged? Do I want some more intense attitude? Is it just paler in comparison to what I was expecting? I was expecting something wilder.
Travis
2/5
Tasteful, gentle, soporific. I was expecting proto-indie-filler, with completely forgettable tunes, and it was marginally better than that. But I never need to hear this album again in my life.
The production is a little bit edgier and interesting than I expected (thanks, Nigel Goodrich), but at best, at its most hard-rockin', this comes across as OK Computer Lite. Actually, I'm just listening to the coda of As You Are, and this is the worst case of Thom Yorke wannabe-ism I have ever heard.
I don't hate this, as it is custom made to be un-hatable, but it has no grit at all.
New York Dolls
5/5
Now this is more like it! rock and roll! woo-hoo!
I so enjoyed this record. it's raw, and dangerous, and rock and roll, and funny, and offensive, and everything I want from a rock and roll record. It has dead-set classic songs (Personality Crisis, Trash, Looking for a Kiss), some songs I already loved (Subway Train), and few that I am now just learning to love (bad Girl, Frankenstein). Loved this record. play it real loud!
Depeche Mode
3/5
I am a fan of the Depeche Mode albums that follow this (Violater and Songs of Faith and Devotion), which are a bit darker, rockier, and noisy than their early records. The greater inclusion of guitar, the more industrial sound design (more noise and distorition), and greater reliance on pentatonic harmonies (ironically, simpler harmonically than their earlier material) is more to my taste. While familiar with their singles, I had not given earlier albums much attention. It was a real pleasure to spend some time with this album in full. David Bascombe, fresh off producing Tears for Fears and working with DM for the first time, brings a big sound and a penchant for experimenting than is enjoyable. Watching the doco on this album, he was clearly influenced by minimalist composers lie Glass and Reich, which is a bit of a niche sensibility that appeals to me greatly. I really enjoyed this, although not to the same degree as the albums mentioned above. Would buy (albeit for cheap).
Orange Juice
2/5
I love Simon Reynold's book on post-punk, titled after this album/song. I get why this album was a breath of fresh air at the time, but I find the "funk" unconvincing. Tooo, too white boy, really. the African influences, courtesy of the drummer/songwriter Zeke Manyika are much more interesting to me (eg A Million Pleaading Faces, or the percussion breaks on breakfast Time), and I wish there was a lot more of that. I find Edwyn Collin's voice just a little bit too ironic crooner for my taste. If it was a little bit faster, a bit more layered percussion, this could have been more like Remain in Light. It has those moments (again, guitar solo on Breakfast Time, which is like Adrian Belew or Robert Fripp) which I really like. But then he starts singing again, or they start playing terrible white boy funk.
Soul II Soul
4/5
A record that I own, but don't spin nearly as much as I should. Smooth, funky, and beautifully orchestrated. Caron Wheeler's vocals (unsurprisingly on the big singles) are a real stand out. String arrangements are lush and sophisticated. This really is a precursor of Massive Attack a few years later, although perhaps with a little less grit and less depressive/gloomy. I really enjoyed listening to this. If this had been made even two years later, it would have been based on grainy loops rather than drum machines, but this really is an album a few years ahead of its time.
Ian Dury
3/5
Stompin' band at the height of their powers, and a charismatic front man. Sometimes the lyrics are little overly clever (Dury never saw an easy rhyme he didn't like; Billericay Dickie is an example there), and the line between sexy and sexist is often crossed, and has dated especially poorly. Still, Dury is trying to shock and provoke a sense of fun. It's hard to be too outraged when you're dancing, after all. Dodgy sexual politics aside, this is a fun listen. Would buy.
Van Halen
5/5
Bang, out of the gate comes Van Halen with this cocksure and confident album that changed the sound of hard rock/heavy metal forever. Pyrotechnic, rockin', and above all fun, this album does not take itself too seriously, which is a major blessing compared to most heavy rock bands, who are generally po-faced in the extreme. Eddie's guitar style completely rewrote the book of heavy guitar playing, using the technological innovations of guitar and amplification to reinvent what technique could be. The sound of his guitar was so influential, we really didn't over it until grunge started knocking the edge off mainstream playing over a decade later. Some fo the songs are relatively weaker, especially in the back half of the album, byut a record with Runnin' with the Devil, Eruption, and Ain't Talking about Love (not to mention their cover of You really Got Me) as the first four tracks is always going to seem soft int he home straight. David Lee Roth is not the world's best singer, but his confidence, chutzpah and sense of fun leads the band in its party-hard strut. You just know you're going to have a great time with this band. A dead-set classic.
Wilco
4/5
This was a hard one, and I listened to it a few times. This album has quite a reputation, partially as a result of its history (which I only know vaguely). I love the sound design. It is weirdly recorded and played, with lots of noise, distortion, collage and extraneous sound, which I find enormously appealing, but I can see how it is not mainstream. It is unusual to find this is an a gentle/semi-acoustic album (as that approach is often more common in industrial records, that are more into sound design). It reminds me of Grandaddy, which I also love. The songs are clearly growers. They didn't grab me at first listen, but I can tell that they could grow a lot. I intend to come back to this album and give it the time and attention that I think it needs. This could end up being a real favourite (but needs time).
TLC
4/5
This is a really terrific album. The production is ahead of its time (although still steeped in New Jack Swing). Singing is great, fantastic songs (esp Creep, Waterfalls). I love the cover of "If I was Your Girlfriend" - hard to cover Prince, esp at the height of his powers. I love the confidence of the group, although I really don't think we needed the interludes, which dilute the power of the powerful female presence on this record. Other than that, perfect.
M.I.A.
4/5
Really never sure what to make of MIA. I think she is the real deal. I find her work exciting and energising, with a fascinating melange of sounds from around the world, especially South Asia. I really lik this record, but (like I said), I'm not sure if it is genius or trash. It could be both! It reminds me of the first time I heard Neneh Cherry; I didn't understand it and thought it was rubbish. it took me a while to understand what she was doing and realise its true greatness. And I think MIA is the same. She obviously rubs a lot of people the wrong way, and gets a lot of criticism because she doesn't play by the accepted rules. maybe she's too female, too non-Western, not deferential enough for those critics' taste. I love the way she incorporates a wide variety of cultural baggage (Pixies, Jonathon Richmond, lost of world influences that I can't name) into a focused and exciting piece of work. Interestingly, the one song I don't really rate, Jimmy, is largely a cover, and I don't think it plays to her strengths, which are simplicity, directness, colour, pride and openess.
The Temptations
4/5
Love this. Funky first half, ballad side B. Beautiful arrangements and playing, terrific vocals.
Jerry Lee Lewis
4/5
Wow, this si areal blast. Short, shrap, fast and loud (with a moment of respie for Your Chatin' Heart). It's a greatest hits of early rock and roll blasted out at high power before a live audience. No fat, no time-wasting. The drummer is a wildman, and Jerry Lee is pumping that piano hard, and vocally wailing. Not as much screaming as Little Richard (the obvious comparison), but strong and hard.
The Rolling Stones
5/5
Last Stones album with Brian Jones (who had become almost useless by this stage), and the beginning of their imperial period. The mix of blues, country and rock was really what made the Stones of this period what they were at their best. Some great songs (and, of course, Sympathy for the Devil). generally, the recording has enough grit in it to catch my attention, the arrangements are becoming more ambitious (choir on Salt of the Earth, exotic percussion all around), without sounding too much like they are just trying hard to be the Beatles. there was better yet to come, but this really is a classic album, and the first of the Stones records I really love.
Simon & Garfunkel
3/5
Well, it has a few drop dead classics on it (title track, The Boxer, Cecilia), but is it generally just well-produced filler? Not so deep as it seems? It's not a surprise that it sold 25 bazillion copies, 'cause there's not much here to offend. great melodies, terrific harmonies, fantastically produced album. Glad I listened, but I feel no need to own.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
5/5
I love this album. So smart, so melodic, such great production. The songs are varied, each with its own identity, great playing, whip-smart lyrics, great melodies, inventive and tight playing. Beatle-esque in places, this album was great leap forward, and showed much more of the breadth of what E.C. could achieve. I could listen to this album over and over without getting bored. The singles are classics.
Pink Floyd
5/5
Spacious, hurt, cynical, and haunted by absence. beautifully played. A classic.
Ice Cube
1/5
Early 90s gangsta rap. One of the best examples of the genre, but this type of hip hop left me cold at the time. I don't mind the politics, but the misogyny and violence leaves me uncomfortable. I really don't want to listen to this again.
The Mars Volta
2/5
2000s prog. better than much (a bit less clever clogs, and a certain willingness to rock). Lots of echoes of Fripp. The inclusion of latin percussion does not make it Santana-like. I like the noisy sound design, which give it a rough and atmospheric edge than I find lacking in much prog (which tends towards clean production to show off the chops). Good vocals, but don't get me started on the meaningless lyrics. I enjoyed it well enough while listening, but don't feel the need to listen again. Hal might like it, though. I like the Fripp-like guitar work, but, honestly, aren't there plenty of King Crimson albums that I would prefer to listen to? Yes. Yes, there are.
Ministry
4/5
This records gets me really fired up. It gives me as much of an adrenaline thrill as it did when it first came out. I love the industrial repetitiveness, the crunchy guitars, metronomic beats, angry yelling, all undercut with sarcasm and humour (most notably on Jesus Built My Hotrod). It takes me back to the early 90s, when this was on constant rotation in my share house, and was a key inspiration for my own industrial band. I love this record. It's the best industrial metal album of all time (with the possible exception of the live Ministry album that came out around the same time). Does everyone need to hear and love this album? No, they don't. it doesn't contain much to say about the human condition (except for the thrilling power of anger). But I love it. It gets me fired up.
Morrissey
2/5
The most rock of Morrissey's output. Glam and rockabilly echoes, with great band and production by Mick Ronson. But the songs are still Morrisey songs: three note, whinge-fests. I also find his current public persona so xenophobic and unpleasant that I really can't give him any time. Will not listen again.
Ice T
2/5
oof, this was a tough listen. I like ICE-T. He is smart and charismatic, and I saw him live at the Enmore Theatre in 1989, and he was terrific live. I liked the Power album, and some of the Iceberg. But this is not good. It sounds like an early blueprint for gangsta-rap, even though it comes well after Straight Outta Compton and some of the other ur-texts of the genre. It should sound a lot better than this. He mentions Six in the Morning 3 or 4 times, which sounds like trying too hard to establish his cred. The misogyny is appalling. And there is so much flab on this album. MVP and Ya Should Killed Me Last year (and most of the skits) are just Ice rambling off the top of his head (not even free styling). And so long! At 72 minutes, this could have been significantly edited down, and made a much stronger album. I really wanted to like this, but it's flabby and lazy and irrelevant and unpleasant. And Ice-T can be so much more than that. Not his best.
Pink Floyd
4/5
Bombastic, big, angst-ridden and angry. Overblown and humourless? Pretentious? Yes, all of that, but a great rock opera for teenagers. I think this is the most intelligent expression of the perils of rock stardom. it makes me wonder why Roger Waters ever got into the rock and roll game; he seems to hate everything about it. I loved this when I was 16, but now I find it a little ham-fisted (if not excellently executed). Props to David Gilmour for one of the greatest guitar solos of all time (Comfortably Numb). This really is one of the most important texts of rock and roll, being both a great rock record (with some crackin' tunes) and reflecting back on the nature of rock and roll.
Happy Mondays
3/5
I like the Happy Monday's weird, psychedelic, surreal, funky and weird approach. it is surprising and funny and fun. This was the album where (apparently) they discovered ecstasy. It think the musical approach really shines through in the remixes (WFL especially) that came out of this album, rather than beign seen ont he album itself. And their subsequent records REALLY show this, and are much more dance-y than this. It's that trance-like dance-like, almost krautrock Madchester thing that I really like, so this album is the first flash of that (but not quiet there)> interestingly, on listening to the deluxe version, I most liked the second disc with all the 12" versions and remixes attracted; they really bring out what I love about the Mondays. The band is loose to the point of (almost) falling apart, which is their real charm.
The Monkees
2/5
The Monkees finally were finally allowed to write and perform on their own records. And it is not a a disaster. Pleasant folk/country inspired pop rock, with some hints of psychedelia. But I can't really remember a single song on it, except Zilch (and experimental thing that I quite like)
Bob Dylan
3/5
I found this to be a really listenable Dylan album. The Lanois production is clearly divisive amongst critics, but I like it. I luiek the weird spaciousness. it is heavily processed (he never met a reverb he didn't like), and yet keeps an analog feel. I like the grit in Dylan's voice. Some critics find some of the lyrics/songwriting a bit simplistic, although most of their ire seems directed at To Make You Feel My Love, which is well on the way to becoming a modern standard. Heaven forbid that a Dylan song should be accessible that anyone might like it! There is a reason this is Dylan's highest selling album ever. And coming nearly 40 years into his career, good on him.
Van Halen
3/5
I sort of wanted to hate this, preferring the earlier, more spontaneous (and harder rockin') Van Halen albums. But it is really hard to dislike this record. the songs are really catchy, and the playing is incendiary, almost overworked in the production, but not quite. I like the variety of bringing in the synth (a suitably crunchy oberheim). The four singles are stellar, and even the album tracks are pretty song. Top Jimmy and Drop Dead legs are possibly just filler, but they don't suck. a really good, solid (heavy) pop album, with a lot of fun.
Bruce Springsteen
2/5
I know this resonates for a lot of people, but doesn't for me. I understand that it is meaningful and moving etc, but it leaves me a little cold. I think it is, for me, a bit overworked. Too successful in its emulation of Phil Spector, but it can hear how hard they worked at it (and they did work hard),. I need a bit more. I listened through, but, honestly, it washes over me every time and I am unmoved.
Lynyrd Skynyrd
3/5
Best in class Southern boogie rock. Comparing the demos to the album cuts, you can hear how well prepared the band was to record (with arrangements detailed and honed), but also how well Al Kooper recorded the band, getting a great sound out of them without polishing off the things that make the band great. But it doesn't really speak to me that much. I don't understand the appeal of Freebird (except for the blistering solos at the end, which are, rightly iconic)
Hugh Masekela
3/5
Mostly pretty inoffensive light 70s jazz. Not as funky and edgy as I would like; kind of Miles Davis lite. Very lite. Inner Crisis is the best of the bulk of the album. The real highlight in Ingoo pow-Pow (children's Song), which is much more like African music with a jazz inflection. If only the album was more liek that.
Radiohead
3/5
I miss guitars. And tunes. Some actual song son here, but needlessly obtuse. If I listened to this 20 times, I'm sure I would find things to like, but I just wish it rocked a bit more.
Billy Joel
2/5
I respect Billy Joel's songwriting chops. These are incredibly successful songs and have been played on radio a bazillion times, and I know most of this album backwards just from the ubiquitous nature of the thing. But it bores me to tears. Billy Joel is not rock and roll (despite Billy's later protestations); it's much more popular song based in the Broadway tradition. And it is very successful in that mold. But I don't really need it in my life. Sorry.
Lenny Kravitz
3/5
So, this album was on regular rotation in my share house c. 1991. it was funky and fun, with a 60s throwback vibe and production that was uncommon at the time, and makes it a fun listen. The lyrics are twee and often cliched, and while Lenny's singing is good at hitting a dramatic peak, the music often does not get there. I always felt his songs needed to hit a dramatic highpoint. Sometimes he achieved this with collaborators (such as Slash's solo in Always On The Run) or kitchen sink production, or by avoiding the issue (70s funk emphasizes the groove, and so big dramatic moments are less required). All that said, I enjoyed revisiting this record, and really like his vocal style. It's a fun pastiche.
The Velvet Underground
4/5
Not my favorite VU album, but I still love this record. More laid back than their prior two albums, and a lot more song oriented and less noise/experiment oriented. the noise thing really does a it for me, but I really rate the song-writing too. This album contains some deadest classics (Pale Blue Eyes, What Goes On, Candy Says, I'm Set Free), but I also love Some Kinda Love, which has a proto-kraut rock thing going on. For almost any other band, this would be the album of their career, but the Velvets, I rank second or third. A great record for people who find their more challenging material off-putting.
Beyoncé
4/5
Beyonce, she is awesome. I think lemonade is her #1 classic album, but I can see how this album leads up to it. Collaged from bits of her own history and a patchwork of collaborators, it has her distinct vision all through it.
Neil Young
4/5
I had assumed that this album would be as annoying as the many (MANY) copycat albums that came like a flurry of pale carbon copies its wake, but I can actually see why this record is as beloved and influential as it is. Some really classic tunes (heart of gold, old man, needle and damage done, harvest), great playing and singing (big ups to the backing vocalists, including Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor, CSNY) tasteful orchestration and some surprisingly muscular playing (including electric guitar)_ when required. I get it now.
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
2/5
I am not fan of prog. It is often just too clever-clogs for my taste. And this album tends that way. great moments, never repeated, so it assiduously avoids groove or rock (although it could). You could sample almost any bar of this (especially side 1) and turn that into a whole song, but ELP just want to play every idea they ever had. And the lyrics are nonsensical tripe... and yet, I didn't hate this. i could listen to this again. I would buy this from a $2 bin.
Siouxsie And The Banshees
4/5
This album is fantastic. The band have built their sound and confidence in song-writing. I love McGeoch's guitar playing and Siouxsie's singing. Absolute height of British post-punk. Moody, dramatic, startling, and still fresh.
Ella Fitzgerald
5/5
Oh Ella, my favourite jazz singer of all time. i would listen to her sing the phone book. But this is not the phone book, but a major volume of the great American songbook. A massive project to record a huge number of the Gershwin's greatest output, with beautiful orchestrations, that create a lush bed for Ella's incomparable voice. Truth be told, I prefer her 1950 Gershwin album; her voice is a little brighter and the orchestrations a little less cheesy. But this really is a major work of popular song of the 20th century.
Barry Adamson
2/5
Cheesy ersatz soundtrack music. Cool at its best (set the control, something wicked this way comes), aimless in middle (dirty barry), just pointless jazz-lite noodling at worst (Miles). Nick Cave's cameo stands out as an actual song with charisma and presence.
Flamin' Groovies
4/5
According to wikipedia, Teenage Head was released the same year as the Rolling Stones' album Sticky Fingers, and Mick Jagger reportedly noticed the similarities between the albums and thought the Flamin' Groovies did the better take on the theme of classic blues and rock 'n roll revisited in a modern context. I tend to agree. it is like a rougher version of Sticky Finger s(one of my favourite Stones albums), so this is a revelation. Loved the slide playing, the rough boogie, and the grunt. Fabbo, and definitively going on my want list.
Leonard Cohen
4/5
Some all time great songs on this. But, off, that 80s production. The synths, the saxophone solos, the stacked backing vocals. His singing is not bad, probably amongst the best he has ever sounded. But is it a coincidence that I love many of these songs in cover versions? The production really distracts me. Five stars for the songs, one off for the sound.
Sparks
2/5
Sparks seem to be everywhere at the moment; the Annette soundtrack, the Sparks documentary (which I am halfway through watching), they seem to be having a real moment. This is one of those bands that has a real cult following, and I never really got. it has been a LONG time since I tried to listen to any of their records. Based on the documentary, I find the Mael brothers quite charming and funny, and I like their approach, but this just doesn't connect for me. This sounds like a weird prog/glam fusion. All the clever-clogs musical arrangement of prog (although not as jazz/classical inflected), which undercuts the tunes. It just doesn't grab me. Nothing connects. I really want to like it, but just don't. Maybe if I listened to it a dozen times, it would start to work for me, but I just don't have the time or inclination.
Booker T. & The MG's
3/5
Norah Jones
2/5
This album is incredibly pleasant. Norah Jones has a very pleasant voice (soft, intimate, smooth, and sultry, if not a little unsexy), and a pleasant band. They play pleasant arrangements; a little bit jazz, a little bit folk, and little bit country. But nothing offensive, nothing that leaps out. Nothing is too loud, or too fast (or even too slow). It's very pleasant wallpaper. I'm not surprised it sold a bazillion copies in physical media (at a time the industry was starting to collapse), because it is a hard to hate. I will say, that she edits her arrangements really well. Nothing outstays its welcome. No songs much over 4 minutes, and many under 3. She has the great sense not to use every minute of available capacity on a CD, and keeps the whole album to a classic 45 minutes. She interprets the works of many songwriters to give all the material a consistent voice, and I she knows exactly how long to play for. But I would never choose to play this record again.
Aerosmith
1/5
Over polished, derivative, boring. Work-shopped and honed within an inch of its life. Cliche ridden. I've seen this described as one of the high points of 80s hair metal. And that is damning with very faint praise. I never want o hear this corporate rock drivel again as long as I live.
Tina Turner
2/5
I love Tina Turner. Love her. I own many Tina Turner records. But it's the r'n'b and funk output of the 60s and 70s that really do it for me. I do not in any way begrudge her the massive success she found in the 80s as a solo artist. She wanted to make it as big as Bowie and the Stones, and she did. Because she is awesome. She really wrote the book on female rock performance, and is is one of the rock and roll greats of any gender. Full stop. And this is the album that really did it for her, pushing her into success in a way she never had before.
But... what is required for mainstream success buffs off many of the edges that made her a really compelling force of nature. Many reviews refer to the slick production (Which it sure is, and terribly 80s, and not all of it has dated well) and her raspy voice. But I am familiar with her earlier material, and the rasp is downplayed quite a lot. She never really tears it up (although she gets closer on some of the b-sides). Seven hit singles from one album is a pretty amazing strike-rate, and she makes some otherwise middle-of-the-road material compelling. I love you, Tina, and I play your records all the time. Just not this one.
(As a side note, I am getting a bit tired of 1001 albums throwing out albums because they are the commercial breakthrough, or big selling (particularly in the UK), but not necessarily the albums that was influential, ground-breaking or representative of what that artist really had to offer. This is a good case in point.)
Prince
5/5
An absolute masterpiece, probably Prince's greatest record. A solo collection from the his most fertile period at the height of his powers. Funky, fresh, profane, reflective, funny, sad, profound, silly. Not really a dud track on this, probably the last of the great, true double albums. Cannot recommend too highly.
Belle & Sebastian
3/5
B&S are a gap in my knowledge. They came along during the period that I did not listen to new music, and I think I generally agreed (based on my ignorance of their work) with Jack Black's opinion in High Fidelity that they were \"old sad bastard music\". Maybe because I, too, am now an old sad bastard, I understand the appeal of this record now. I like to quick and dirty recording style, with a production style with ambitions towards a lush aesthetic (on a budget). It is clearly in the tradition that grows from the more whimsical end of the Velvet Underground's oeuvre, which appeals to me. It starts to wash over me a bit after a whole album, but enjoyed it more than I expected.
The Saints
4/5
I love this record, and am shocked that I don't own it already. (It's going on my want list). I actually really love the horns, although I know they were divisive at the time. I think they give the album extra punch, without seeming out of place in a punk album. Maybe we are more comfortable with genre cross-pollination these days. I think it also has become clear the extent to which punk was not musical ground zero, but rather a return to the essence of rock and roll, re-imagined in a new way. (Thanks to Simon Reynolds, for that insight). In the same way that the Pistols called back to the Eddie Cochran, Carl Perkins rock and roll, the Saints have a bit more Ike Turner in them. International Robots and the (bonus track) of River Deep Mountain High show the rock and roll roots of the Saints. Know Your Product and This Perfect Day are dead set classics, performed (as all of this album) with gusto and infectious energy.
The Police
3/5
Final studio album by the Police. Can you detect the fact they almost were not speaking? Is the increased use of sequencers to give a backbone to songs that prevent them having the play together? A great record of a band falling apart? They are clearly tight enough as a unit to sound like they are playing the same thing even when not speaking. I think this is about the only Police album that I don't own, so there was some fresh material here, especially on side 1. (Interesting that all the singles are back loaded on the album, which is a weird way of tracklisting, especially such a commercially ambitious band). The singles are really strong, which makes side 2 a very compelling listen. Side 1 feels a bit like experiments and filler. The production is a bit cleaner and focused than their previous studio album, and when they are rocking, has a lot of punch. Highlights for me are Synchronicity II, which is a good example of their power and purpose.
Badly Drawn Boy
2/5
This did not attract my attention. I remember Badly Drawn Boy getting a lot of positive press in the UK around the time; best new songwriting hope, etc. Mercury Prize winning, beloved by NME, Q, etc. But it didn't grab me at the time, and it doesn't now. Dull, and over-long. Never need to hear this again.
Astrud Gilberto
2/5
Pleasant, Latin-flavoured jazz-lite. I like her voice, but this is hardly the most inspired thing she ever did. Why did they choose THIS album? It doesn't really have anything to particularly recommend it. Soporific. Duet with child (You Didn't Have to Be So Nice) was cute, but I'm not sure I would want to listen to it too many times. I feel like only the final track, Nao Bate O Corocao, worked up a bit of energy. Did not hate, but seems like a pointless inclusion on this list.
Tortoise
2/5
Post rock. needs more rock and less post, perhaps? I cannot remember a damn thing that happened on this record. Not as clever-clogs as prog, some nice playing and I like the approach to sound, but found it aimless wallpaper. (Full disclosure: I am in a foul mood today, and not prepared to enjoy anything.)
Bad Company
3/5
Generic, better than competent, early 1970s hard rock. It's got a bit of boogie, it's got a bit of rock. Singles are fun enough. But all I can think about is Stillwater from Almost Famous. A competent band, struggling to make it in the big time (and I know Bad Company sold a metric shit-ton of records, and filled stadiums for most of the decade). But, really, is this really groundbreaking or historically noteworthy in any way?
Curtis Mayfield
5/5
a super funk classic. Lush arrangements, super funky rhythms, Curtis' beautiful vocals. A far better album than the film probably deserved.
Bee Gees
1/5
This is the most annoyingly mediocre piece of forgettable try-hard rubbish I have heard in a long time. Other than having their first US #1 single (How can you mend a broken heart?) for a group that LATER became massive and influential (with a wildly different sound), this does NOTHING to justify its inclusion on a list of must-hear albums. This just makes me question the clear thinking of the list compiler. 47 minutes of my lie that I will never get back. (At least it wasn't the 53 minute version. Thank the lord for small mercies).
I am really struggling to get through this. It sounds like everyone involved in the recording was loaded to the gills on valium, mandrax, qualudes or similar. I think it would be a better listening experience if I was similarly sedated.
Japan
4/5
The missing link between glam and New Romantics. Clearly heavily influenced by Lou Red, VU, New York Dolls, and Berlin-era Bowie, but leaning into a softer, more spacious sound that they became known for in the early 80s. Funny to hear how much Sylvian changed his vocal style from the first two albums. Love Mick Karn's bass playing; it is weird and distinctive and strangely funky, and always adds a fresh surprise.
Leonard Cohen
4/5
Production is spare but still pretty. (Personally, I would like a little bit more grit in it, but you can't have everything). mostly simple acoustic guitar and bass arrangements, augmented with occasional strings, distant organ, even a little bit of fuzz guitar. And Jew's harp, for that extra bit of spice. Leonard's voice is not great, but he can (usually) sell the damn song. I think the weakest vocal performance is Bird on a Wire. I think he was intimidated by the song (and a really world-class standard song it is), and it took him another 10 or more years to settle into it. The songs are so great. They are so evocative. I realize that he almost never talks in generalities or abstract concepts. He tells the story through vivid and concrete images. I love that approach to lyric writing.
Black Sabbath
5/5
OMG, I am so excited! I question the must-hear nature of some album choices, but this is a dead set classic that kicked off a whole genre. Still with reminders that they were, at heart, a heavy blues band, they have descended down a path to a new place. I listen to contemporary stoner metal and doom, and I can hear the direct influence of this seminal work being played today.
2/5
ugh. Prog. Why do lists like this rate prog so highly? prog often forgets to just rock, you know? Too much talk, not enough trousers. Some terrific moments, but just too clever clogs for me. (Interestingly, the deluxe version I listened to had the studio run-through guide track for Siberian at the end. I MUCH preferred the more straightforward playing approach)
Carole King
5/5
This has been played so many times, it is embedded in the basic DNA of the culture. A classic easy listening album. I don't want to blame Tapestry for the thousands of pale imitators that followed. this is up there with 'Blue' as one of the greatest singer-songwriter albums of all time. (I still think Smackwater Jack is out of place on the record, but other that, it is difficult to fault).
Pavement
2/5
I really wanted to like this. I always wanted to like Pavement. But I just don't hear the tunes. I liked Cut Your Hair, but everything else leaves me kinda 'meh'. I know many fans and critics really dug them, like they were the second coming of whatever, but I never heard it. They sounded like a 1000 shitty bands (and I mean that in a good way. I like a shitty band) that played at the Sandringham Hotel in the late 80s/early 90s. I just didn't get excited by them. Maybe you needed to see them live? I am grateful for the impetus to listen to this album all the way through (and I listened to it twice), but I cannot for the life of me remember a single thing I heard.
Spacemen 3
5/5
Ooh, I am diggin' the drones. Noisy, repetitive, driving. This is exactly my thing. Hints of 60s punk (MC5 and Stooges), 70s krautrock, and 80s no wave, this really hangs together. It's a collage of musical references built into a whole new thing. The NY Times obituary for Lou Reed referred to him as the godfather o f"high IQ, low technique" rock and roll. and that's exactly what this is. I could listen to this all day. I never knew where to start with Spacemen 3 (although I am long time Spiritualized fan), but I think I need to rush out and buy this record. I have been listening to this all day. It's magical noise.
Missy Elliott
4/5
Missy, you are indeed supa dupa fly, Hip hop albums don't always age well, but this one is still damn fine after all these years. If I was going to edit, I would cut the skits and guest spots (I mean, why did we need Busta Rhymes to introduce the album? No offense to Mr Rhymes). Missy's flow is on point, and pairs wonderfully with the consistently funky fresh production from Timbaland. Great choice to keep a consistent vision across the whole album, although tracks maintain their individual identity. Love the singles (obviously), but this one is a great listen throughout.
Suede
3/5
Some call this a masterpiece. Some call it the most pretentious album of all time. I don't think it is either. It's like a record of Bowie at his most bombastic, full of melodrama and overblown, over-arranged songs. Surprisingly coherent, given the band broke up while recording it, taking their musical force out of the band. This is a fair album, a brave swing for the outfield that doesn't quite get there. I admire the ambition, even if it does veer into self-importance (think Us at their worst). I really could have done without so much reverb slathered over EVERYTHING, which tends to turn this into a muddy mess to listen to.
David Bowie
4/5
This is special to me because of when and ho wit was released, two days before his death, like a gift for us all. Maybe not his most immediately memorable tunes, but the jazz guys playing rock, lush production and the lyrics imbued with depth and sense of mortality make this very special. A last loving note to us, his fans.
The Lemonheads
5/5
I have a real nostalgic fondness for this record. In 1991, I moved out of home and into the inner city of Sydney, hanging around Glebe and Newtown and seeing gigs at the Annandale Hotel, working in a grungy record store. As it so happens, Evan Dando was also hanging around Glebe and Newtown and the Annandale Hotel (I would see him there pretty regularly around that time) and hanging out with local musos and people who worked in record stores. and he wrote this album about that. The sound, the songs, the people in it, the videos, all reflect that time. the tunes are great, all the songs are really short and leave you wanting more. Celebrity never did Evan any favours, and he never hit this peak again. I love this record, because it is a cracking listen and because it reminds me of a special time in my youth. (I also had a crush on Alison, from the song Alison's starting to happen. She worked at another record store and played drums in a band. She was really cool, and really starting to happen).
Steely Dan
3/5
Steely Dan. Just a bit too smooth, a bit too clever clogs for me. I just need a little bit more of an edge to really appeal to me. There are a few slightly rockier numbers on this album that work a bit better for me (Night by Night, for example). I don't mind smart rock and roll, but I just need a bit more rock. I own this record, but almost never play it, and have considered giving it to my son (who likes prog and jazz. he was a very excited to find a copy of Countdown to Ecstasy in. record store bargain bin recently). Actually, I'm listening to Night by Night again, and it's pretty good... I'll bump my rating up a bit I think...
Stereolab
4/5
I've always thought that I _should_ like Stereolab, and I have checked in on some of their records in the past, but hadn't found the album that really grabbed me. And then i heard this. This is the shit. A mixture of krautrock, 60s French girl pop (having a French girl singer helps heighten that impression, but it is not a lazy comparison; they really sound like that), which inflections of jazz, easy listening, funk and the Velvet Underground. This is the record I have been always been wanting from Stereolab. And I finally found it! yes, yes, yes. I knew this project would be worthwhile.
The Byrds
5/5
Once upon a time, I would have hated this. Ugh; country music! But Gram Parsons was my entry point to understanding country, and I fell in love with his solo albums. I have never gone back to listen to this album, even though it is highly critically rated. And now I'm wondering why I denied my self the pleasure of this absolute classic? I love the songs, I love the performances. I don't even mind the songs that McGuinn re-recorded the lead vocals on (I actually think their voices are pretty similar). The chutzpah of Parsons to come in as a 22 year old piano player (that didn't last long) and essentially take over an established and highly successful band, change their musical direction, help write and record a genre-establishing classic, and then light out to do his own thing. Amazing! Quite a talent, if an unreliable human being.
Queen
5/5
When I was about 13, my mate Peter played me the Prophet's Song on his walkman during a school excursion to the Sydney Opera House (we were there for an afternoon at the opera. Matinee performance of Manon Lescaut.) I didn't think much of the opera, but I loved Queen. He subsequently made me a cassette of Night at the Opera backed with Queen's Greatest Hits. I had been familiar with Bohemian Rhapsody and many of their singles prior to that, but Night at the Opera was the first Queen studio album that I really delved into and played obsessively. I find it hard to approach this record objectively, because of my nostalgic love of the record. Does it have a lot of songs that delve into pastiche and novelty? Yes. Is it almost bombastically over-produced? Well, yes. Is it full of cracking tunes and rocking rock? well, hell yeah! Let's play it again, and louder!
Elliott Smith
3/5
Nice songs, really nicely recorded. I'm not quite sure why Elliott Smith has two albums on the must hear list. It's OK... just OK.
John Lee Hooker
2/5
(sigh) This is a great example about what gives me the screaming shits about this 1001 albums project. This was John lee Hooker's biggest album by far, won him a Grammy, and paid for him to live the rest of his life in comfort. It is really well recorded versions of some of classic material (even if a little heavy on the 80s digital synths, recorded to a click track, soooo much reverb, and somewhat over polished by Roy Rogers) and with very impressive guests stars (Santana, Bonnie Raitt, Roy Rogers, Robert Cray, Canned Heat, George Thorogood, Charlie Musselwhite, Los Lobos). But is this REALLY a John lee Hooker album? Have you really heard and understood John lee Hooker if this is the only album of his you have heard? Most tracks sound more like the guest stars than John Lee Hooker. Most of the guests do a pretty good version of the blues, but it is a little strange to me that nearly all of the collaborators on this album are white. And I'm sure they even have Hooker playing guitar on all tracks.It feels a little bit like wheeling Hooker out to provide a veneer of authenticity to a major label album of blues for a mainstream (read as "white") audience, but he really is just window dressing.
I don't begrudge Hooker his belated recognition or long-delayed pay-day, but this is not the album you should hear from one of the titans of electric blues. This is blues for people who don't really know anything about blues. This is the blues for middle-aged financial advisers. This is blues for dentists who have a Harley Davidson in their garage to occasionally pretend they are a bad-ass. It's blues for soccer moms to dance to. This a blues for white people. Listening to this again reminds me of why I sold my copy of this album.
I know John Lee Hooker had a patchy history with record labels, but surely there is a better choice to represent this giant of the blues?
TV On The Radio
2/5
"A bombshell: as good as it undoubtedly is, this record isn't going to change your life. Nor will it be considered an OK Computer or a Velvet Underground & Nico in ten years' time. Did it ever promise to be? Some people seemed to think so, and many still might." - Rob Webb, Drowned in Sound. It's ten years on, and I think his prediction has become true. This was the flavour the year, 2008, but do we really still need to listen to this record? It sounds great, it's smart and approachable, even if little short on real hooks and energy.
1001 Albums; I suspect this was a relatively fresh album when putting together whatever edition this went into, but I'm willing to bet it will be cut from the next edition. Just my little prediction there.
Can
4/5
I love the krautrock, and krautrock doesn't get much better than this. I still prefer Tago Mago (which I find a little more focused), but this album is full of goodness.
Beatles
2/5
I understand why this album is on the list; it is a great artifact of the Beatles going into Beatlemania. Recorded with a little more time and polish than Please Please Me, but retains a strong connection to the Hamburg Beatles (especially int he covers and Astrid Kirschner influenced cover). This was the UK's second ever million selling LP (after the South Pacific soundtrack). Massively popular and influential.
But is it really that great to listen to now? I own this record, but I don't think I ever pulled it off the shelf in preference to other Beatles records. This deserves to be on the 1001 list, but not even nearly my favorite Beatles album. But it's the Beatles, you know?
SZA
3/5
I enjoyed this. Really smooth and well crafted r'n'b. More interesting than the mainstream, with real (gasp!) personal viewpoints. Enjoyable. Sounds like this was a crushing, angst-filled experience to produce, and who knows if she will ever manage to follow it up, but here's hoping she does. Standout track for me: The Weekend.
Fun Lovin' Criminals
2/5
Hip-hop over alive band. The band is pretty funky, but this hardly ground breaking. The Beastie Boys, Urban Dance Squad and Soul Coughing, and possibly others, had already done it (and, arguably, better). The singles are almost novelty songs, and I found the the obsession with criminality increasingly off-putting. King of New York, praising John Gotti, I just found as repugnant as any other gangsta rap. The cover of "we have all the time in the world" seemed strange and pointless. The final ballad, Methodonia, was musically pleasant, but criticizing methadone addicts (in favour of... what? crack? weed? valium?) seems weirdly mean spirited, given their praise of other drugs in much of the rest of this album. I enjoyed the groove of this album, but found it left a bad taste in my mouth by the end of the album.
Songhoy Blues
4/5
I love desert blues. I love it when it is relatively unpolished, and they are just settling into the groove and bashing ti out. After this played, some more produced later material and remixes appeared, and they did not do it for me. But I can totally lock into the groove of what they are playing here. Dig it!
U2
5/5
This is my favourite U2 album. I (generally) find them a bit bombastic and earnest, a bit too polished and devoid of swing. But this is the record where they discovered noise, irony and even a modicum of funk. I love industrial music, so the noisy, industrial production style really appeals to me. And, despite the deliberately trashy presentation, there are some really strong songs here, including One, which I would argue is the greatest song they ever wrote. I saw U2 once in the early 2000s, and I was surprised at how closely Bono stuck to the vocal arrangements from the records, occasionally throwing in snippets of other song s(with mixed results) to try and keep things fresh, but I really got the impression that (despite his great pipes), he doesn't think on his feet particularly quickly in a musical sense. I suspect in the studio he works really hard until he finds the best performance, and that is generally locked in forever. But when he sang One, I felt that this was a song he deeply understood, musically, and it was not just a replaying of the record. His performance was much ore fluid and in the moment. While not as hard-edged as a lot of the records I was listening to when this came out (Einsturzende Neubauten, Skinny Puppy, Nine Inch Nails, etc etc), this had the advantage of having really great songs at the core (which you would certainly not accuse Skinny Puppy of. The only late 80s, early 90s industrial band with really great songs was Nine Inch Nails). I listened to this record a lot, and each track still stands up. The songs are less global, worthy and important, and much more human and morally ambiguous. There is a quite a bit informed by the Edge's divorce, but also reflected int eh band's own near-divorce. It was a bold swing at a real change, and one that paid off for them, extending their career that had perhaps run otu of obvious places to go.
Interestingly, having heard some of the demos, I suspect a LOT of the greatness of this album comes down tot he production and mixing team, of Eno, Daniel Lanois, Flood and Steve Lillywhite, who took some pretty half backed ideas and edited and mixed them into an amazing record. Lanois can record, Eno can edit, Lillywhite can mix, but for my money, the real secret sauce is Flood. This is him starting to move into the big time, from the alternative bands he had worked with previously. The band threw everything and the kitchen sink on tape, but it is the editing a mixing that really lifts this (and I think Flood can be clearly heard here).
Leonard Cohen
4/5
Wow, darker it is. This is the sound of a man close to the end of his life, and he knows it. Clearly, he was in a lot of pain, but there is joy and quiet celebration here to. The production is understated and sympathetic (not universal amongst Cohen's albums). I hear a lot of metaphors about war and conflict in here, but often with a quiet resolutions through diplomacy, treaties, spycraft and quiet agency. It is impossible to separate this from the circumstances of its recording and release, 17 days before his death, putting it in with Warren Zevon's final album, and Bowie's Black Star in a small group of albums that face the imminent mortality.
The Crusaders
2/5
A bit smooth for my taste. I have a live Crusaders album, which has a little bit more bite, but I find their jazz funk a little too polished. the title track is terrific, but the album just washes over me, making little impact.
Soundgarden
5/5
This is probably the grunge masterpiece; the heavy metal White Album of the 90s. The song-writing is sophisticated, tuneful, heavy, and insightful. I know some critics (Christgau, for example) finds their lyrics asinine, but, by the measure of heavy metal lyrics, they are not stupid. Cornell's voice was rarely better, Thayill's playing inventive but less reliant on pure noise than on previous records, and Matt Cameron's drumming is best in class. His ability to make even a weird time signature sound like a straight four (until you listen closely) is masterful. Dynamic, tuneful, with classic rock influences that are not mere pastiche, I really think this is Soundgarden's masterwork (even if I have nostalgic preference for some o their other records). The best metal album of the decade, and certainly top 3 for the entire grunge oeuvre.
Rocket From The Crypt
1/5
Thai album is so boring. The energy level is consistent and just palls. It is recorded and mixed in such a way that an individual track would pop when played on the radio as the best thing you heard that hour, but listening to the whole album is exhausting. I hate his whiny voice, which just seems like posturing. I hate the arrangements. there is no point. It generically 'rocks', but there is no real grit to it. I'm sure they put on a decent live show (and it seems like they do a lot of live gimmicks), but these songs bore and tire me. I give it a second star because it is energetic and decently recorded.
Actually, I think Come See, Come Saw is just a a re-write of Know Your Product by the Saints. One star off for plagiarism of a far better song.
Iggy Pop
4/5
Iggy at his most focused and flat-out rockin' post-Stooges. Rock and roll!
Michael Kiwanuka
2/5
"ooh, we really need some recent releases on the must hear list. This one is recent, and won any award. Better stick it on the list."
I don't think many people will remember this record in 10 years time. It's ok, but is it a must listen? I mean, he's got a great voice, and can write a song, and play guitar well enough. the Danger Mouse production leaves me a little non-plussed. It just sounds like... a Danger Mouse production.
This is an OK album that really doesn't belong on this list.
The Teardrop Explodes
2/5
I find Julian Cope a lot more interesting than many of his records actually play out. Given his interest in krautrock (he literally wrote the book), this si much less krautrock-y than I would expect. Not very motorik,. Not very interesting, or psychedelic. This album made very little impression on me.
Frank Sinatra
3/5
Lush, smooth, sophisticated, wallpaper.
Donald Fagen
2/5
Just too clever clogs for me. I know it is not peak jazz-bo Steely Dan, but it is pretty clever clogs, and very smooth and polished and just not a thing for me. I don;t really get the obsession with Steely Dan, and understand the inclusion of this solo album on the 1001 list even less. This seems like completely inessential listening. More power to ya, if this floats your boat, but I don't know why _I_ have to listen to it.
David Bowie
5/5
The first really Bowie-like Bowie album. Contains a few deadset classics (Life on Mars?, Oh You Pretty Things, Changes), plus a few second-string Bowie numbers (Queen Bitch, Andy Warhol). The Spiders from Mars band coming together (augmented by Rick Wakeman), with only occasional flexings of the rock monster that band would become. Thi sis the first real flexing of Bowie's full powers, and the beginning of his awesome run of albums through the 1970s. While this album may have moments of weakness, it is hard to separate this from the whole run of Bowie's output, as the real kick-off point, laying down many of the themes he would return to throughout his career (changes, chameleons, the apocalypse, identity).
Tears For Fears
4/5
Sooooooooo 1980s. This album is totally of its time, but still sounds really great. The production and recording quality is second to none, and really serves the excellent songs. I know they feel Everybody Wants To Rule the World was a throw-away, quick and dirty (minimal) effort, they were at the height of their powers. Everybody..., along with Shout and Head Over Heels provide hooky anchors to this lean yet expansive, experimental yet commercial, personal yet cinematic. A pop highwater mark of the decade
Small Faces
4/5
I haven't listened to this album in many years. I bought it in my late teens, during a psychedelic phase. I preferred (then) side 2, with its interstitial tale of Happiness Stan and more whimsical songs. Listening to it now, I prefer the tougher side 1, which is (I think) a more transitional piece between the Small Faces and the bands to follow (Faces, and Humble Pie). This will definitely be getting more play from me.
Minor Threat
2/5
Minor Threat are massively influential on punk/hardcore. This was their only album and so I see why it was on this list, and the critical consensus is that they were becoming more adventurous with their musical structures and reflecting on their own thematic concerns on contributions. But, really, it is their early singles that wrote the playbook for hardcore (esp. straight edge) and should be the required listening. I am glad I listened to this, but don't feel the need to ever listen again. (I find hardcore fun live, but find recorded hardcore inessential).
AC/DC
5/5
Possibly the greatest hard rock album of all time. Lean, punchy, dumb, sexist and aggressive, but also funny and catchy. The production is stripped of ornamentation to an almost punk-like degree, the band is moving away from blues rock and into a harder, leaner thing. It's a dumb formula, but, my god, what a formula.
OutKast
4/5
this album is clearly one of the masterpieces of hip hop. But, OMG, there is so much of it! Nearly 2.5 hours! Some (much, most) of this is really excellent, but there was opportunity for editing. One star off for exhaustion.
Janelle Monáe
3/5
This is a massive survey of Janelle Monae and her (man) ideas and (plethora of) influences. It's like every idea she ever had, all polished int their baroque finery. There are some cracking tunes on here (Cold War and Tightrope in particular), but I found the overwhelming quantity of stuff in this massive treasure chest too rich for my blood. And it is all so much! Instead of being a jewel box, it is a massive treasure chest. Trying to consume this whole album is like eating a 5kg box of chocolates in a single sitting. I needed to consume this is small portions.
Dusty Springfield
5/5
One of my all-time favourite albums. probably the greatest blue-eyed soul record ever. Son of a preacher Man is the big single, but it is the sofetr, sexier tracks that I really dig (Breakfast in Bed, Alittle Loving, I Don't Want to Hear it). Dusty doesn't try to compete with Aretha, but leans into her more tender, more intimate style. This is a wonderful blend of Bacharach and the funky Memphis sound. She was almost too intimidated to record these songs, but thank god she did. I love this album.
The Black Keys
3/5
I really like thee Black Keys first couple of records. Raw, bluesy, rockin', with a real edge. However, they eventually decided they wanted to sell a whole lotta records, and get played on the radio, so they started making albums like this. It's still a lot more rock and roll than 99% of what you hear on the radio (which si great), and the tracks are engineered to really sound great played on the radio. This album is front loaded with songs that will be the best single you have heard all day when they pop up (and stand out) on the radio. Compressed, polished, punchy rock and roll. Which si great. But a whole album can start to sound a little tired. The influence of Danger Mouse is not as overwhelming as on the following album, but you can hear where they were heading. And congrats to them on getting there. (But I like it when they are a bit more raw).
Billie Holiday
3/5
Again, an album on the list because the artist didn't release many records int he form we would consider the album format as currently understood. Billie Holiday's best years were well past by the time she recorded this, the year before she died. Alcoholic, drug addicted, and broke, she did convince Columbia to sign her, give her an unlimited recording budget, and access to her arranger of choice and great material from the American songbook (although sings she had not recorded before. With a lush, rich, middle-of-the-road orchestral backing, her voice is cracked and creaking, but still with her timing, emotion and intimacy intact. That amount of vocal fry was, at the time, unheard of, but has become almost normal now. Even when barely singing, she still casts a long shadow today in her phrasing, the way she moves around a melody, and in the dry, croaking tone that is now common. She certainly lives in the songs, and the emotional truth is extraordinary.
Dr. Dre
1/5
Oof, gangsta rap. This album sounds great. The vibes are funky, the bass is bouncy and the fluid synth lines are excellent. I always liked the way Dre updated the P-funk feel.
But I just can't get past the lyrics. It's so violent, so misogynistic, so homophobic, it just makes me feel ill to play it. I just can't.
Motörhead
5/5
It's Motorhead! One of the greatest rock and roll records of all time. Slightly less shout-y than their previous records and marginally better recorded, but still with an immediacy and energy that cuts through almost anything. I've heard that they would spend a week in the studio getting the guitar tone, but it still sounds like they loaded in, turned on (loud!), and blitzkrieged their way through a set before storming off the invade another neighbouring country. It's sexist as hell (which hasn't dated well). I know Lemmy found Ace of Spades limiting, but what a song!
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
4/5
I love Elvis when he is just rockin' out. The band were barely talking to each other, but were a well honed live unit. They got into the studio and recorded quickly, loudly, and with verve. The album is concerned with sexual obsession and betrayal, which reflects the band's vibe. The reality comes across. Muscular, immediate, honest and loud. Love it.
The Kinks
2/5
I do not understand why this album is on the list. The Kinks (especially in the 60s) were a great singles band, but those best songs were usually not included on albums. And this album is a prime example of not containing singles; Sunny Afternoon is a bit of a classic, and A House in the Country got a bit of love during Britpop, but otherwise, these are not A-list songs from the Kinks. I have been reading pop music history for 40 years, and I don't think I have ever heard mention of this album. I rate the Kinks singles, but this album? Why the hell is this on the must-hear list? Someone has a fondness for 60s Kinks, and felt the need to include something, so they put this down. I honestly feel like it was a waste of time listening to this album. Not much to recommend. Get a Kinks singles compilation instead.
Common
3/5
This si sweet relief after a bunch of gangsta rap albums. Gangsta lost me, and the soulquarian, conscious hip hop is a blessed relief. I love the Dilla/Questlove production. Common isn't the world's greatest rapper, but this record is a breath of fresh air after the violence and misogyny of much of 90s hip hop. The production is A1, which makes this a really wonderful album to listen to.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
2/5
This is so of its time. Written in the studio, this is a triumph of digital editing and slick production. Nick Launay brings his excellent taste and great ears to create a slick and (vaguely) dance-able aesthetic, much more sophisticated than the 3-piece punk vibe that the band brings. The album is front-loaded with the singles, although I like some of the rockier tracks that follow, eg Dull Life (which is reminiscent of Siouxsie and the Banshees) or Shame and Fortune. After all is said and done, I don’t really remember any of the tracks once they finish playing. I prefer it when they don’t veer too far from their punk roots. I really like her voice, though.
Love
5/5
So, there are a few "sophisticated" psychedelic albums on the 1001 list, but I feel that this is the only one that really, truly lives up to the sobriquet. Beautifully arranged and recorded (with occasionally support from Wrecking Crew session musicians), the song-writing is a little more folky than Love's previous efforts. This is definitely a 1967 album, but with a eye towards the inevitable come-down that was lurking around the corner. My favorite section, and probably most emblematic of the album's tone, is the coda of The Red Telephone, with the creep chanting of "they're locking them up today, the're throwing away the key, I wonder who it will be tomorrow, you or me?" The paranoia of the late 60s is perfectly encapsulated right there.
Violent Femmes
5/5
Here's an unequivocal and absolutely unique masterpiece. Raw and immediate, with unsophisticated recording style and (almost) no embellishment, this is probably the best expression of teenage frustration and anxiety ever recorded. It feels _so_ real. The bare arrangements mean that the songs seem completely unfiltered. This album is so honest that it feels like a secret every time you listen to it; I can't believe they are saying what they are saying!
And yet, this obviously hit a nerve with many, many people; sales estimates to date are around 3 million copies sold (and, one has to think, a handful of furtively taped copies for each disc sold). Nearly everyone of my generation (at least in the more alternative circles I moved in) can sing Add it Up, Blister on the Sun, or Gone Daddy Gone from memory at the drop of a hat.
The basic recording means this never sounds old, and, interestingly, my 16 year old son has this album on his want list, so it clearly still speaks to young people.
When I was at uni in 1990, my friend Kate and I skipped lectures one afternoon to go see the Femmes busking at Circular Quay (filmed for the Noise on SBS). That sunny afternoon, singing along to the band, is one of my favourite live music memories. You see snippets of that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2J6d0EVEJE
Hole
4/5
Courtney Love is a genuine rock star. Intense, angry, articulate, unpredictable, controversial, ambitious, unfiltered, strong, damaged, impulsive, charismatic. She has copped a lot of flack over the years, some self-inflicted damage, but a lot of grief for being crime of being a woman. This album is Hole (and Courtney) at the height of their/her powers. The songs are really strong, partially written int eh studio, but also having been partially worked on over the previous two years. There is some understandable Nirvana influence, but these are definitely Courtney's songs. It has the loud/soft thing (which was a step forward in musical development for Hole), a lot of punk rock screaming (and what a scream it is!), but the sheen of being well recorded and edited. I think there was a some selective editing on the vocals, the guitars and drums sound huge, and a some subtle keyboard sweetening in the background. Interestingly, the producers said they didn't double her vocals much to not cut the immediacy. I suspect she never sings a song the same way twice, so doubling is not really a viable option, but she certainly gives each vocal take her all. I'm glad they left in a lot of "mistakes" (vocal cracking, dubious intonation and wayward pitching are common), because the performances are raw and real. Just the right amount of polish, I think. Nobody would ever give this kind of budget to an honestly dangerous punk band anymore, so we may never hear an album like this again. It stands up as a powerful album, even 30 years later.
Mercury Rev
3/5
This was not what I was expecting. I had in my mind that Mercury Rev were the kind of boring, semi-corporate quasi-indie band that proliferated int he late 90s and early 2000s, and with which I was (and continue to be) bored by. But, when I started playing this record, I recognized the songs Holes, which si a a woozier, more interesting song than I was expecting. The connections to te Flaming Lips are significant, and this album (jin many ways) was the first of that late 90s softly psychedelic, quirky rock (possibly twee?) that followed,d especially centred around the production of Dave Friedman (flamings Lips, Tame Impala, Pond, etc). I liked some of the records that followed more than this, but I can see how this was instrumental in breaking the way through and showing that music like this could be commercially viable. I admire that they made it for themselves, as this was highly unfashionable at the time, personal, and quirky. It certainly did not resemble much on the charts at the time Some critics have accused this of having some strong songs (Holes, Opus 40, Goddess on the Hiway), and some filler. I don't mind the "filler". It's different and weirdly produced, even if somewhat unmemorable. I really am on the line of 3 or 4 starts, but, in my heart of hearts, I wished this rocked just a little more, and his voice gets on my tit after a while, , so I am putting it in as a three, on the understanding that this is clear 3.5.
Nightmares On Wax
2/5
well, Nightmares on Wax don't like to be tarred with the "trip hop" brush. And I agree with them. This is chilled instrumental hip hop, which si all well and good, but does tend a little towards wallpaper. I am also surprised that this is not nearly as crunchy and lofi as the leading luminaries of trip hop preferred in their sound design (qv. Massive Attach, Tricky, Portishead). I can also hear the seismic influences of DJ Shadow and especially J.Dilla on the world of instrumental hip hop. it's hard to believe that instrumental hip was ever this clean and almost to the grid. The whole sense of sound and timing has changed so much since the late 90s, that this sounds almost quaint. Influential in its time, but not really relevant anymore. It's just kind of easy listening jazz-lite with hip hop-ish beats. Cursed by its own ubiquity.
Slint
3/5
What a great story; the unheard album that becomes a cult classic and effectively establishes a genre. Loving this album becomes a shibboleth of "you wouldn't have heard of them" coolness. I worked in an independent record store in Australia during 91/92 and was totally and completely unaware of this record. And it was my job to be across stuff like this. No reviews, no advertising, certainly no touring. I did not hear of this album until the early 2000s. I had dipped my toe into post-rock, but generally, I like a steady driving rock and roll beat (that I can bug out too), so the stop-start nature of post-rock gives me the irrits. I think that was always my problem with this record; the first song, Breadcrumb Trail, is particularly stop-start, changing time signature, far too clever-clogs for my taste. But listening to the rest of the album, I found much more tolerable as that aspect was much reduced. And by the time you get to the closer, Good Morning Captain, we are into driving two chord rock. The whispered, occasional screamed, lyrics are almost inaudible and completely devoid of tune, which makes hem seem a little superfluous. I think that, if I listened to this about 25 times, I would learn to love it (it sounds great; really immediate and un-fussy). But does it fill me with the desire to run out and form a band, or even just buy a copy of this album? Sadly, no. I am generally too old and settled to buy records just because they make me look cool and knowledgeable, and so, Slint, I will, with regret, walk past your record and purchase something else.
PS- I do appreciate that CD copies of this album have "this recording is meant to be listened to on vinyl" printed on the back. Especially at a time when vinyl was basically wheezing its dying breath, this is a cool gesture.
Richard Thompson
4/5
This was a surprise. I don't care for folk (or even folk rock, generally). I was aware of the reputation of this album (and, even more so, Shoot Out The Lights). I thought it would be a case of an album I could appreciate but not love. But I listened to this through three times in a row, and then picked out my faves (The Great Valerio, title track, When I get To The Border, Calvary Cross, Down Where The Drunkards Roll). I very quickly became familiar and loved this record. While steeped in folk, Richard Thompson's use of electric guitar (and occasionally electric piano) really lift this. Linda's voice is so terrific, and she clearly deeply understands these songs. I really came around to loving this record. I'm putting it on my wantlist.
Elvis Presley
2/5
Elvis' first album after the army. You can hear the work he had been putting into his singing during his time away, with a more mature tone and increased range. This was recorded in a top Nashville studio with top players and was his first stereo album.... but all the things that went wrong with Elvis' career in the 60s start here. Designed to be an (inoffensive), 4-quarters crowd-pleaser, appealing to nearly everyone, there is a not a lot of edge here. A couple of ballads, a couple of gospel songs, some inoffensive blues filler, and not a lot of rockin'. Not yet fully leaning into the glory of his maturity (that didn't come until the comeback special and the pompous glory of the 70s), but without the rough immediacy of his Sun years, this is an album designed to be as shiny and mass-market blockbuster as you could possibly get. And, like most early 60s albums, nearly all the good tracks were released as singles and not on the album. This actually plagued him most of his career; poor song choice leading to albums full of filler. The only albums really worth listening to are ones with a particular viewpoint (such as the Memphis album, Christmas albums or gospel albums). This is a completely inessential release from one of the great giants of 20th century popular music. Listen to a best of compilation instead.
John Lennon
3/5
Five important Lennon solo song ; Jealous Guy, Gimme Some Truth, How Do You Solo, How, and his signature song, Imagine. A mixture of protest songs, primal scream truth-telling, and pop fancies. Straightforward production with a crack band, tastefully under-playing, and really lovely string arrangements. Thanks god Lennon vetoed the record company's desire to release Oh Yoko! as a single. Nothing against Yoko, but this song is noticeably more pop than the rest of the record, and a little out of place. The thing I really noticed about this record is how honest Lennon often is. listening to Jealous Guy, he is saying things in a a blunt, unvarnished way that I find hard to believe that the biggest pop star in the world would put on a record for all to hear. he is really laying himself open on this record. That said, is Imagine a slightly tone-deaf plea of a multi-millionaire eschewing material possessions? easy to say, if you're rolling in it, mate.
Miles Davis
4/5
One of the albums that changed music. Miles' incorporation of electric guitar and electric piano into his band essentially creates fusion and does the previously unthinkable. I personally believe that the influence of Betty Mawbry on Miles at this point is massive. She introduces him to rock musicians, changes his wardrobe and expands his thinking about what music can be. Surprisingly, Miles first foray into fusion is meditative and exploratory. The loud funky explosions of Bitches Brew and On The Corner are yet to come, but this first album changes everything. Teo Macero's editing is (as with those later albums) pretty astonishing in itself.
The Cramps
5/5
I was a teenager staying up late one Saturday night watching rage when the Cramps came on, performing Can Your Pussy Do The Dog? on the Tube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfvCDyVlVIw) It was one of those moments that changes everything; it was the first time I had heard or seen the Cramps, and it totally blew my mind. Lux Interior writhing around on the floor barking like a dog and almost fellating the microphone was one of the most rock and roll things I had ever seen. The sound was tough, and more than a little rough around the edges. Poison Ivy Rorschach's guitar technique wasn't as polished or flashy as (say) Joe Satriani, but it rocked like hell. The Cramps are one of the bands that showed me that I really love loose, gritty, tough rock and roll. I don't care if it is badly recorded, sloppily performed (even better, sometimes), or almost stupidly simple, but it needs to rock. The Cramps are dangerous and sexy and they rock. And this album is where it all started. I love that Alex Hilton knew not to polish the edges off them. One of my great regrets is that I never saw them live, although that performance on the Tube is burned in my psyche, and has informed everything I look for in rock and roll ever since. God bless you, the Cramps, you changed me forever.
Bill Evans Trio
3/5
Pleasant jazz trio. These days, this sound has been sooooo overplayed, it is just background music now. Is it Bill Evans' fault that the standard he perfected became the template for a thousand mediocre jazz trios, playing ever fading carbon copies of this same style for the next 60 years? This album has to be considered best in class for its type. Clearly, warmly and intimately recorded, with quiet audience atmospherics, the interplay between three player sat the peak of their powers is tight and relatively focused. The tragic death of bass player Scott LaFaro in a car accident less than two weeks after this recording adds a melancholy note to this album. I respect Evans' decision to make this album a tribute to LaFaro, by giving him a featuring credit and including two of LaFaro's compositions and choosing tracks with significant bass solos. A touching tribute.
Sigur Rós
3/5
Jayson Greene (Pitchfork) said of this album "If you are inclined to sniff suspiciously around grandiose music, examining it for kitsch, you probably reeled away staggering from Sigur Rós, who proudly stink of it. This was another part of their appeal and their strength: The music is texturally complex, for sure, but the emotional framework is deliberately simple and clear."
Hard to state clearer; The sound if cinematic and huge with large emotions, even if somewhat cryptic through use of Icelandic and (made up) Hopelandic lyrics. Does this make them an ideal screen on which the listener can project their own emotions? Maybe. It doesn't connect for me, though I can hear the massive influence of the scope and sound, which you hear everywhere in TV, films and advertising. I can listen to this, but I don't trust it enough to be moved by it.
Todd Rundgren
2/5
I was rally bored with this album. Very pleasant pop songs, in a soft rock style. Was this about the first album where the artist played all the instruments? Possibly so, which makes it a bit of a landmark with regards to what a single person could accomplish with a multitrack, and set a precedent for artists like Prince. Mind you, others were coming to the same discovery independently (Mike Oldfield must have been recording Tubular Bells almost simultaneously). But the song sand performances frankly bore me, and I suspect they did for Rundgren too, who started being much more experimental following this album. Even the heavier rock songs on this album are kind of bloodless. It reminds me of how Danny Sugarman in 'Wonderland Ave' complains about how the rock (largely) seemed to water down in the early 70s. This album is a case in point.
Fela Kuti
5/5
Oh, this band is so funky... I did some searching to see what other reviews were out there, and some that I came across (sound collective, I'm looking at you) found the consistent rhythm, the pidgen lyrics, and rough recording style difficult. I love all those aspects. The mixture of African polyrhythm, jazz and funk is infectious and compelling. The political content of this album is powerful (so much so that it prompted violent retribution from the Nigerian armed forces). Fela is the real deal, no compromises, and funky as hell while he is doing it.
Public Enemy
5/5
I bought all of the first four PE albums as they were released, and listened to them incessantly. This album is the bookend of their imperial period, when they were unarguably one of the most important bands in the world. Maybe not the masterpiece level of It Takes a Nation of Millions or Fear of a Black Planet, I have a massive love for this record. Reading about it now, they had lost all their data for what was supposed to be this album. This explains the slightly more straightforward production of this record, which is not quite as overwhelming a barrage of sound collage as the previous two records. But necessity is the mother of invention, and we have instead a more direct, though no less powerful, production. It is pretty abrasive, noisy and assertive, enhanced by the aggressive scratching of Terminator X. It draws heavily on funk and other black forms, and even their own previous records. It is a new thing, and yet stands on the shoulders of giants. It plants itself firmly in the history of black music. Chuck D has never sounded more authoritative, leavened by Flavor Flav, humorous but not a clown. Flav is angry on this record, and in a way, his number s(especially I Don't Wanna Be Called Yo N.) is the angriest song on the record (disguised with humour). The political message of this record is mature, thought out, and undeniable in its logic and emotional intensity. It is hard to think of a political band of the past 40 years that is both this eloquent and musically powerful.
I was going to rate this 4 (for maybe not being on the level of Black Planet and Nation of Millions) but the more I write about it, the more I realise how much I love this powerful, focused, and forceful record. (Favourite song: By the Time I get to Arizona; the funky power of this song is really unique).
Franz Ferdinand
3/5
Better than average art-rock from the early 2000s. Heavily disco-influenced drumming makes this more dance-able than most. Arrangements are bit more inventive than most (Take Me Out is a particularly good example of this). But was a lot of the praise a result of the last of the huge major label promotion budgets? I don't hear this band talked about much any more. I hope they invested their money wisely, and are comfortably resting on their laurels.
Beatles
5/5
I don’t even know where to start with Abbey Road. I can criticise aspects of this album, but the Beatles are still the Beatles. Things they did on albums, especially from their studio-based period, which were accidents have become so influential they seem like deliberate strategies, and people have built whole careers based on them. Some of the marked features of this album have become integral parts of the rock lexicon; the hidden track, the medley, the tom-heavy drumming, the use of effects like the leslie speaker, etc that emerged out of (arbitrary) opportunity of necessity.
Most noted is the side 2 medley; born of necessity to utilise partially written song fragments, it became permission for extended side-long suites with disparate fragments (hello prog rock). The fact that it worked on Abbey Road excused the confusion of wilful collage with ‘clever’ song writing (and McCartney is one of the worst offenders at this, qv. ‘Band on the Run’. A ghastly incoherent mess). On this album, it helped present material that benefited from the succinct presentation. I mean, would ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’ been better if edited down to a similar length as Polythene Pam?
Maxwell’s Silver Hammer is, frankly, atrocious and feels like a track that might have made it’s way onto the White album, but does not belong here. And I agree with John and George that it was not worth the effort to record and include. But other than that, the songs are outstanding. (I was recently doping a deep dive on Let It Be, and the song writing here is SOOOO much better. Come Together, Something, Here Comes the Sun, and the side 2 medley are far and away highlights of the Beatles catalogue. (Here Comes the Sun is the most streamed Beatles song Spotify. It has always been a favourite of mine).
Despite the clear tensions in the band around this time, they seem, to have put aside the worst of their bickering to lean into what a tight band they were. Augmented by Billy Preston and really great orchestral arrangement and production from George Martin, this last recorded output from t eh Beatles is confident and leaning into the future. The crisper sound from 8-track recording and a solid-state desk, tasteful use of synthesizer (white noise in I Want You aside) show that this was not just recycling their clichés, but committed to making a really great sounding record
I rate my favourite albums according to those I most frequently play, and this is definitely in my top three (along with Revolver and Hard Day’s Night).
Sufjan Stevens
2/5
This is so fsking precious I can't even. No more, please.
The Cure
4/5
Pounding (yet distant) drums, chorused bass, slathered in reverb, this album is the blueprint for proper 80s goth. The last in the Cure’s trilogy of gloom-rock, this is the album where Robert Smith leans most heavily into his depression, to create what is probably the ur-text of miserabilism. Ironically, having got it out of his system, he starts producing more pop-like and up-tempo material, albeit with a dark edge and morbid sense of humour, leaving a flock of pale imitators in his wake. Not a lot of humour on this one though, it is bleak, bleak, bleak. Which can make is a dreary listen if you ain’t in the mood, but relatable if you are. This is, to my mind, the album that comes close to the true sound of depression. It never builds up too much energy, although it starts as foreboding and builds into overwhelming angst. Noisy, insistent, and anxious, it a smoothed out with a sheen of synth washes and digital reverb to be both spacious and claustrophobic. I used to listen to this a lot when I was 20, but haven’t spun it in a long long time, probably because I choose not to wallow in depression if I can help it, and this album invokes those feelings all too effectively.
The Flying Burrito Brothers
4/5
Gram Parson's solo albums were my entry into the world of country rock. I enjoyed this record, which is of the same cut (although no Emmy-Lou Harris, missed here). Hippie Boy finishes the album on an unfortunate and dated joke, but the rest of the album fuses the influences of rock, country and r'n'b in a away not really done before. Parsons is really stretching out what (cosmic) American music can be. The playing of the band and guests should not be underrated either, with weird and wonderful variations on traditional country playing throughout. GP and Grievous Angel are 5 star albums, but this is well on the way.
Genesis
2/5
Ugh, prog. Too clever clogs, no goods tunes, and heaven forbid you should rock out for more than 8 bars at a time. Phil Collins, bless him, manages to keep his drumming tastefully restrained and maintain some sense of momentum, which is rare in 70s UK prog,
The Afghan Whigs
3/5
A concept album of sorts about the toxic breakdown of a relationship. Self-lacerating, lashing out, and brutally frank, the influence of soul ballads (eg Dark End of the Street, as covered on the preceding Uptown Avondale) is apparent, although presented in a much noisier fashion. This is a lot more sophisticated than much of the contemporaneous grunge rock, but no less dark. Possibly more so. I listened to this a bit when it first came out, but stopped because the dark emotional weight made it hard to listen to. This is still one of the most harrowing albums about a romantic break-up and toxic masculinity ever recorded. It still packs a punch today. The album is well summed up by the line “It's in our heart, in our heads, in our love, and in our beds.”
Animal Collective
3/5
Better than most post-rock, which I find is a bit too prog-like, clever clogs for me. This was released with much hype in 2009 (a bi of a low-point in 'alternative" music, IMHO). Lots of publications had this as their album of the year, which surprises me. Has this aged as a classic, where people sing along to the songs when heard? I think not. But this is more enjoyable than I had expected. Unlike much post-rock, which tends to be dour and tuneless (thanks for that, all you angst filled middle class white boys), this album trades in joy and Beach Boys-like tunes. Not great tunes, but pleasant enough. I think the drowned in sounds review (http://drownedinsound.com/releases/13913/reviews/4136043) captures it best when stating that this reflects their live sound at the time. This is electronic-based music designed to be played at summer festivals, and get the audience dancing along. I like the analogue feel of the recording. By that, I mean the way that the samples (which make up most of the tracks)_ have been degraded into a warm, fuzzy wash of eccentric loops and weird rhythms. I'm sure this album was blast live, and is Ok on record. better than I was expecting, and I pleasantly enjoyed listening to it 3 or 4 times through, although no songs really stuck in my mind. (I think the fact that Pitchfork listed My Girls as their #1 song of the year tells you much about 1- the standard of what was released that year, and 2- the pretensions of Pitchfork).
Crowd pleasing arena rock. A return to a more classic U2, and purpose engineered to play in front of 30,000 people a night. Front loaded like crazy (the first four songs are the four singles), it starts to drag in the back half.
It's a very U2-y album, but feels a bit shallow and superficial compared to Joshua Tree or Achtung Baby, which an inevitable side-effect of being designed to play big live.
Beatles
5/5
So many reasons that this album is important; it's the first album that the Beatles made as an album. Although the recording period is ridiculously short (113 hours to record, plus extra days for mixing), it was a generous period of not begin (too) distracted by other commitments. Although embellished with some exotic overdubbing and studio technique, the core performances are still tight band performances as per their early output. Heavily influenced by American rock (soul, Motown/Stax, country rock, folk, Dylan, Byrds) and their first psychedelic drug experiences, the songs have started be more lyrically and emotionally sophisticated. And, because it is the Beatles, it is massively influential and changes the way that rock and pop musicians thought about the album format. Prior to this, even BEatles albums were often really filler, kind of an alternative product secondary to the all-important singles. While not quite at the point where singles are included on UK releases routinely, this is an album that was intended to be of high quality and listened to all the way through. There are no covers or throw-aways. The content is more challenging, philosophical and introspective, and it's got crackin' tunes. Personally, I could do without 'Michelle' (one of Paul's 'granny tunes'), but it's popularity paid the bills. This is one of the albums that changed everything in popular music, and totally deserves to be on this list.
John Martyn
4/5
This is possibly the most laid-back album I have ever heard. Smooth, jazzy, mellow without being mere wallpaper. The mixture of jazz, folk, blues and a little bit of rock is wonderful. I knew the title track already, but was surprised at how much each song has its own identity. I listened to this three times through in a trot. This goes onto my want list. Was it massively influential? Possibly not, but a great, great record.
Stereo MC's
3/5
Pleasantly funky and reasonably positive dance/hip-hop/indie crossover thing. Lyrics are nothing to write home about, but has a positive (if slightly superficial) vibe. Tends to blend into a funky wash. I'm sure they were fun live. Sample choice is exquisite, and they are tastefully deployed (which is certainly much better than most early 90s equivalents), which make this album sound less dated than many of its contemporaries. I like Connected, which is a great single, but the album is more of the (pretty good) same.
2/5
When Radiohead stopped making proper guitar albums after OK Computer, other bands moved into the space that had been abandoned. Coldplay took the softer end, and built a stadium sized career out of it, and Muse ditto with the louder end. It is no surprise that the bombastic end of Radiohead crossed with a healthy dose of Queen also turned out to be a stadium-filling beast. With magpie like references to other moments of bombastic excess (Soundgarden, Ennio Morricone, ELO), this is cleverly composed, schmickly produced, and expertly played, but really, at the end of the day, this is sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Cee Lo Green
3/5
I feel like I have reviewed a bunch of albums like this; perfectly produced, highly skilled, over long... it doesn't have the slight edge that captures my attention. Another Ok album I don't think I ever need to hear again. And did it really need to be 73 minutes long? Interestingly, once spotify had finished playing this album, it started on his first album, which grabbed my ears much more immediately
The Pharcyde
3/5
Fun, funny and funky. I've had a few gangsta rap albums recently, which I find totally toxic. This was a breath of fresh air by way of comparison. Enjoyable, if not super memorable. I wish the skits were gone. Passin' Me By is a highlight.
Fleetwood Mac
3/5
Fleetwood Mac are my favourite radio band. If one of their songs comes on the radio, I will always turn it up and sing along. Love it. But I never choose to put their records on the turntable, with the exception of the Tusk 7”, which I love for its weirdness and the nostalgic memory of the ABC playing the video in the 5 minute break between the Goodies and the 7pm news on a pretty regular basis. I know the reputation of this album; wilfully weird, overblown, expensive and coked out. This was Lindsay Buckingham’s reaction to the incredible success of Rumours and the rise of post-punk. He wanted to forge his own thing, and this was it. It amazes me that he spent a million bucks recording an album that sounds this badly recorded. Never before, and likely never again.
Is this Fleetwood Mac’s White Album? There are some superficial similarities (double album, studio weirdness, clearly identifiable songs from different songwriters, arguably better as a single LP, but no one will agree on what tracks would be on it). There is probably a pretty good follow-up to Rumours if you compiled the Stevie Nicks and Christine MacVie songs, with the fresher production take preventing it from being just Rumours 2.0. And the production on these songs is not that weird. This would a total radio favourite and solid 3 star album.
And then an album of Lindsay Buckingham songs, especially The Ledge, Walk a Thin line and Tusk. They are idiosyncratically recorded (although now quite contemporary sounding). They are strong songs, but with quite an unusual approach for the time, which has been quite influential in the 2000s. I can see why the hipsters picked up on this record. I am considering playlisiting just his songs for an Abbreviated Tusk, which would be an interesting listen for me, and something I would play regularly. More to my taste, and 4 stars.
But, as it stands, this is a three star album. Like it, a few standout tracks, but needs a big edit and would never choose to put it on the turntable.
The Jesus And Mary Chain
4/5
This album was really influential for me. IO started listening to Triple J about the time this came out, and so thought this was kind of normal. Later, I discovered it was not. The J&MC really picked up on the noise factor from the Velvet Underground (along with other influences, like the Beach Boys, girls groups, Suicide, Einsturzende Neubauten, and Phil Spector) to create a "high IQ, low technqiue" (to quote Lour Reed's NYT obit) pop musique. Not easy listening, but I like that. I like that a lot.
MC Solaar
3/5
Smooth, funky, sophisticated in both flow and production. Exquisite sample choice. This has dated really well (although I suspect the French rapping covers any lyrical deficiencies). Pleasant and laid back without being wallpaper. I regularly play the 12" of the title track in my DJ sets, and the album stands up similarly well, with the exception of Ragga Jam, which is the fly in the ointment of this album.
Blue Cheer
4/5
As pitchfork says, Blue Cheer are "musicians who... live not to perfect their technique, but to simply rock.". Well, that sounds GREAT to me. The playing is rough as guts and pretty over the top, especially the lead playing. Lots of bends and trills, feedback, barely in tune. The slow, heavy, vaguely blues based playing is a prototype for metal in general and stoner rock in particular. This is the shit. This sounds like they set up in a room, chucked a few mics in randomly and just started jamming it out. It's loud, noisy and obnoxious. And that's what I like!
PJ Harvey
3/5
I immediately feel in love with the music of PJ Harvey when she first appeared, and her first three albums were all played repeatedly and religiously at my house. I found her powerful, emotional, honest and with the ability to rock. I really liked the raw production of her first two records (Steve Albini seemed a really good pick for her), and the change to \"To Bring You My Love\" was welcome. The brooding, seething restraint of To Bring You My love is a masterpiece that I am, frankly, surprised to see is not on this list. But, as I listened to less new music in the late 90s and early 2000s, I lost track of her new release. I certainly continued to read about PJ Harvey, and saw her live at the Enmore Theatre in the 2000s.
Which brings me to this album, that I do not care for. Maybe it's because I don't care about England and its travails. It seems overly cerebral and emotionally distant (compared to her earlier work). I understand she changed her vocal style to make the songs work, but I don't like it. Her power and immediacy seems diminished to me. The arrangements don't hang together for me. It doesn't move me. Again, I suspect, because I don't really care about the thematic material. I am disappointed, because I really was hoping that this would be a really great album that I just hadn't heard yet.
Dead Kennedys
4/5
This is one of my favorite punk albums ever. it's got cracking tunes that barrel along at a breakneck pace, without becoming repetitive. The songs are smart and funny, and Jello Biafra presents them with force and charisma. It is serious, but never self-serious. Following Holiday in Cambodia (an all-time classic) with a cover of Viva Las Vegas is the perfect encapsulation of what is great about this record. There's always room for Jello.
The Specials
5/5
Rarely has a band emerged with its first album with such a clear vision statement. The look, the sound, the politics and the voice of this band is clear and strong on this record. The Specials were an integrated band, with equal influences from black (ska, reggae, soul, r'n'b) and white (punk, rock) forms. Politically engaged in the new Thatcherite England, they were both protesting and ready to party. Elvis Costello did a great job of capturing the live feel of their performances (although some contemporaneous reviews bemoan how much slower the record is than their live shows). Smart, political, and above all fun, this is such a great record. It makes me wanna take to the streets in protest _and_ dance.
Def Leppard
2/5
This is probably the most perfect pop-rock album ever made. And that is not a good thing. polished within an inch of its life, this is just bloodless and over-long to me. Steve Albini was right when he said if you assemble perfect parts together, it doesn't make a sexy rock record. So, so polished, and over long. "Perfection" really doesn't do it for me. I know it sold a gazillion copies, and I am glad it exists, if only to prove why this approach doesn't work. It is charming enough not to be loathsome, but I really don't need to listen this again. although sitting through an hour of this is boring, and like eating an entire cheesecake. (A single piece is a tasty treat, two is too much, and a whole cheesecake will make you want to vomit and never eat cheesecake again).
I can't believe that there is a ANOTHER Def Leppard album on this list. Why two, for god's sake? What else do they have to offer?
Sade
4/5
So, usually, I don't lie things that are too smooth and polished. I like a little bit of grit. But this album is an exception. I really love it. I love her voice; smooth and airy, no over-singing, just a little bit of breathiness. The lyrical content, I think, adds just that little bit of frisson. The romantic situations described a bit seedy, a bit gritty. I was interested to read that, because they were working at a relatively inexpensive studio without automation, they recorded live and with six people working the faders to mix, so I think there is a touch more human feel than something recorded to the grid, with samples and lots of synths and super smooth mixing. This sits right on the line between smooth jazz that becomes wallpaper lite and a laid back, mellow reverie. A quiet storm. I think this is on the right side of that line, and set a path for a whole range of British jazz-inflected music to come (Soul II Soul, trip hop, etc).
Really, though, the reason I love this album is because my first girlfriend really liked it, and we listened to it a lot together. So, some fond memories there.
ZZ Top
4/5
ZZ Top's first album recorded in a real studio, and the quality shows. They had clearly been gigging like crazy over the previous few years, and so this unfussy recording of them as a tight live unit really shines. And they had material that really shows off their southern swamp boogies meets Texas blues at its best. Is it groundbreaking? Not really, but it is a kind of best-in-class for this type of thing. Short, sharp and to the point, with no wasted time or filler, this is a catchy and highly listenable album. La Grange still gives me a pavlovian need to play the Getaway pinball.
Elbow
3/5
This is another example of early 2000s indie-style that passed me by. It's not as bad as indie filler, but still doesn't really set my world aflame. A few good tunes (Grounds of Divorce, One Day Like This) that catch my ear. It's OK, I guess.
Alice Cooper
3/5
Big, cartoonish Bob Ezrin production. Fun, technicolor, dramatic. This is good example of the 70s tendency towards big stage shows (the live recordings on the deluxe version show how well they transitioned this to the stage). Fun and funny, but not an album I NEED to own.
Fishbone
4/5
Fishbone are one of the best live bands I have ever seen; they play a wide ranging and eclectic range of styles (metal, punk, funk, ska, etc) with versatility and high energy. With a solid rock core, augmented with multiple singers, keys and brass, they blew the audience away in the early 90s. This album is where they first starting bringing the metal elements into their sound, and really becoming what Fishbone are. They are also starting to turn their minds to more political material, with more lyrical concern particularly on race issues (although there are still plenty of party tunes on here).
That said, the common wisdom on Fishbone is that their records never really captured the incredible live band they were, and this album (which I really enjoy) shows that partially to be true. They are a bit stilted in the studio, and the recording is not all it could be.
Interestingly, I had just been listening to Alice Cooper's Billion Dollar Babies immediately before switching to playing this, and this sounds tinny and thin by way of comparison with Bob Ezrin's 70s production. It could be an artifact of the period in which it was recorded, and/or modest recording budget. Their next record, Reality of my Surroundings, has a much fuller sound, and they are the better for it.
But this belongs on the list as an example f a truly eclectic band that could bring the goods in any style they brought their mind to.
Saint Etienne
3/5
Cute left-of-centre dance-y, pop album. Fun but slight.
Crosby, Stills & Nash
3/5
I can see why this is a classic. Amazing harmonies, some stellar (if sometimes dated - I'm looking at you, Marrakesh Express) songwriting, and really tasteful production from Stills that never overpowers the vocals. If you were a singer-songwriter, this would be the bible.
2/5
... and so is this album. I'm sorry, that is a bit harsh, but these headlines just write themselves.
I never really understood the cult of Blur. Some great singles, but over-rated albums. It's a British thing, isn't it? But it really is just an updated Kinks, Maybe you had to be doing coke in Camden in the 90s with the Britpop crew to really _get_ it..
And in fairness, I'm not British, and so the specific concerns of such and Anglocentric album don't really speak to me.
(I do like the cover art, though. That's a cool train.)
The Yardbirds
2/5
Jeff Beck plays up a storm, but this album is a cross-over between the blues purism of Clapton-era Yardbirds and psychedelia. And doesn't really do either particularly well. Keith Relf's voice doesn't inspire, the production is often thin, and the songs are underwritten. An album I can live without.
Bee Gees
1/5
I hated this overblown, [pretentious piece of over-long wannabe concept album garbage. I could enumerate the ways, but I just want the bitter taste of this record out of my mouth.
Queens of the Stone Age
4/5
I am a huge Kyuss fan, and really liked the more rockin' QOTSA albums. I am surprised that this is the only QOTSA album on the list, and especially given that it has been so hard to find, and made (frankly) little impression. But it is a bit of a transitional piece, with some recognizable Kyuss qualities (yay!) and a clear indication of where QOTSA was heading. Josh Homme's guitar and vocals are distinctive, and his penchant for a nice vocal melody make his work int he field of heavy rock stand out. I am really surprised that they chose this record over Rated R or Songs for the Deaf (which are in this mold, but also sold a gazillion copies, at a time when rock was not fashionable). 4/5 would recommend, would listen again, would buy.
Public Enemy
5/5
The first PE album certainly felt like something fresh and different when it came out, but this second record is where PE really flexed into the iconic outfit that they became. faster, harsher sounding, more political than anyone had been before, this is the Public Enemy that really blew the doors off.
Jeru The Damaja
3/5
It is unusual that I have never heard of the artist or album for a must-hear record. Better than average early 90s NY rap. It does not fall into most of the usual traps of gansta rap (which I cannot abide). I enjoyed the singles, and the production is crunchy and discordant in a way that really appeals to me. "Da bichez", however, I could live without.
Sebadoh
3/5
I am not normally a fan of the willfully obtuse lo-fi of the 90s. It often fails to rock.
But this record I enjoyed (much more than, say, Pavement, who I tend to think of as the emperor's new music). It fairly often rocks, the tunes are memorable, and the album overall is muscular and thought out. Sometimes it embraces 'weirdness' in a way that reminds me a little of Primus. I am OK with the use of dissonance and/or a failure to tune the guitars. That's OK, that can rock. A pleasant surprise. Would listen again.
Sarah Vaughan
4/5
Super smooth. Sarah Vaughan is up there in my favourite jazz vocalists, and I think this is the album of hers that I have most enjoyed. Stripped of her usual highly orchestrated, string-heavy arrangements to a bare trio backing, intimately recorded, you get to hear her beautiful tone and phrasing without distraction. There is a touch more breathiness and slight husk in the quieter moments that sounds close and real. Her ability to deliver a real emotional content is wonderful. Probably my favourite Sarah Vaughan record, and I will probably pick a copy up when I see one around. Love the versions of Just a Gigolo and How High the Moon that close out this album.
Miles Davis
4/5
Bitches Brew. This is classic album that changed the face of music. Miles took the rock and funk influences (courtesy of Betty Davis) and turned it into a new thing that nobody else could have imagined. I find this album hypnotic, but hard to love. It's a pretty challenging listen, but easy to respect. It's a borderline for five stars, but, given that I prefer On The Corner, this is nearly, but not quite, perfect. Call it 4.8, maybe.
Echo And The Bunnymen
3/5
Ooff, are Echo and the Bunnymen possibly the most overrated band of all time? Certainly if you listen to how they describe themselves ('the greatest album of all time!"), they could never possibly live up to the hype.
Obviously, 1001 albums love them, as there are three (THREE!) of their albums on this list, of which this is probably the best.
Orchestral arrangements that walk the tightrope, staying just on the right side of bombastic. The lyrics are not nearly as clever as Ian McCullough thinks they are, which makes them the Doors on the 1980s. And they have dated about as well (ie, they have a shrinking fanbase that agree that they are all that, but the rest of the world shrugs).
That said, Killing Moon is a real cracker of a song, distinctive, spooky, soaring, and side two of the original vinyl is generally pretty damn good.
But not as good as they think they are.
The Mothers Of Invention
3/5
This is tough one. I find Zappa undercuts his ability to rock with being willfully clever. And it was apparent from this first album. I like that the band is a pretty good 60s garage band, and the garage rock (Motherly Love) or doo-wop (Go Cry On Someone Else's Shoulder) influences are fun. The satirical content is high, although the creeping misogyny sits poorly. The whole thing could use a tighter edit (even Zappa agreed that The Return of The Son of Monster Magnet is unfinished). I guess it was pretty innovative at the time to include cut-ups and musique concrete, and even satire in rock was new, but I still find it hard to sit through sometimes. It's hard to dance to, you know? Too much talk, not enough trousers.
Killing Joke
4/5
I loved being introduced to this. This is an ur-text for much of my favorite music, esoterically the industrial stuff I love. A mixture of metal, dub, krautrock and post-punk, the claustrophobic, apocalyptic sound is muscular and riving. I enjoyed this so much, and it goes onto my must-get list.
Rush
2/5
I want to like Rush, and this is the album I _would_ like if I liked Rush. But I just don't.
Radiohead
3/5
Sometimes criticized for not being as much of a reinvention as their previous few albums, this is a bit of a return to a more standard style (more guitar, keyboards, more usual song structures, recorded quickly and in a more live format), although this could hardly be accused of being a ordinary or pedestrian album. I find it a bit of a relief to return to something more approaching a band-like format rather than the deliberate experimentation of the previous few albums. it is hardly OK Computer, though. I found this pleasantly listenable, in not particularly memorable or enervating. It is nice to hear the occasional guitar that sounds like, you know, a _guitar_.
Erykah Badu
4/5
Jazz and soul inflected, with soem strong songs, the album is laid back and meanders a bit, but this reflect the way it was made. The album is long and unfocussed for a reason; it's the vibe. Possibly one of the strongest of the soulquarian/neo-soul albums of this period, Badu's voice is at its peak. Questlove and (especially) Dilla bring their woozy rhythms to play.
Yes
2/5
I am not a fan of prog, not a fan. Did not hat e this as much as I expected; The B3 keyboards of Tony Kaye is far less pretentious and widdly-widdly than the subsequent synthesizer overkill of Rick Wakeman. New boy Steve Howe hasn't gone full prog yet, either. This still sounds like a rock band, as opposed the the over-arranged clever-clogs, full blown progressive of the 70s that was right around the corner. As with all prog albums, moments of rock and roll appear, only to be lost in a swamp of tedium. All talk and no bloody trousers. Even Classic Rock magazine thinks this album is not up to par (but could have been., and they _like_ this stuff.
According to wikipedia, they were on the verge of being dropped by their label, but avoided this by using an opportunity to manipulate the charts to goose the release until it got its own sales legs. prog: it's the emperors new music.
The Young Rascals
2/5
Pretty good pop from the mid 60s. A bit garage (although a bit polished for my taste), and a bit psychedelic (although , again, not as much as I would prefer). 8 of 11 songs were released a single,s which speaks to the strength of the album. But the Beatles, it ain't. "How can I be sure" is a great song, although I prefer the Dusty Springfield version. "You Better Run" is a the most rock track on the album, which has almost enough grit for my taste. I will never listen tot his record again, I'm sure.
The The
4/5
I was a big fan of this record when it first came out in 1986; bought the album and a couple of the singles. I really liked the sound of the record, which sounded contemporary without being plastic, and I liked the songs, which were a strong mix of the political and personal. Political without being straight polemic (of which there was quite a bit at the time. Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan had a bit of blame, there), and personal in a way that was angsty and self-lacerating, which fit with my world outlook at the time. Listening to it now, the lyrics are maybe not as mature and sophisticated as I thought they were when I was 16, but that is to be expected.
The album has some cracking tunes and catchy rhythms (it's got a good beat, and I can bug out it), and the mix of electronic and acoustic instrumentation means that it still holds up now. It sounds of its time, but not really dated. The presence of Neneh Cherry (and few other noted backing vocalists) certainly injects a spark, and stops it from being too blokey.
I enjoyed re-visiting this old favourite, and I feel that I should play it more often.
OutKast
4/5
What I like about classic hip-hop albums: they are fun and funky, and full of ideas. What I don't like: they can be sooooo long, and skits. I mean, I love 3 feet high and rising, but why did people take away that the skits were the best bit of the record?
This is, to my mind, the best Outkast album. It is less schizophrenic than Speakerboxx/Love Below and comes across as an integrated whole. The sue of live musicians gives the album a harder rock/funk edge which channels the influence of P.Funk, Prince, Hendrix etc without ever being a mere copy. The higher tempos give this album a lot of energy. The singles are outstanding, and most of the rest of the album is on point, not too much filler (although, I would prefer a shorter album overall). Also, they have toned down the misogyny and violence that is often overwhelming in hip hop, which is sweet blessed relief. Overall, a classic.
Super Furry Animals
2/5
I blame Pet Sounds. Weird does not equal genius. It didn't for Brian Wilson ('Vegetables', anyone?) and it certainly doesn't for second-tier English indie bands. There are so many albums like this on the list, and they are really starting to bore me. Just because a band was an NME darling for a year or two does not make them essential listening. (Fun fact: NME described this as their \"worst album\". Inevitable backlash, much?))
This album is some (very) average songs wrapped in fancy 'experimental' production. I'm reading wikipedia about the album, and heard that they had Paul McCartney recreating his celery eating on the track Receptacle for the Respectable. Case in point about this band taking exactly the WRONG LESSON from Pet Sounds. Too much time and money, not enough song.
Living Colour
4/5
Again, another album I loved as a teenager. Hard rock/metal that isn't mind-numbingly dumb (although the lyrics are not the most sophisticated ever. They tend towards basic agitprop, but they aren't stoopid). They leaned into being a Black metal band, bringing their politics and musical influences with them (particularly elements of funk). Great, but unsurprising in retrospect to see Chuck D and Flavor Flav guesting. Good on Mick Jagger for recognising their talents and producing a few tracks (although they are not my favourite tracks on the album). I tend to play Times Up more often as my real favourite Living Colour album, but this stood up really well. I think my own nostalgic fondness really helps boost this record for me. Probably a 3 star for most people, but I love it enough for 4.
Al Green
5/5
While know and love the title track well, I had never sat down and listened to this album all the way through. The joy of hearing this all the way through for the first time has been wonderful. I love the laid back, funky, generally simple arrangements that provide a perfect backing for the Rev Green's vocal stylings. His effortless transition into falsetto sounds so easy. But it has an authentic groove that sits deep in the music. Love this record. I need to rush out and get me a copy.
Manic Street Preachers
2/5
I tried to like the Manic Street Preachers, I remember standing in the record store I used to work in when their first album came out, reading the hype in the NME and listening to the album multiple times trying to get into it. But I never did. I could hear the hair metal influences (which they couldn't do properly), and there were elements of wanting to be the Clash (uniforms, political posturing, last gang in town vibe). But it just never gelled into anything that moved me. And there was certainly plenty of hype around "The holy Bible" when it came out; the last will and testament of Richey Edwards. Now, Richey was clearly a very unhappy lad, as evidenced from the lyrics of this pretty bleak album, and hammered home but his subsequent disappearance. That doesn't make it a very fun record, and the tunes don't lift it much. The production is not great, and everything sounds bit flat. Interestingly, their US record company (who they hated) remixed the album remixed the album for the US market. I (and, I gather , the band) prefer the US mixes now. I listened to this through three times, and it just won't stick. I don't hate it, but I didn't enjoy it. Edward's disappearance will always give this record some notoriety, but I find it a bit pretentious, lyrically bleak while musically uninspired (unlike, say, early Cure albums that manage to sound bleak and anxious to match the lyrical content), and without sufficient energy to grab me.
The Police
2/5
Schmick but a little soul-less. The singles are classics, the filler is Ok (with the 'more experimental' side 1, which is, really just filler). Too much coke, too much ego, recorded in separate rooms for "social reasons", everyone was at the height of their powers and the band was musically tight, but not integrated. The increased use of synthesizers means the rhythms are little less fluid than their earlier work, and the tensions have sapped a lot of the fun out of it. This is the Police album I am least likely to play.
MGMT
3/5
Pretty good singles (Time to Pretend, Electric Feel and Kids) that still sound quite fresh. Side 2, however, drags into aimless spaced-out rock. The Dave Fridmann production sound is all over this (cf Tame Impala and the Flaming Lips). I find it wears by the end of the album (especially that processing on the vocals, that is, ultimately a bit alienating). But those singles are pretty damn good.
Arcade Fire
2/5
Described as anthemic, grandiose, dramatic, sweeping, cathartic, emotional, oh, how the critics swooned.
I am so bored.
Bored, bored, bored, bored, boringly bored, bored, bored.
Wake Up is a pretty great tune, and is head and shoulders above the rest of the album. It started playing, and my ears immediately pricked up.
Ash
2/5
By teenagers, for teenagers. Some pretty catchy tunes (Kung Fu, Goldfinger, Girl Form Mars), with pretty high energy, that got a lot of airplay on Triple J at the time. It is not that different (in some ways) to the Hard-ons or Ratcat; catchy, if somewhat puerile, songs played with noisy guitars at reasonably high velocity (although the Hard-Ons pushed this concept a bit harder). And I loved that type of music when I was 16. I think this album would be terrific if you were 16 or 17 when released, and you could see the band at an all-ages show. Fun, but inessential. "I'd Give You Anything" stood out for me, because it sounds like the Stooges.
Butthole Surfers
4/5
Here's a record that I feel like I should have listened to a long time ago. This is right up my alley; heavy, weird, funny, trippy. I love how it leans into how badly recorded it is, and goes heavy into the weirdness. Lots of effects and strange production techniques on what is a pretty punk album, which makes it sound like nothing else. I love the fired take on Black Sabbath ('Sweet Loaf'), plus the backwards tape, effects, sound effects and found tape. It is pretty unsettling, but there are songs o n here that rock pretty hard, and few memorable riffs (if no tunes to speak of). I've listened to this three times through today, and really dig it. (I do like that it doesn't outstay its welcome. 30 minutes is about perfect timing for it to barge in, mess your head up, and then ride off into the sunset.). I really would liek to give this 3.5 stars, but I can't, so I'm going to lean towards 4, because this was a lot of fun, and I will buy a copy next time I see one at a reasonable price.
Minor Threat
2/5
Minor Threat are massively influential on punk/hardcore. This was their only album and so I see why it was on this list, and the critical consensus is that they were becoming more adventurous with their musical structures and reflecting on their own thematic concerns on contributions. But, really, it is their early singles that wrote the playbook for hardcore (esp. straight edge) and should be the required listening. I am glad I listened to this, but don't feel the need to ever listen again. (I find hardcore fun live, but find recorded hardcore inessential and repetitive).
The Cars
3/5
Apparently, even the band though this album should be called \"The Cars' Greatest Hits\". Front-loaded with three all-time great singles, many of the remaining tracks are staples of American AOR radio (although less so here). And they are really catchy singles, that still sound fresh, and helped create the formula for American New Wave. Are the watered down Cars- wannabees to blame for the relatively anodyne nature of American New Wave, especially when compared to English post-punk? Can we entirely blame the Cars for their pale imitators? This was so heavily imitated over the following decade. Clearly, this was super-influential on 80s pop, especially in America, for better or worse.
Really, this is fairly typical pop-rock, dressed up in clean, fresh sounding production (courtesy of Roy Thomas Baker). The keyboards are the real stand-out feature on this record, and the thing that lifts it above its U.S. peers.
The Cars are a 'radio band' for me; I enjoy their songs when they come on the radio, but I don't think I would ever choose to put one of their records on the turntable. I might buy a copy if I found one for <$10, but I would only ever play side 1 (and probably lift the needle after \"Just What I Needed\").
Beatles
5/5
This is my favourite Beatles album, which I measure by the album I am most likely to put on the turntable. I don't even really know where to start; this is, I think, pound for pound, the best album by the best band ever.
David Bowie
4/5
I really love the Berlin-era Bowie albums, with their mix of krautrock, ambiance, new wave. Aspects of these records have inspired whole genres of subsequent music. I love the 'proper' songs on the first side (plus Secret Life of Arabia), all of which have Bowie in great voice. An old friend, Dave Chisholm, was a big fan of this ear of Bowie, and used to play this record obsessively. Joe the Lion was a particular favourite in that house.
Is it sacrilegious to say that the instrumental tracks on side two are... a little weak? They feel like filler on a very quickly recorded album during a prolific period? While undoubtedly ground-breaking at the time, others have much more successfully followed the ambient/post-rock genre into much more itneresting places. These are ur-texts, but sktech-luike compared to what follows.
Bowie has (successfully) distanced himself from his LA-based cocaine habit by re-locating the Europe, and in 1978 alone the had released 'Low', produced an album for Iggy ('The Idiot', also a classic), toured that record, recorded and released 'Heroes', then went back on tour again. Eno's influence is strongly seen on those instrumentals, plus the more experimental production choices, often as a result of using his Oblique Strategies cards.
Robert Fripp, guitarist extraordinaire (who turned up for duty, claiming that he hadn't played in three years) played all his parts in three days, on songs he had never heard before. His distinctive playing is especially notable on the title track. I think he is the secret weapon that really lifts this album into something special. I am big fan of his work on 'Scary Monsters', which also shows how well his style suits Bowie's vocals and song-writing.
I love and regularly play this album, although I confess I usually only play side 1.
Red Snapper
2/5
An OK, mostly instrumental album. Inflected with acid jazz, trip hop, hip hop etc, this is a pretty funky (if slightly mechanical) album of instrumentals. Not earth shattering. Really not sure why this is on the list.
GZA
3/5
Wonky, woozy, atmospheric, The beats are all out of time and tune, symphonic in scale, that gives this a cinematic feel. I haven't delved much into the whole Wu-Tang genre, but I find this enjoyable. Less violent and misogynistic than much contemporaneous gangsta rap, although still somewhat preoccupied with violence. I find the lo-fi, wonky production charming (and a precursor to the rhythmic innovations of J. Dilla). I have listened to this through a few times, and enjoy the flow and the weirdly funky backing tracks.
Skits on rap albums are a pet peeve of mine. The use of scratchy (and lengthy) samples from old martial arts films is a slightly better version of a skit, but still a bit annoying.
Black Sabbath
4/5
Oh this album does it for me. Quickly recorded (one day recording, one day mixing, almost no overdubs, except for some sound effects and the occasional double tracked solo), this band accidentally turned their limitations into a whole new genre. Guitar and bass playing unison riffs, sludgy rhythms, wildly bent notes, horror movie lyrics, heavy distortion all feature here as marks of a road-tight but not particularly competent band recording exactly as they played live. I listen to a lot of doom metal and stoner rock, and accident features of this record have been copied and codifed into key elements of the genre (eg, the wah bass solo at the opening of NIB, the slow, simple riffs in the title track, the double tracked solos, the tri-tone, unison riffing).
There is still a vestigial tail of Sabbath wanting to be a heavy blues band in the English fashion, but they clearly aren't Led Zeppelin, and you can see them discovering the things that made them Black Sabbath here (the name, the Hammer horror lyrics, the riffs!) which will reach its peak on the next few albums. The next few albums (Paranoid, Masters of Reality, Vol. 4) are the real classics, but I love the freshness and immediacy of this album. It was hated by critics at the time, but I love it.
Arrested Development
2/5
Played incessantly on Triple J at the time, I had no great love for Arrested Development then and no greater affection for them now. I remember a younger friend (probably 15 at the time) loving this, and blowing his mind when I played Sly and the Family Stone. Who are, essentially, a much better version of this.
This album is much more positive in tone than most hip hop of its era (mostly the incredibly violent and misogynistic gangsta rap), which is something of a relief, but it feels like a pale imitation of Sly and the Family Stone (sampled and interpolated across the album). It doesn't have the same freshness, surprises or sophistication as other 'conscious rap' of the time; the politics seems asinine compared to PE, less surprising than De La Soul, and less funky than Tribe. It feels like basic sloganeering when compared to the more nuanced lyrical approach of those other groups.
It's pleasant enough to listen to, although I would like a bit more grit in the production to give a more authentically funky feel. The constant scratching is occasionally annoying.
Some catchy songs (People Everyday, Give a Man A Fish, Tennessee), but I heard them enough on the radio back in the day to last me a lifetime.
Jimmy Smith
3/5
I have been listening to this record today while I work, and it has been a perfect album for that. It's smooth and funky, unobtrusive, and happily chugs along. I enjoyed. So many imitators have reduced this genre to a cliche, but this is the real deal.
I like this story from the BBC review: "The recently-departed Jimmy Smith, originator of the 'soul jazz' Hammond Organ genre, was such a spectacular success for Blue Note at the time of these recordings that label founder Alfred Lion admitted years later that the profits from Smith’s hits kept the company afloat for an extended period. Lion also once jokingly told his wife that he often considered selling off Blue Note around this time - just so he could become Smith’s tour manager; ‘that way,’ he explained, ‘I could get to watch him play every day’."
Amen, brother.
PJ Harvey
2/5
I immediately feel in love with the music of PJ Harvey when she first appeared, and her first three albums were all played repeatedly and religiously at my house. I found her powerful, emotional, honest and with the ability to rock. I really liked the raw production of her first two records (Steve Albini seemed a really good pick for her), and the change to \"To Bring You My Love\" was welcome. The brooding, seething restraint of To Bring You My love is a masterpiece that I am, frankly, surprised to see is not on this list. But, as I listened to less new music in the late 90s and early 2000s, I lost track of her new release. I certainly continued to read about PJ Harvey, and saw her live at the Enmore Theatre in the 2000s.
Which brings me to this album, that I do not care for. Maybe it's because I don't care about England and its travails. It seems overly cerebral and emotionally distant (compared to her earlier work). I understand she changed her vocal style to make the songs work, but I don't like it. Her power and immediacy seems diminished to me. The arrangements don't hang together for me. It doesn't move me. Again, I suspect, because I don't really care about the thematic material. I am disappointed, because I really was hoping that this would be a really great album that I just hadn't heard yet.
The Blue Nile
2/5
I understand why this album is beloved by audiophiles; it is beautifully recorded (in that 1980s digital way), with a pleasing reliance on real instruments instead of just synths as was the fashion. But it doesn't move me.
Rufus Wainwright
4/5
For a moment when this popped up, I though this was going to be Rufus featuring Chaka Khan. I confess to a second of disappointment when I realised it wasn't..
I approached this album with caution. I have heard the occasional Rufus Wainwright track, and I like his voice, but I have not listened to a whole album of his all the way through. given the size of his catalogue, it is helpful to have somewhere to start. I have some trepidation based on a number of interviews I have read with him over the years, where he often appears (highly) pretentious and quiet unlikable.
But what a revelation this record is. Listening to it, I was constantly reminded of Jeff Buckley, who was clearly an influential contemporary (rival?) of Rufus, directly stated in Memphis Skyline. But the similar influences (Judy Garland, chanteuse, folk, rock), sensitive lyrics and vocal phrasing (including use of falsetto), beautiful orchestration. In the same way that Buckley took a wide range of source material and constructed his own world, Wainwright does similarly.
But this is no mere Buckley-copy. He uses his (non-rock) popular music influences to create a distinct and beautiful musical world. This is an album that I am sure I will come back to.
Beyoncé
4/5
Nathan Rabin once said (https://www.avclub.com/volume-7-july-2001-1798220509) : The theme of most of Beyoncé Knowles’ hits, as both a solo artist and the lead singer of Destiny’s Child (otherwise known as “Beyoncé and two random women in the background”), can be reduced to “I’m awesome. Fuck you.”
It's hard to argue too much. Beyonce, she is awesome. I think Lemonade is her masterpiece album, but I can see how this album was an important step leading up to it. Collaged from bits of her own history and a patchwork of collaborators, it has her distinct vision all through it. There is a change in this album, as the thematic material becomes a bit more personal and the vision more sophisticated than just crushingly great pop music. This really preached a peak on Lemonade, which si an amazing record.
I think this record has some really great singles, but the album tracks are where some of the really interesting meat is.
The Cure
4/5
Pounding (yet distant) drums, chorused bass, slathered in reverb, this album is the blueprint for proper 80s goth. The last in the Cure’s trilogy of gloom-rock, this is the album where Robert Smith leans most heavily into his depression, to create what is probably the ur-text of miserabilism. Ironically, having got it out of his system, he starts producing more pop-like and up-tempo material, albeit with a dark edge and morbid sense of humour, leaving a flock of pale imitators in his wake. Not a lot of humour on this one though, it is bleak, bleak, bleak. Which can make is a dreary listen if you ain’t in the mood, but relatable if you are. This is, to my mind, the album that comes close to the true sound of depression. It never builds up too much energy, although it starts as foreboding and builds into overwhelming angst. Noisy, insistent, and anxious, it a smoothed out with a sheen of synth washes and digital reverb to be both spacious and claustrophobic. I used to listen to this a lot when I was 20, but haven’t spun it in a long long time, probably because I choose not to wallow in depression if I can help it, and this album invokes those feelings all too effectively.
Tori Amos
3/5
This one really demanded a close listen, like it really wanted your attention. I understand why fans are obsessed with this. The mixture of slightly obtuse lyrics with some pretty painful openness (esp. Me and a Gun) make this a challenging listen. her playing and singing remains fresh and immediate, thanks to some pretty tasteful and timeless production choices. There was a small movement of more honest female singer-songwriters at the time (Tracy Chapman, Melissa Etheridge, Suzanne Vega), but I think this record was still pretty influential on female singers in the 90s and Aughts; the way they presented and the topics they felt they could sing about.
Each time I listened to this record, I got more out of it. A sometimes uncomfortable listen, but rewarding.
Silver Jews
2/5
oof, do not like. Reasonably adequate country-backed songs, some clever lyrics, but the voice... I understand that the Silver Jews were originally intended to be deliberately bad, but I can't tell whether this singing is ironically bad or just plain bad. It is passionless, lifeless, tuneless and without flavour. Did not enjoy.
Steely Dan
3/5
My feelings on Steely Dan are reasonably well known. The Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004) describes this album as "cold-blooded L.A. studio rock tricked out with jazz piano and tough guitar." I find Steely Dan' s studio-slickness a little _too_ cold-blooded and there is a bit much jazz trickery for my taste, but I do like the tough guitar. I like it when they hit a groove (Your Gold Teeth) or let Skunk Baxter cut loose (his solo on The Boston Rag). I like Rick Derringer's slide playing on Show Biz Kids. But overall-it's still just a generally too clever-clogs for me. (although, I must say, of all the Steely Dan albums I have ever listened to, this is my favourite).
A story, though: I am raising a son who digs jazz. I don't know whether there is an element of youthful rebellion aimed at his father, or if Hal is just cleverer than me. He genuinely understands jazz in a way that I don't. He buys some pretty full-on jazz records (especially featuring drummers that he likes), but also is into 70s jazz-rock fusion. This album (along with a bunch of other out-of-print fusion albums) was on his Christmas list last year. I looked around, but couldn't find a copy. Early this year, I took him to some of my favourite second hand record stores to do some hunting, and he found a copy in the 5 LPs for $20 box. It was the bargain find of the day, and I could not be more proud. We buy cheap records, because they are cheaper to buy!
Leonard Cohen
4/5
Production is spare but still pretty. (Personally, I would like a little bit more grit in it, but you can't have everything). mostly simple acoustic guitar and bass arrangements, augmented with occasional strings, distant organ, even a little bit of fuzz guitar. And Jew's harp, for that extra bit of spice. Leonard's voice is not great, but he can (usually) sell the damn song. I think the weakest vocal performance is Bird on a Wire. I think he was intimidated by the song (and a really world-class standard song it is), and it took him another 10 or more years to settle into it. The songs are so great. They are so evocative. I realize that he almost never talks in generalities or abstract concepts. He tells the story through vivid and concrete images. I love that approach to lyric writing.
The Smiths
2/5
A deliberate choice by he 1001 albums project to send out this album today, 9 Sept 2022, on the news of Liz's departure? Maybe.
This is tough. While not a massive fan of the Smiths in the 1980s, I have come to appreciate Johnny Marr's playing (especially) and the dry wit of the lyrics, which stop the songs from being _too_ maudlin. The clever humour throughout, and especially when paired with the surprisingly muscular musicianship, makes this a classic album. I think the title track, Bigmouth Strikes Again and There is a Light That Never Goes Out are all classic songs, and the rest of the album is very strong.
But. And this is a big 'but'...
Morrissey's increasing and unapologetic racism and right-wing politics make this unpalatable for me. I just can't get the bad taste out of my mouth when I hear Morrissey. His words and actions after the Smiths have sullied and tarnished the Smiths' legacy. (Although there are occasional To quote Billy Bragg “whenever a Smiths track comes up I flip on … I just can’t … I love Johnny Marr, he’s the nicest man I ever met in pop music. So I really feel for him that the great work that he’s done should be tainted in this way.” (https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/may/30/bigmouth-strikes-again-morrissey-songs-loneliness-shyness-misfits-far-right-party-tonight-show-jimmy-fallon).
So, I recognise how great this record is, but it just leaves me feeling uncomfortable and slightly dirty listening to it. Sorry Moz, you stuffed it up for me. 5 stars for Johnny Marr, minus a bunch for Morrissey.
Elton John
2/5
Elton John doesn't do it for me. I know a lot of his material from its incessant play on commercial radio, and I enjoyed the biopic, but I would never choose to put any of his records on the turntable. I would not buy one from a $1 bin. I don't change the radio station when one of his songs comes on (as compared to Billy Joel, whose music I actively despise), but neither do I respond with familiar enjoyment (as opposed to Fleetwood Mac, who I always enjoy when they come on the radio).
I can no longer tell if his classic songs (and there are at least four of those on this album) are actually good songs, or just played so much that they are familiar. Like, just played so much that we confuse ubiquity for enjoyment. Those 'classics' (Candle in the Wind, Benny and the Jets, Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting, title track) aside, there is sooo much filler on this record. And some of it is bad, like "Jamaica jerk-off'? really? That's just embarrassing. This overblown double album desperately needed trimming down by half.
I found this a real struggle to get through.
I award Most Valuable Player to Davey Johnstone. His guitar playing is wonderful, when permitted to approach the front of stage.
Q-Tip
3/5
I always enjoyed Q-Tip's distinctive and understated flow. I really like the neo-soul influences on this album (real drums and instruments, old soul samples, collaborations with Dilla, D'Angelo, Raphael Saadiq, Norah Jones). It's got a gentle, sophisticated, easily funky sound. Really 'musical' for a hip hop album; these sound like proper songs, rather than tracks that occasionally feature a vocalist. This album was completely new to me, enjoyed it. Fresh. Favoruite tracks: Good Thang, ManWomanBoogie.
Digital Underground
2/5
Obviously, this album is aimed at having fun. I particularly enjoyed Humpty Dance (a classic party jam) and the way we swing (heavily built around a Jimi Hendrix sample. I love the way they scratch the original guitar solo into the song). Funky and fun, I found the adolescent sexual humour a little wearing after a while. Great singles, but hard to sustain for 70+ minutes. This could have been a really tight 40 minutes record. At least there are no skits.
My Bloody Valentine
3/5
My Bloody Valentine are one of the loudest bands I have ever seen live, int eh Sydney Refectory circa 1992 (on the loveless tour). Part of the aesthetic is the ear-bleeding volume that these songs were designed to be played at. A friend snuck a portable cassette recorder in the venue to bootleg the gig. The volume blew out the limiters on the recorder, and, when we listened back afterwards, the tape was basically a 90 minute wash of white noise.
So I love the noisiness, the wrongness of MBV. There are nice songs in there, but slathered in noise, mixed all upside down and drenched in reverb until the song almost disappears in to the background. Their next album, Loveless, is even more extreme and is their real masterpiece. This record is an important and revolutionary step from being a relatively "normal" 80s indie band towards the monumental epic that is loveless, but not fully given over to the weirdness of that record.
I enjoy listening to this (although I suspect many/most wouldn't) but, at the end of the day, loveless is the masterpiece,. This was a breakthrough, and inspiration and blueprint for the whole shoegaze genre, but MBV had further to go, out to an extreme where no-one has ever really managed to follow (not even the band themselves).
The Jesus And Mary Chain
3/5
A pretty good, more mature and certainly more restrained album than Psychocandy. But, for me, it doesn't have the visceral thrill of their amazing debut album.
Pink Floyd
5/5
Not the Pink Floyd album I have listened to most in my life (Wish you were here or The Wall), but probably the album of theirs that I like most now.
This record sounds really great; it is warm and organic and approachable, even with the fairly experimental bits on it (the loops, the speech snippets, the synths) It's like a blanket.
I stuggle sometime with =knowing whether songs are really great or just really familiar; these songs are really familiar AND really great. The lyrics aren't quite as deep as Roger Waters might think they are, but they aren't embarrassing or dumb. The more direct approach makes the emotionality easier to comprehend and relate to. In many ways, this is Floyd's most human record, and the tunes match that humanity.
Money, Time, Us and Them, and the Great Gig are all cracking tunes. Each song is pretty distinct, but unified by the warm tone and moderate tempo. (Nick Mason attributes the pacing to his then additional to prescription sedatives -- this was as fast as he could play at the time).
I find this a _really_ comfortable, familiar listen, like wrapping yourself in a blanket. It sounds of its time without sounding bad or irrelevant. It's not an embarrassing relic of its time. An absolute classic in my book. Five stars.
Radiohead
3/5
Sometimes criticized for not being as much of a reinvention as their previous few albums, this is a bit of a return to a more standard style (more guitar, keyboards, more recognizable song structures, recorded quickly and in a more live format), although this could hardly be accused of being a ordinary or by-the-book album.
I find it a bit of a relief to return to something more approaching a band-like format rather than the deliberate and extreme experimentation of the previous few albums. It is hardly OK Computer, though.
I found this pleasantly listenable, if not particularly memorable or enervating.
It is nice to hear the occasional guitar that sounds like, you know, a _guitar_.
New Order
2/5
Scattered in New Order's lengthy career are a handful of banging singles; Bizarre Love Triangle, Blue Monday, True Faith. But none of those songs appear on this album. I always felt that New Order were the emperor's new clothes.There's really not much there, covered over with a veneer of shiny dance production. The playing's not great, the songs are forgettable, the singing is average at best, the lyrics are banal... there is an occasional flash of energy (Sunrise or Face Up) or faux moodiness (Elegia), but not enough to lift this above a 'meh' rating for me. Bernard Sumner's guitar playing, in particularly, is irritating.
Both singles from the album were remixed and edited for single release, and in the case of Sub-Culture, heavily over-dubbed. These re-worked versions are much imp[roved (esp Sub-culture, which is almost a different song) more listenable, making the album version seem like a rough demo by way of comparison. This album is completely inessential in my opinion.
Frank Sinatra
5/5
I really dig this record. Frank Sinatra at the height of his powers, with some really great arrangements from Nelson Riddle. Classic uptempo numbers from the great American songbook, sung with such confidence. This is such a great, breezy listen of classic songs sung by one the greatest interpreters over one of the great bands. These are the reference versions of these standards.
I initially wanted to give this four stars, but I think I just talked myself into five stars. And, truth be told, if I put on a Sinatra album, it is always this or In the Wee Small Hours (if I want ballads). "How About You?" is playing as I write this review, and it genuinely provokes a smile. Can't ask for better than that.
Isaac Hayes
3/5
I think everyone is familiar with the the Theme from Shaft, It's iconic. I had never listened tot he soundtrack all the way through. I can see how influential the mix of funk, jazz and soul was on soundtracks over the following decades. Out of context as a soundtrack, I found much of this double album a bit wallpaper. The Bar-Kays are at the height of their powers, and the orchestral overdubs are really great.
The title track really stands out, as does Soulsville (with its riff lifted from Aretha's Never Loved a Man).
The track that really did it for me was Do Your Thing. It's the kind of psychedelic funk that I really go for. This is for sure going on my playlist. I am thinking that, when DJing, you could put this on, go for a wizz, get a drink, pop next door to order a pizza, have a chat with friends, maybe get another drink, and still get back to the decks in time to select the next platter. Awesome.
Morrissey
1/5
I won't listen to this. I struggled with the Smiths, but this is where Morrissey started going off the rails for me; the (ambiguously) anti-immigrant content of Bengali in Platforms, appearing on stage draped in the Union Jack, seemingly playing to the skinhead crowds at Madstock. He was challenged on it at the time, and never satisfactorily apologized or clarified that he was anti-racist; he just muddied the waters. His statements and actions since then really cemented his anti-immigrant, intolerant views.
I struggle with the issue of when an artist's behaviour crosses the line and I need to cancel my consumption of their work. I don't have a hard and fast rule. Often it is when their problematic views and behaviour start creeping into their work (like when Michael Jackson starts singing about saving the children) But, really, when it comes down to it, the line is when the ick-factor overwhelms my ability to enjoy the music. That's a pretty subjective line, but no more Morrissey for me. Too icky.
The Strokes
2/5
I always thought that the Strokes were over-hyped. Saviours of rock and roll or last of faux rock attitude by a bunch of over-privileged white guys squandering their talents on drugs and shagging models? The band has some rock chops, and they look great in skinny jeans. They are very stylish, but I find the vocals distant and aloof (not helped by the compressed and slightly distorted effect, apparently from singing through a Peavy practice amp). This just seems pretentious, guys.
And is their rock and roll attitude just a marketing ploy to make them seem edgy, when they really were just privileged careerist muso types? They removed the song "New York City Cops" (one of the few tracks on this album that I really like) after 9/11 out of a supposedly new-found respect for said NYC cops. They changed the cover art of the album because it was too racy for Walmart. Their rock and roll image just seems like a bit of faux-rebellious posturing to me.
When it comes down to it, I feel like I have heard it before and better. I get that every generation needs its own rock gods, and the Strokes were it for a certain generation. But the songs don't live up to the incessant critical hype.
This is probably really a three star album, but the hype has always annoyed me, and I feel like they never really delivered. So, one star off for that.
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
2/5
I am not fan of prog. It is often just too clever-clogs for my taste. And this album tends that way. great moments, never repeated, so it assiduously avoids groove or rock (although it could). You could sample almost any bar of this (especially side 1) and turn that into a whole song, but ELP just want to play every idea they ever had. (There is a four bar section at 2:50 the title suite that I really dig).
And the lyrics are nonsensical tripe... and yet, I didn't hate this. I could listen to this again. I would buy this from a $2 bin. Maybe even from the "5LPs for $20" bin. Faint praise indeed.
Aerosmith
2/5
So I read about how influential this album is; Nirvana, Guns 'n Roses, Metallica, et al. all cite this as a key text. And yet, it seems really flat to me. Often described as 'heavy', 'funky', 'rocking', I find it only kinda heavy, kinda funky and kinda rocking. I listened to this four times through. Back int he Saddle starts the album off with some promise, and then the rest of the record just fades into interminable boogie. Is it that the rhythms are too controlled? Is there too little dynamics? Is it slightly too polished? Not as funky as funky, not as heavy as metal, not as rock as anything?
The guitar interplay is certainly not to Stones standard, the boogie not to a ZZ Top standard (Waiting on the Bus came onto to my spotify playlist immediately after this record,m and it popped out immediate;y as a much better example of how to do this), not Zep standard anything.
I was just a little bored. I wanted a bit more rock, a bit more growl, and bit more funk,. and bit more edge.
Elliott Smith
3/5
Nice songs, really nicely recorded. I'm not quite sure why Elliott Smith has two albums on the must hear list. It's OK... just OK. Strong Beatles influences (which is a good thing) and more than a pinch of Nick Drake. Some good tunes, but a bit same-y. I like the production (acoustic and electric guitars, surprisingly muscular bass, very tasteful organ washes, intimately recorded vocals) and tunes better than the other Elliot Smith album I reviewed.
Sleater-Kinney
4/5
I have wanted to like Sleater-Kinney for soooo long, and I think (finally) the penny is dropping for me. Listening to this through three times in a row, and the songs are really starting to click for me. I always thought SK should be right up my alley (punky, impassioned, smart, fiery and fresh), and was disappointed that I didn't get it... but I think it has finally happened.
I am listening to it right now, and every song seems awesome and distinct to me, which it didn't earlier today. I love the way they weave their guitars in a way that is quite unique. It is reminiscent of the "guitar weaving' that Keith and Ronnie do in the Stones, but is also not like that at all.
I love the punk rock energy of this record, and the short songs. Not a lot of soloing. They really mean what they are presenting. I love that honesty and force.
Working in Scratches taught me to look out for women who had something to say. When I'm sick of hearing the same thing over and over (and let's face it, not a lot of blokes have anything fresh and interesting to say in the field of rock and roll), it's worth looking for women, who likely DO have something new and important to say (and a new way to say it). This album is a really good example of that. It took me a little work to understand it, but I'm really glad that I put in the effort. The rewards are great.
Thank you, 1001 albums generator, for forcing me to give this record the attention it deserves, and it finally made sense to me today. Only 20-odd years too late, but better late than never.
The Cardigans
2/5
Pleasant pop music. The overwhelming twee-ness is wearing after about three songs. There are a number of songs I could tolerate on a mix-tape, but a whole album is too much. I have no idea what this album did to warrant a place on this list (apart from the 90s ubiquity of "Lovefool") but I'm not sure it has aged well.
Abdullah Ibrahim
2/5
I found this bland. When the first track came on, I assumed that it was from c. 1960, and was surprised that it was from 25 years later. The ensemble playing was nice, and I liked the bass solo in the tittle track. The tunes are pleasant enough, but nothing really grabbed me.
I had never heard of this artist before, and have no idea why this is on the list. They are not an important artist, this album is far from ground-breaking or innovative. Surely there are far better and more notable jazz albums that deserved a place on the list above this.
(I am clearly feeling pretty cranky this week. I haven't really liked anything.)
Roxy Music
4/5
I love this first phase of Roxy Music (with and without Eno). Art rock that actually rocks. I was not familiar with this particular record, but I really enjoyed it. This is going on my "to buy" list.
Dire Straits
3/5
'Brothers in Arms' was played so much that I know the album by heart, even though I never owned a copy. I never need to hear that album again in my life, thank you very much.
I was expecting to feel similarly about this record. It is clearly a Dire Straits album (the mumbled vocals and distinctive clear guitar playing is all there from the outset). But I found this much more approachable and enjoyable than I was expecting. The band is tight and focused, with a clear, warm sound. The songs are likable, but lean really heavily on the Dire Straits sound to carry the weight. The last couple of tracks on side 2 are pretty weak, and I was a bit over it by then.
"Sultans of Swing" is still, to my mind, one of the best songs ever about playing in an unsuccessful band (neck-and-neck for first place with "Joe's Garage")
Lou Reed
2/5
So, my mate Dave and I have this game we play called "World's Worst Dinner Party", where you have to nominate the six absolute worst guests you can think of (living or dead), who would be the most unpleasant people to spend time with. The only rule of "World's Worst Dinner Party" is the Lou Reed Perpetual Chair. It is presumed that any list of worst possible dinner party guests must always include Lou Reed. Arrogant, angry, impatient, bleak and humourless.
I am massive fan of the Velvet Underground and (some of) his solo material. His "high IQ, low technique rock and roll" (to quote his NY Times obit) is the template for much of the music I love. Great musician, but awful human being (may he rest in peace).
I know of the cult of this album. It has a dedicated fanbase who have long championed this album, despite its poor initial reviews. I have tried a couple of times over the past 30 years to get into this album, but this is just way too bleak.
Apparently, producer Bob Ezrin told Lou that he thought his songs always had great story beginnings, but the stories never had endings. So Lou took his previously recorded song 'Berlin' and extended it out to a sort-of rock opera that tells the story of Jim and Caroline, drug addicts who descend into violence and destitution until their children are taken away and Caroline commits suicide. Well. hell, that is probably the predictable and inevitable endpoint of a Lou Reed story, but it is hard to listen to.
Ezrin's operatic production style (honed on Alice Cooper records, and eventually reaching its peak in The Wall) amps up the drama to frankly unbearable levels. The crying children at the end of "The Kids" is much too much for me to take (not helped by the possibly apocryphal story of how it was achieved: https://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2006/09/unusual_recordi.html ).
I appreciate the art of this album, but I never want to listen to it again.
Bruce Springsteen
2/5
I never got Bruce. His records just don't grab me (exception: Nebraska). I know this resonates for a lot of people, but doesn't for me. I understand that it is meaningful and moving etc, but it leaves me a little cold. I think it is, for me, a bit overworked. I listened through, but, honestly, it washes over me every time and I am unmoved.
This record strikes me as faux-working-class mumbling over bombastic production, punctuated with unnecessary saxophone solos.
The Smashing Pumpkins
2/5
Oof, this one was hard work, and let me tell you a round-about story as to why this is the album where the Pumpkins lost me...
In 1991, I was working at Scratches Records, and I did the import ordering. One day, I was on the phone to Dogmeat Dave at Shock Distribution, and he said “Mate, I’ve a got a record that I think you would really dig”. I agreed to take a copy, and the Pumpkins first album “Gish” turned up. And I put it out for sale, and never listened to it. And it sat there for (at least) three months without anyone even looking at it. So I thought “well, I should at least listen to this thing”, and chucked it on the turntable.
By the end of the first song I was hooked. It was heavy and fuzzy and trippy and I really dug it. So I bought that copy and took it home. And for the next six months I played it to everyone I could, and evangelised for the album. I played it a lot. But nobody could get a copy, because it wasn’t locally released yet, and the record company cracked down on imports because they were going to get around to releasing it locally, one day, perhaps. So, for a while, it was like a hidden treasure that I could share.
Eventually in June 1992, over a year after its initial international release, it was finally released locally and it took off like a rocket. Siamese Dream was even bigger. I liked the Siamese Dream album too, although the rawness of Gish was always my fave. (Thanks to Andy Winter, who bought me the coloured vinyl LP of Siamese Dream for my birthday). The Pumpkins were huge. I eventually saw them at the Big Day Out and Selina’s in January 1994, by which time they were mostly playing the Siamese Dream album, but they rocked pretty hard live.
So, then in 1996 they released this record. Now, I loved this band. I was all primed to love this record. I had some misgivings when I read this article in Rolling Stone prior to release (https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/smashing-pumpkins-disillusionment-obsession-confusion-satisfaction-88432/). It starts with Billy Corgan comping vocal tracks out of multiple takes and spending days mixing tracks. And, after all that, the vocals still came out as whining. He always had a tendency towards nasal whining, but when I read that this was _deliberately_ edited best of from multiple takes, I was a bit stunned. And it is such melodramatic self-indulgence. I mean, this thing runs two hours (except in the deluxe CD set, which runs six hours! Six. Whole. Hours.).
It was too much. I couldn’t take it. Corgan’s voice wears, particularly on the more ‘sensitive’ numbers where a better singer could have really made a difference. It’s not as psychedelic as previous records. I know lots of people say it is their masterpiece, and not as uniform as previous records, but it is sooooo looooong. And I get really bored. Does the processing and editing reduce the energy of the band (especially Chamberlain’s drumming)? I don’t feel like the guitar solos have the same fire that they did on earlier records (an artefact of Corgan sharing the duties with James Iha?)
Is there a really great 40 minute album in there? Undoubtedly. Personally, I would probably pull out the heaviest songs (Bullet with Butterfly Wings, Jelly Belly, Zero, Where Boys Fear to Tread, Scorched Earth, etc) for a full-on metal record. But, if you liked the ballads, there is probably a pretty good album there (although they are not so much to my taste). But I cannot get over the pompous humourlessness of this record, which was confirmed by the interview in that Rolling Stone article. I bought this when it came out, and listened to it all the way through maybe twice. I never wanted to listen to any new music by the Pumpkins ever again after that.
And I listened to it again today. And my feeling hasn’t changed; this record is a massive slog to get through, leavened with occasional highlights like “1979”.
Madness
2/5
\"Our House\" is one of the greatest pop songs of all time. Love it. Nothing else on the album rose to nearly the same level for me. The production was a little stilted, and meant most of the record doesn't quite have the rambunctious energy of the earlier Madness albums, which I missed.
Really, Madness were always a stellar singles band. Any one of their many singles compilations is a fantastic listen, and their albums are a little patchy, in my opinion.
Buzzcocks
5/5
Oh, yeah, this hits the spot. I saw the Buzzcocks at Selina's in early 1990. I though they were soooooo old (Pete Shelley was 34 at the time), but they really tore it up. They blasted out a blistering set of melodic punk with an energy level that 19 year old me found hard to keep up with.
If I am going to listen to the Buzzcocks, I usually listen to the compilation Singles Going Steady, because the Buzzcocks had a great way with singles, so I am not familiar with this, their first full album (except Fast Cars and I Don't Mind). But, wow, all killer, no filler on this album. I love the energy, and there are some cracking tunes. This goes on my "must buy" list. The reissue version that I listened to had Orgasm Addict and What Do I Get as bonus tracks, which really pushed this in 5 star territory for me.
The Smashing Pumpkins
4/5
Interestingly, it is only three days since the generator had me listening to Mellon Collie and the Infinite Pretension, which I kinda hated (or, at least, found very difficult to listen to all the way through). I loved Gish, so I will repeat the story…
In 1991, I was working at Scratches Records, and I did the import ordering. One day, I was on the phone to Dogmeat Dave at Shock Distribution, and he said “Mate, I’ve a got a record that I think you would really dig”. I agreed to take a copy, and the Pumpkins first album “Gish” turned up. And I put it out for sale, and never listened to it. And it sat there for (at least) three months without anyone even looking at it. So I thought “well, I should at least listen to this thing”, and chucked it on the turntable.
By the end of the first song I was hooked. It was heavy and fuzzy and trippy and I really dug it. So I bought that copy and took it home. And for the next six months I played it to everyone I could, and evangelised for the album. I played it a lot.
My then flatmate and friend, Andy Winter, managed to track down a first U.S. issue coloured vinyl copy of Siamese Dream when it was first released for my birthday. Thanks Andy! I remember at the time I wasn’t _quite_ as enamoured of this record as I was with Gish. It felt a little more bloated, with a tendency towards ballads (Today, Disarm), and it certainly revelled in its misanthropy and angst (even more than Gish, which was a little bit trippier). These were forewarnings of what was yet to come in the interminable bloat-fest that is Mellon Collie. But it was still a pretty rockin’ album. I saw them play this live at the Big Day Out and Selina’s in 1994. They mostly played this album, and they really tore it up. Corgan’s ability to rip out a screaming lead line was a sight to behold.
Listening to this record now, I probably like it better than I did then. The sound is HUGE, with massively overdubbed guitars, but with that fuzzy, all-tube tone. Corgan’s voice is still pretty whiny, but I feel like the harder rock material (Cherub Rock, Silverfuck, Geek USA, Quiet, etc) is a bit more suitable for a nasal vocal cutting through than his later penchant for ballads.
Some reviews at the time criticised it for being too angsty and over-produced compared to Nirvana, who were “more authentic”. Corgan’s ambitions to produce a monumental album were seen as too careerist. But, frankly, Nirvana sold a ton of records, and also are largely driven by angst. I’m not too sure what the qualitative difference is. And, of course, this record and Nevermind were both produced by Butch Vig. (Note that the Pumpkins used him first, for Gish, which was recorded and released before Nevermind)
Special note: this album was mixed by Alan Moulder. Part of what I have noticed as part of this project is how often his name pops up as an important contributor (engineering, producing, mixing) of many of the most important (and great sounding) records of the 1990s and beyond. Great work, Alan!
Anyway, I really enjoyed listening to this heavy, fuzzy, angsty piece of hard rock again. This goes back on the rotation list.
Everything But The Girl
2/5
This does nothing for me. Gentle, almost soporific. I don't find the tunes particularly memorable. Playing is tasteful. The drum machines give me the irrits; this needed either a good drummer or use of sampled loops (as they did on subsequent albums) to give it a bit more swing.
I do own a copy of this record, but I note that I have put on consignment for sale at Scratches Records, Newtown (head on down! say hi to Lorenz for me!). I know that I listened to it before I sent it out for sale, but cannot remember a thing about it. Listening to it today re-affirms my decision. Inessential for me.
Suede
3/5
Pretty adequate Bowie/Smiths knock-off. I remember the hype in the NME when Suede first appeared. Their early singles featured on this album are pretty strong, and I bought a copy of this album around the time it came out. Have not played it in quite a while... Is it on the list as the most dramatic example of an over-hyped English band (on the cover of the NME before they even had a record out)? They delivered a pretty good record, but an all-time classic? Perhaps not.
Bernard Butler does a lot of the heavy lifting with some pretty flash guitar work that evokes Mick Ronson-era Bowie. Brett Anderson's tendency to yelp gets a little wearing after a whole album, and the lyrics (with their "shocking" androgyny and hints at bisexuality) are a bit embarrassing now, but they could crank out a tune. The singles (Metal Mickey, So Young, The Drowners, Animal Nitrate) are pretty strong. I like that the production still is a bit of rough-around-the-edges, which is to my taste.
I might try to spin this a little more, but I do think you could live a long and happy life without this record.
Cornershop
3/5
I only know the Fatboy Slim remix of "Brimful of Asha", which is an absolute banger and one of the top singles of the 90s. I had tried listening to the album version before, and found it uninspiring compared to the more upbeat and energetic remix. So I was not expecting to enjoy this album much.
And yet, I find it charming. I like the laid-back funkiness of it all, the mixture of English and Punjabi singing, and the way that diverse elements are incorporated into a whole that feels consistent and integrated. I quite like the instrumentals (like Butter the Soul, It's Indian Tobacco My Friend, or State Troopers). Good To Be On The Road Back Home and We're in Your Corner are highlights for me.
Could they have trimmed 10-12 minutes off this to make it a really tight 40-odd minutes? That would have suited me, but this is an album that isn't in a hurry so stretching out a little is OK. It doesn't outstay its welcome.
Surprisingly enjoyable.
Thundercat
3/5
It's nice to see evidence that Wynton Marsalis did not, despite his considerable efforts, manage to kill jazz stone dead as a musically innovative genre.
This album swings between funny and profound, socially-aware and absurd,light and dark in content, although musically consistent.
Despite the 23 mostly short tracks, this is so consistent in overall tone and feel, that I found that, if I didn't really concentrate on what was being played and sung, it tended to all wash over me as a bit background. pretty, a bit funky, a bit of mid-tempo, funk-inflected afro-futurism. OK fun.
Einstürzende Neubauten
3/5
Around 1990-91, I was a volunteer at 2SER student radio. Mostly, I did technical work helping my mate, Tim. Panelling, editing, that kind of thing. In 1991, Einsturzende Neubauten were touring Australia and there was an offer to do a radio interview with 2SER. I could actually pronounce “Einsturzende Neubauten” and knew a little bit about the band, so it was decided that I would do the interview. Which was not really my thing, but it came with perks; tickets to their show at the Phoenician Club and a copy of the Strategies Against Architecture LP, so I said OK. I knew the legendary Blixa Bargeld has a reputation for not suffering fools, so I tried to prep questions that were interesting. So, on the day of the show the plan was to go down to the club after soundcheck and interview Blixa. It was a bit intimidating. I mean, EN were one of the world’s most dangerous bands, and Blixa also played in the Bad Seeds, which made him an underground legend. Tim and I were in the equipment room gathering up a portapack and mics and whatever else we needed, when someone comes running in the room whispering “There’s a vampire in the lobby, and he’s looking for you!”
And sure enough, there in the lobby, stands Blixa, in full stage outfit, pale as death, six foot six in cuban heels and his hair teased up, and 100lbs wringing wet. He has a bottle of schnapps and a filthy look in his eye. He’s staring death at everyone. And then I hear my name called. Standing next to this imperious vision in black is a smiling Japanese man in bright green overalls with a flower appliqued on the front. His voice is oddly familiar; it is Rick Tanaka, former presenter of the Nippy Rock Shop, a collage-like radio show from Triple J in the 80s. I was a fan. Turns out, he is the road manager for this EN tour, and he is asking for me. He hands me his business card: Rick Tanaka, Private Guy.
We hurriedly shuffle Rick and Blixa into a meeting room and turn on the recorder, and I attempt an interview. It did not go well. Blixa did not want to be there, was much smarter than me, and was not very patient with my attempts at questions that were more engaging than the usual stereotypical “who gets to go to the junk yard for your stage show?”. Eventually, he just started ignoring me and chatted to Rick. Tim and I kept the tape rolling for their conversation, and afterwards edited it up into something resembling proper radio. And then they left. Tim and I packed up, and then walked down the road to the Phoenician Club.
(En route, we bumped into the Beasts of Bourbon, who were playing support. They were intensely focused. They clearly knew what was coming and determined to put on a good show. They were the best I ever saw them play that night; tight, ferocious and angry, showcasing material from their Low Road album, that was not yet released).
And then on came Einsturzende Neubauten. It was possibly the most intense, frightening show I ever seen. I confess I was a little freaked out by my encounter with Blixa, and not really prepared for the experience of an EN show. By the end, I was pressed up against a wall with my fists clenched and my eyes shut. The sound from the stage was so brutal and overwhelming. I can’t recall much of what went on, except for a bit with shopping carts with contact mikes crashing into each other repeatedly. It was really loud. I know I left the venue about 11.30pm. At 2am, I turned up at my girlfriend’s house, tapping on her window. I assume I spent the intervening hours walking the streets in a daze, but not really sure of what I did in that time. She yelled at my for waking her up for a good 15 minutes, but I was unable to put a sentence together, let alone explain what had just happened to me. It was a heavy, really heavy, performance.
Ok, so given that background of my relationship with EN, what do I think about this album? I have listened to it once or twice before. EN is really influential on me. I love noisy things, really noisy things. I played in industrial bands through most of the 1990s. And this is like the ur-text for much of what industrial music became. It still sounds frightening and surprising now. That said, this is a massively difficult listening experience. I am reminded of Brian Eno talking about Steve Reich (I think), and how hearing one of his early tape pieces was massively influential, but he never listened to it again. Early EN (and this album in particular) is like that for me. It opened up a world of possibilities to explore, but I don’t need (or probably even want) to listen to it much. I certainly was much more enamoured of their early 1990s material, which contains actual songs, rather than just this scary barrage of crashing rhythms and screaming. Kollaps is an important record for me, but I would not recommend it.
Alanis Morissette
3/5
This is one of the biggest albums of the 1990s, and one that got quite a bit of play in our house. It burst onto the (mainstream) stage like something fresh and new; an honest, angry young woman with an individual and distinct voice (both sonically and lyrically). And it went gangbusters; over 33 million copies sold.
Having worked for years at Scratches, I had already had my ears opened to honest, angry young woman with distinct voices, so this did not feel particularly revolutionary to me. I found it highly reminiscent of Sinead O'Connor or even Tori Amos, but there are a bunch of other women who also paved the way for this. It's OK. I liked that it had a higher rock component than most female-fronted pop of the time, and the singles are pretty catchy (especially You Outta Know, which was pretty attention grabbing at t he time for a mainstream single, although not particularly shocking when compared to, say, Karen Findlay or the Yeastie Girls). The canned beats, woeful harmonica playing, and sometimes clumsy lyrics aside, I enjoy her idiosyncratic vocal delivery. It underlines the honesty of the emotions, which gives the album its frisson.
Clearly, the massive success opened the doors for a more forthright female singer-songwriter style in the late 90s. This isn't the first album in this mold, but certainly the most successful. I think the mistreatment and hurt that she documents in this record was magnified by the impact of massive success, which was clearly pretty traumatic, as shown in the Jagged documentary (which she has disowned, but still makes a pretty fascinating watch).
I admire Alanis for doing her own thing and speaking her truth, and making a massive success of it. There was clearly a cultural appetite at the time that this album really connected with directly. This is an album I can happily listen to, but, given my tastes run a little edgier, this is a 'like it' album rather than a 'love it' album for me.
John Martyn
4/5
I reviewed John Martyn's Solid Air earlier in this project, and enjoyed it more than I was expecting. Based on that, I thought I knew what to expect with this record. And was pleasantly surprised again. Much of side 2 seems like a fairly natural progression from Solid Air. Similar smooth jazz/soul/funk/folk blend, now with a touch of latin rhythms on Certain Surprise, with Martyn's foggy voice woven beautifully through the arrangements. I love his voice, which he uses like an instrument, although sometimes his slurred diction slides almost into self-parody.Take it easy, John.
But side 1 is a revelation. The heavy use of effects, especially delay, and dub production techniques (without being pastiche - this is definitely not reggae) is something quite fresh. Big Muff is co-written by Lee Scratch Perry! I can see the influence, without it sounding like a Lee Scratch Perry record per se. I really loved the songs on side 1. Discretely funky, weird sounding without being abrasive, without any histrionics. I can see how these tracks (especially Big Muff and Small Hours) are cited as influences on trip hop, especially Massive Attack.
This album caught me by surprise, and I really enjoyed it. Haven't heard much quite like it, and it really grabbed me (especially side 1)
Cyndi Lauper
5/5
Maybe because this came out when I was 13, but this is one of the all-time great pop albums. Six singles, all great, front-loaded as the first six tracks, and even the following filler is listenable. "He's so unusual", a novelty joke, doesn't out-stay its welcome.
Clearly of its time, but without suffering from it, this distinctive album is upbeat, funny, energetic and ear-catching. The production is definitely 80s, and heavy on the synths, but manages to maintain an organic energy without becoming too reliant on the technology. It's still, at heart, a kind of new wave pop/rock record.
Most of the songs are technically 'covers', although obscure picks. "When you were mine" was an album cut and b-side, which Lauper makes her own. Prince's refusal to let her change the lyrics at all leads to her frankly tortured enunciation of the word "guy" to try and make it sound like "girl", if you sort of squint. But not changing it makes the song more interesting in terms of gender roles. If the object of her affection is going with another guy, then they are clearly bisexual (gender unspecified). I can't think of another good example of this until Me'Shell NdegéOcello's cover of "Who is he and what is he to you", ten years after this.
The big singles ("Girls just want to have fun", "She-bop", "Time after time") are all impeccable pop classics.
I really like Lauper's singing. It is a strange voice, but powerful and distinctive. You know who it is as soon as she starts singing. She has a wider range and variety of tone than she often gets credit for, and I think she really sells the songs.
I really enjoy this record (which I occasionally spin to this day), and regard it is one of the all-time classics of unashamed pop. Five stars.
Rod Stewart
3/5
I bought a copy of this from a $2 box about a year ago, but I don't think I ever sat down to listen to it all the way through. Quite enjoyed the rough and ready recording, and Rod's vocals at the height of his powers. The band (largely the Faces) are that great mixture of tight and loose, and really digging in. I like the rockier tracks particularly, and the cover of the Temptations (I Know) I'm Losing You is outstanding. Feeling like I scored a real bargain.
The Velvet Underground
4/5
I love the Velvet Underground. When I was in first year uni, a girl I had a crush on (unrequited, sadly) introduced me to the first VU (banana) album. What a revelation that was! As noted in Lou Reed's obituary in the NY Times, the Velvet Underground "wrought gradual but profound impact on the high-I.Q., low-virtuosity stratum of punk, alternative and underground rock around the world.". The Velvet Underground, especially that first record, were the ur-text for lots of the music that I loved. As a young man, the first two VU albums were the ones I played constantly the noise,. the power, the abrasiveness, the lyrics that explored the edges of society.
With time, through, I have come to appreciate the gentler side of Lou Reed's songwriting, never better captured than this record. Compared to the previous two albums, this is a sensitive and gentle folk rock album. The concerns are much less the junkies, sado-masochists and speed freaks of the previous records. The lyrical concern are much easier to relate to (love, adultery, yearning), and not nearly as bleak as Lou Reed sometimes indulges in. Side 1 is full of absolutely classic songs, with more filler on side 2 (although Beginning to See the Light and I'm Set Free are still fantastic songs. I could live without That's The Story of My Life, Murder Mystery and After Hours, truth be told).
I'm sure many are put off by the standard of the singing and playing, but I really dig the aesthetic (as noted by the NYT). And the songs are really great. My feelings on Lou Reed as a human being are previously documented (See my review of Berlin), but this is the album where I almost feel like he had a human heart.
The Stooges
5/5
I'm a bit late putting my review in today, so I did something I don't normally do, and had a squizz at what other members of my group had already said. I confess, I had expected Shawn would be thinking "what is it this week with all of these noisy records? Does nobody know how to play their instruments properly any more? This is not to my taste". How wrong I was! He dug it, and I feel chastised for my lack of faith.
I love the Stooges. "I wanna be your dog" was probably the cover my old band played more than any other. Our attitude and stagecraft had a fair amount of Stooges in it (not to the point of cutting ourselves with broken glass and smearing our chests with peanut butter, but there were quite a few on-stage fist fights, and lots of altercations with the audience).
This album is classic, classic Stooges, and, probably has some of the best written songs in their oeuvre. The attitude is fast and loose, and they are rocking out fiercely, but there are proper songs in there under the sneer and fuzz. Search and Destroy, Gimme Danger, and Shake Appeal are probably my favourite tracks.
Love this record. Man, I should go play it again, really loud, right now!
Todd Rundgren
2/5
I was rally bored with this album. Very pleasant pop songs, in a soft rock style. Was this about the first album where the artist played all the instruments? Possibly so, which makes it a bit of a landmark with regards to what a single person could accomplish with a multitrack, and set a precedent for artists like Prince. Mind you, others were coming to the same discovery independently (Mike Oldfield must have been recording Tubular Bells almost simultaneously). But the songs and performances frankly bore me, and I suspect they did for Rundgren too, who started being much more experimental following this album. Even the heavier rock songs on this album are kind of bloodless. It reminds me of how Danny Sugarman in 'Wonderland Ave' complains about how the rock (largely) seemed to water down in the early 70s. This album is a case in point.
Jerry Lee Lewis
4/5
Wow, this is a real blast. Short, sharp, fast and loud (with a moment of respite for Your Cheatin' Heart). It's a greatest hits of early rock and roll blasted out at high power before a live audience. No fat, no time-wasting. The drummer is a wildman, and Jerry Lee is pumping that piano hard, and vocally wailing. Not as much screaming as Little Richard (the obvious comparison), but strong and hard.
I used to think I didn't like live albums, but then I started counting really great live albums, and I think I would have to put this on that list. There is something about the live intensity and interaction with the audience that transcends the studio work (sometimes). And you know how much I like a short album, and this certainly fits that bill, at a crisp 22 minutes. Not a lot of fat on it.
RIP, Killer. You were a deplorable human being, but you sure could rock and roll.
Stan Getz
4/5
I dig this record. I find a lot of soft jazz just wallpaper, but this really grabbed me. It is soft and gentle, but the samba rhythms and wonderful soloing from Getz and Byrd really lift this into something special. I listened to it three times through at a trot. Desafinado and Samba de Uma Nota So are, rightly, classics, and stand out tracks on a really fine record. Not an album to outstay its welcome, and very welcome back on my turntable any time.
The Cure
2/5
I lived in a share house on Abercrombie St in the early 90s. A regular visitor to the house was Leon the Goth. Leon loved this record, so he used to throw it on the turntable regularly when he came over, but I haven't listened to it since. I had forgotten what a bleak record it is.
It is certainly one of the foundational texts of goth in its sound and lyrical concerns. But, apart from A Forest (which is a great song), this album is incredibly forgettable.
I don't understand why this album _and_ Pornography (also a super-bleak proto-goth album with almost no memorable songs on it), _and_ Disintegration (not much better) are all on the 1001 list, but albums with actual good songs (and hits, none the less) are not.
David Gray
1/5
Oh my god, I am dying of boredom. Even attempting to describe the boredom is deadly dull. I did actually listen to this all the way through, but I cannot express how much I hated this pre-masticated pablum.
Deathly, deathly, boring. His name is boring. The album cover is boring. His voice could bore for England.
Apparently, Mr Gray believes (and I have no reason to doubt him) that the success (175 weeks on the UK charts!) paved the way for "soul-baring" artist such as James Blunt, Ed Sheeran and others. As if I need any more reason to despise this record, and yet here it is. It is neither hot nor cold, and I shall spit it out of my mouth.
R.E.M.
4/5
This is a really great record, and one of the great examples of an alternative band (from when alternative bands were really part of an alternative music industry) breaking huge into the mainstream. R.E.M. had been underground darlings for most fo the 80s, and signed to a major and gone big with their Green album, which I personally find a bit patchy. And then this; an ambitious masterpiece which was true to what they had always been, but with a major label size and sheen. Which is a bit weird, given how dark this album is.
It is truly wonderfully recorded by Scott Litt, with clear and spaciously recorded basic tracks brought into a cinematic scale by the strong arrangement of John Paul Jones. I am hard pressed to think of a rock record with better arrangements than this record; they are so sympathetic to the song, they know when to hold back, and when to add to the song. The strings really are amazing, notably on Drive.
Michael Stipe’s vocals are mixed further to the front than on their earlier records, and you can hear the lyrics. Is that a good or a bad thing? I’m pretty sure it was Dave Lewis who said he thought Michael Stipe was a great lyricist until he could actually understand what he was saying. The lyrics are enigmatic and opaque. I suspect that this actually broadens the appeal of this record; the lyrics are clearly highly emotional, often sad, but the blurred meaning and ambiguity means that the listener can project onto them their own sensibility. The lack of specific and clear meaning makes them more universal.
An exception to that rule: Everybody Hurts, which is almost clumsily blunt. I blame this song for “Party of Five” acting. This was an acting style prevalent in the 1990s (but you still see today), where an actor, usually young, would stare silently, often though a rain-streaked window at night, while Everybody Hurts plays, in order to indicate a profound melancholia. I checked, and this indeed was used in the pilot episode of Party of Five (starting at 25.40, for those playing at home), although without the rainy window. It was a cheap way of conveying deep sadness if your actor wasn’t actually up to it. It became a cliché.
There are some great tunes on this album, and it is clearly widely loved. REM never made an album half as good afterwards. I find the record a touch enigmatic, which means it doesn’t have quite the emotional traction for me to give it 5 stars, but I certainly think it is worth 4.
1/5
ugh. Not to my taste. Too 80s schmick. Almost funky. Almost soulful. Almost sophisticated. Trying too hard to be polished. Just not there for me.
Prince
5/5
At first, I didn’t get Prince. I was aware of the singles from this album when they were released, but I didn’t have the album, and I didn’t really understand what the fuss was. A schoolmate, Bassel, was a fan and constantly tried to convince me of Prince’s genius, but it took a while. Sorry Bassel, I got there eventually. Then, in about 1988, the penny finally dropped and I got it. Over the next couple of years, I obsessively hunted down the whole Prince back catalogue. I played his music constantly, and I still do. I saw him at the Sydney Entertainment Centre in 1992, and he tore it up live. And, except for the album he had just released at the time, this was the only album from which he played more than one song; Baby I’m A Star, Let’s Go Crazy and Purple Rain.
Prince’s imperial phase of the 1980s is far and away my favourite, and this album is a monumental achievement from this period. Prince is one of only three artists to have the number one single, album and movie simultaneously. Even the movie is pretty rubbish, Prince conquered the world with this album. It’s rock, it’s funk, it’s psychedelic, it’s pop, it’s experimental, it’s a party jam, it’s heavily emotional. It’s everything about the 80s, and also classic beyond time. It’s the first album where the Revolution really brought their influences and played (about half the album) as a band, instead of Prince doing everything himself in the studio (although there are still a few tracks like that). And the band certainly was cooking.
I want to shout out the particular contributions of Wendy and Lisa to this record. Their playing, singing and arrangements really lift a lot of this material into something special. You can hear the way their arrangements push Prince’s harmony into some new spaces, which can particularly heard in the string. Big fan of their work.
I think you can hear how quickly this album was recorded, and it is a bit rough around the edges, which adds to the appeal. The songs are so iconic now that weird choices (no bassline in When Doves Cry is the classic example) are now like articles of faith. This reminds me of many of the later Beatles records, where off-the-cuff choices have now become entrenched lore, and people have built whole careers on their mistakes and arbitrary additions.
I am listening to the deluxe version, which has a lot of super extended versions and other songs recorded contemporaneously. Many of those previously unreleased versions would have been lead singles for other artists (and in some cases were, I’m looking at you Andre Cymone). It is hard to credit how prolific he wa during this period.
Is this my favourite Prince album? No, not quite. But is it a towering achievement of popular music? Absolutely. Five stars.
fIREHOSE
2/5
I always though that firehose were, at least on paper, the sort of band that I should like. But I've listened to this three times through, and it doesn't do much for me. Well played, but the songwriting just doesn't grab me. Interestingly, after this album finishes, spotify plays wire, the wipers, and gang of four. They are all aesthetically similar to firehose, but all get my blood pumping in a way that this doesn't. I don't hate this, but I don't think I'll ever listen to it again.
Stevie Wonder
5/5
Stevie Wonder at the height of his imperial period. a double album, plus bonus EP, will always raise the question of whether some judicious editing might have strengthened the overall album experience somewhat, but it is really hard to fault this record. Stevie won his 3rd best album Grammy in 4 years with this, and it is probably the peak of his career. there's a some good material on Hotter Than July, but it is hard to think that any of his other albums after this are really worth a listen. (To quote Barry in High Fidelity "Rob, top five musical crimes perpetuated by Stevie Wonder in the '80s and '90s. Go. Sub-question: is it in fact unfair to criticize a formerly great artist for his latter day sins, is it better to burn out or fade away?") But those are quibbles for another day.
I prefer the funkier, more upbeat material on this record to the ballads, which tend towards to overly sentimental. But the playing and production are exquisite, and I would listen to Stevie Wonder sign the phone book.
Stevie Wonder is one of the all time great singer/songwriter/musicians/producers/harmonica players, and this is his master work. Did he really know where to go from here? Do any of us?
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
3/5
This might provoke some outrage or disbelief from the hard-core EC fans (hi Peter, hi Glenn), but this is not a really standout Elvis album for me. Thinking about it, I tend to prefer his quick-and-dirty albums, a bit more rock and roll, a bit less polished. I can see what he was heading for, but I find that Elvis is less effective when he tries to get fancy. So, some good songs (the singles, plus Shabby Doll and Beyond Belief are stand-outs for me), but not a great Elvis album for me. (Mind you, that's still on the "would listen again" list)
Shuggie Otis
3/5
So this album is vastly over-rated. It has a certain hipster cachet because it is willfully obscure. Shuggie Otis was a pretty fine guitar player, playing in his father's (Johnny Otis) band from a very young age, He played on Zappa's Hot Rats. He was invited to join the Stones and Bowie's band. This was his magnum opus, the result of three years' work in his home studio. And it shows. It is a slightly over-worked, psychedelic funk record, similar to There's a Riot Going On or some of Stevie Wonder's contemporaneous work. But not to Sly or Stevie's standard. OK, but nothign to write home about.
But, because of it's commercial failure and Shuggie's subsequent reclusive nature, it built a reputation as a hidden gem.Hipsters have, I think, over-praised this record (see this Pitchfork review as a case in point: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/17909-shuggie-otis-inspiration-information-wings-of-love/).
I really disliked the meandering keyboard pieces on side 2; they didn't offer much.
Interetsingly, after Strawberry Letter #23 *best known for the hit cover version by the Brothers Johnson a few years later), I thought "this album is really picking up." Interestingly, the review above pointed out that these tracks at the end are, in fact, bonus tracks on CD reissue that were drawn from other albums.
This record is perfectly OK, but would be pretty weak without Strawberry Letter #23 and the other bonus tracks. Without them, this is a two star record, but I'll give it three with the bonus tracks.
The Roots
3/5
The Roots are like the house band of hip hip (or the alternative end of hip hop). Their work on the various Soulquarians records Mos Def, (D’Angelo, Erykah Badu, Common, Jill Scott, Bilal, etc etc) is exemplary. They were terrific as the house band on Dave Chappelle’s Block Part (there is a DVD worth hunting down). They are far and away the best of the late night bands on their residency on Jimmy Fallon.
This album is a pretty listenable for a hip hop album, but it just doesn’t have the songs. Questlove is a terrific drummer and band leader, but the Roots albums really just don’t have songs. They need to work with people bringing better material.
Bruce Springsteen
2/5
I never got Bruce. His records just don't grab me (exception: Nebraska). I know his songs resonates for a lot of people, but they don’t for me. I think most of his material is, for me, a bit overworked. I listened through, but, honestly, it washes over me every time and I am unmoved. While Born to Run is a bit more focussed than some of his previous Wall of Sound-esque production, the songs are perfectly engineered to go over gangbusters in a stadium show. A lot of credit for the sound should probably go to Bob Clearmoutain’s mixing, which is designed to make the records pop on the radio. Bruce really owns that kind of stadium show (from what I hear), but it's not my cup of tea.
This record is bar-band rock and roll, dumbed down and polished up suitable for radio play and stadium sing-alongs. This is not subtle. The lyrics are often clichéd and bombastic, the riffs simple and repetitive. The sparkling sheen of synthesizers and overly-processed drums updates the essentially 60s rock and arrangement, down to the cheesy sax solos. The drum sound offends me so much: the leaden, synthetic beat of this album is heavy on the rock, but squeezes all of the roll out of these songs.
I struggle with the lyrical content; Richard Williams in Q magazine described the title track as trying “to bury the anti-war message of Born In The USA beneath an impenetrable layer of clenched-fist bombast". This was, in his view, "downright irresponsible." I find it hard to reconcile his ostensible criticism of Reagan-era America and its treatment of the faux-working class character he portrays (a character based on his fathers and others around him, but not himself, as he freely admits in his Broadway show), with the triumphant presentation (which is easily and often confused with jingoism).
Many of the songs have the most ridiculously stooped, lowest common denominator lyrics. “I’m on Fire” is probably the most interestingly arranged song on the record, but a bit creepy.
This record strikes me as faux-working-class bellowing over bombastic production, punctuated with unnecessary saxophone solos. At least he has cut down on the mumbling that mars his earlier records.
Nico
3/5
I find this a strangely pretty album. Her voice is an acquired taste, and was easier to accept on the Banana album because it is only used sparingly.
A-grade songwriting on this record, with Jackson Brown, Tim Hardin, Dylan and the Velvets. The only song that she co-wrote ("It was a pleasure then") foretells the harrowing dirges that filled her subsequent records. Compare this with The Marble Index from the following year, and this is sunshine and puppies gamboling in a field of daisies.
I love this quote from Nico: "I still cannot listen to it, because everything I wanted for that record, they took it away. I asked for drums, they said no. I asked for more guitars, they said no. And I asked for simplicity, and they covered it in flutes! ... They added strings and – I didn't like them, but I could live with them. But the flute! The first time I heard the album, I cried and it was all because of the flute.". I quite like the guitar and string arrangements, but kind of agree about the flutes. But let's all thank the deities that she hadn't discovered the harmonium yet.
I find this an oddly charming record, but inessential. It doesn't surprise me that two tracks (These days and The Fairest of days) appeared in The Royal Tennenbaums. This is a quintessential Wes Anderson choice; 1960s, sort of obscure, charming, but also kind of cold and off-putting.
The Beau Brummels
2/5
This album proves that the decision to stop touring on devote yourself to studio work did not produce only gems. The two covers (Merle Travis's Nine Pound Hammer and Randy Newman's Old Kentucky Home) stand out. the only other tolerably interesting song is The Wolf of Velvet Fortune, which has a pleasantly minor key psychedelic feel.
Other than that, I find the songwriting bland, I don't like the singer's voice, and the arrangements and playing just don't have any edge.
Blandly inoffensive, slightly psychedelic, slightly country-influenced (but only slightly, when compared to,l say, Sweethearts of the Rodeo). Forgettable.
Soundgarden
5/5
I first heard Soundgarden watching rage at about 2am in late 89 or early 90. They immediately caught my attention. When Badmotorfinger was released in the first blast of mainstream grunge in Aug/Sept of 91, I was hooked. I played that record grey, and collected all of their back catalogue. The heaviness and innovation of the riffage, along with an embrace of guitar noise instead of the typical shredding that was all over 80s metal, was thrilling.
But it was Chris Cornell’s voice that really grabbed me. It’s hard to think of another vocalist of the age that could match his range and intensity. I saw them at Selina’s in early 1994 (when Superunknown was in the can but not yet released). I was sceptical to see whether he match the intensity of the records live. And he sure could. I walked out amazed. There are certainly live recordings from later in his life when you could hear the damage of thirty years of hard use in his voice, but in 1994 he was at the height of his powers.
And he sure could write a song. Critical response to Soundgarden differs wildly. Some condemn them as dumbed-down metal, full of clichés and nonsense. Personally, I think they often try to subvert the tropes of metal (cf ‘Big Dumb Sex’ from Louder Than Love, which I’m pretty sure is parody. I used to play that song at Scratches at very high volume when tire kickers wouldn’t leave the store well after closing time). Bootleg recordings suggest that they were aware how ridiculous the genre they worked in could be, and maintained a sense of humour about that, but were simultaneously aware of the power of the form. Soundgarden are generally a metal band I can listen to without feeling stupid.
The art-metal of their early records has evolved to a much more melodic form. There are proper tunes here, and some stomping playing. It is produced to a high shine. This is an intentional masterwork, a sprawling and ambitious double-album. This inevitably suggests that maybe a few songs could be trimmed, but the high points are monumental. It is difficult album in some ways, pretty dark in tone and largely humourless, and driven by depression and anxiety. But the singles are all amazing, and many of the album cuts are also highly listenable, if you like this kind of thing.
I have to give special mention to Matt Cameron. The drumming on this album is phenomenal. Given their tendency to play in weird and/or changing time signatures, his ability to keep songs driving forward with a constancy that can make a 9/8 almost sound like a 4/4 is genius!
While possibly not the most important album in grunge (surely that must be Nevermind), I think this is the artistic highpoint of both Soundgarden and the genre. And one of the greatest metal albums of all time. Five stars for me.
Eminem
1/5
Did not enjoy. Eminem's flow and wordplay is impressive, but his voice is nasal, the beats are underwhelming, and the subject matter tends towards adolescent trolling. I can see why this album was a massive hit with disaffected white male youth, but when even Marilyn Manson declines to guest on your record because it is too misogynistic, you've got a real problem. Interestingly, Eminem won't use the n-word (out of respect for black people?) but is happy to malign women in disturbing detail.
And not musically compelling. This borders on a novelty record (exception: My Name Is)
Did not enjoy, will not listen again.
Iggy Pop
4/5
Supposedly, Noel Gallagher once said that he got all the songwriting royalties I n Oasis because “
nobody ever hums the bassline of song”. Some wag is said to have responded that he had clearly never heard Lust for Life.
Critical reaction to Iggy’s previous album, The Idiot, was that he had lost his ability to rock, and that Bowie had taken over too much. In retrospect, we can see that album as part of Bowie’s Berlin period and the hugely influential shift in rock music that was. But another Stooges record it sure ain’t.
So, after a few months touring The Idiot, Iggy went back to the studio, he wanted to be a bit more in control over the songs, the arrangements and the sound. It’s a lot more straightforward rock and roll (although not enough to satisfy Lester Bangs). There is still quite a bit of Bowie here.
Lust for Life and the Passenger are two absolute classics. I am also quite partial to Success. I find the rest of the album pretty great rock ‘n roll fun, and would happily listen to it almost any time. It’s probably the most focused and rockin’ that Iggy ever was post-Stooges.
The Slits
5/5
Now, here is a real classic. I love this record a lot, and their cover of "I heard it through the grapevine" is a regular feature of my DJ sets. This record genuinely sounds like nothing else. heavily influences by punk (although really presages post-punk) and reggae, it isn't really either of those things. It is its own unique and wonderful thing, with its own logic. It's angry and weird and fun.
In Viv Albertine's fantastic autobiography "Clothes Clothes Clothes, Music Music Music, Boys Boys Boys" (highly recommend, worth a read) she describes the way she approached guitar, which was largely self-taught and completely fresh. She talks about how she was attracted to the treble tones of the guitar, and you can really hear it in the way that she plays. There is a an unapologetic "this is the way we choose to play" sense of what they do. Although I think there was some backlash for doing so.
And this record is a wonderful and unique thing. the songs are.... different, but they always sound fresh and surprisingly and strong and relevant and beautiful within their own aesthetic framework.
Punk always claimed that it was people who "couldn't play", but many bands (Pistols, Clash, etc) were in fact working within a pretty well-trodden back-to-basic rock and roll style and technique. The Slits were really something new and revolutionary. It doesn't surprise me that it took women to really break out and do something this different and extraordinary. Five stars.
The Notorious B.I.G.
3/5
OK, so gangsta rap is where hip hop took a turn that I couldn't follow. I could see where it was coming from, but the violence, misogyny and homophobia just gets really unpleasant. I never really listened to Biggie, beyond the big singles. This album certainly contains a lot of what I dislike about gangsta rap (see above), along with being overly long and sprinkled with obnoxious skits/interludes.
But that being said, I found this more listenable than other examples of the genre. Biggie's flow is exceptional and the slightly old-skool production is pretty tasty. I foudn myself wondering why I foudn this better than other equally violent records. There si a certain verite to his description of his criminal persona (based on his dealing past, and sadly played out in his sudden and violent death) and a modicum of introspection (eg Suicidal Thoughts). This give the album a bit more artistic weight than some of the empty posturing that followed in the genre (Eminem, I'm looking at you).
But not an album I really need to listen to again.
James Brown
3/5
It's a cooking band and an energetic performance, probably the best live recording of early 60s RnB. That makes it a legendary and iconic performance, but why is this the only James Brown on the 1001 list? He was a pretty good RnB performer, and this album really made his reputation, but not the music that changed everything. It has some great, even iconic moments ("Ladies and gentlemen, it is star time, are you ready for star time?", "the hardest workin' man in show business", an uptempo version of Think, the audience screams during Please Please Please, a proto-funk Night Train), and shows off his impeccable skills as a band leader. I would have LOVED to see this show.
However, Papa's Got A Brand New Bag (and the invention of funk) was still a few years off. And, if we are talking about James Brown, how can you have him on the list with an album that pre-dates his greatest contribution to popular music, the invention of an entire genre?
James Brown is one of the truly great singles performers. he released literally hundreds of singles, and many of them have been amazingly influential on music as a whole. But he is not so well known for albums that make the grade, and so they have picked this one.
Good album, but not what is truly great about James Brown. The listmakers desperately want to have James Brown on the list (because of course!), but the constraint of albums but no compilations make it impossible to showcase his most amazing work. Missed opportunity.
Elvis Presley
5/5
So, in my youth, I was a strictly Sun years Elvis fan. The fat. bloated, besequinned jumpsuit Elvis karate chopping his way across the stage, sweating out 'ludes and benzedrine did not do it for me.
And then I met my wife, who was quite insistent that Vegas Elvis was the most glorious incarnation of Elvis. And she won me over. I mean, he is still fat and bloated, the jumpsuits are covered in sequins, and the karate moves are ridiculous, and he is still befuddled with the drugs... but it is also glorious in its overblown . He finds the real power in his voice. he is sentimental as all hell, and he wrings every drop of melodrama out of every note. And he kept doing some truly dreadful material right up until the end.
But there are moments of real magnificence, such as his gospel material... and this. How he ended up recording some decent material with a decent band in a decent material seems like a glorious accident that his manager and minders (and his own terrible instincts) didn't manage to stuff up, for once. The cornerstone of the really great material from the last decade of his life basically these sessions. It's super cheesy, and somewhat overdone (which prevents it from being quite a funky as it might be), but this is, to my mind, probably the greatest individual Elvis album, especially when the bonus tracks are included.
I used to hate it, then I liked it ironically, and now I just love it.
The Byrds
3/5
There are five (five!) Byrds albums on this list, which feels like a lot. This is a transitional album between their folk phase, and leading into psychedelia. Eight Miles High is a classic, and I like the run of side 2, which is a little bit more muscular, but the original songs are bit ho-hum (Eight Miles High excepted). The cover of Hey Joe is Ok (although not a patch on Hendrix), and the instrumental "Captain Soul" was vaguely funky, although now that I know it is a stab at covering "Get Out My Life Woman" by lee Dorsey, I'm a little less impressed.
I understand the influence this album had, but it doesn't really stand up for me as a album worth listening to (Eight Miles High excepted). Side 1 is a 2 for me, and side 2 is a 3. I'll round up.
Sheryl Crow
3/5
I was going to say that I have mixed feelings about this album, but really the problem is that I don't have many feelings at all.
Her voice is pleasant enough, with enough character that it isn't just bland. The songwriting is pretty highly skilled, without being overly flashy. Similarly, the band are really great players, and really well recorded. The sounds are more organic (real drums, prominent guitars, organ, piano, minimal synths and samples and no obvious protools edits) than much material recorded in the early 90s,. This means it hasn't dated quiet as much as, say, Alanis Morrisset or other contemporaneous pop music
You can tell the songs and arrangements were work-shopped for a long time. the band is really comfortable with the material. It's laid back, but without losing focus. The collective writing and playing make this a pretty strong album, and it has a point of view (at least by way of contrast with most pop albums), But does it really have much to say?
Success has many fathers, as they say, and there were public recriminations over who got appropriate credit when this came out. I suspect that few of the collaborators expected the album to do much, and were pretty pissed off when a woman got "all the credit" when it sold a bajillion copies. Ms Crow's ongoing success proves, I think, that she was not a mere puppet of this group.
But this album is OK, but doesn't move me particularly. Certainly, there is nothing about it that I hate, but it inspires nothing stronger than a mild "like". Excerpt "All I wanna do"; that still feels liek a breathe of fresh air. I really like her conversational lyrics and flow, which feels a bit new. I have a jukebox 7" of "All I Wanna Do" b/w "If it makes you happy" which is probably the sum total of all the Sheryl Crow I will ever want or need.
I really feel like this is a solid 2.5 stars, but I am going to tip over to 3 stars, based on the shit she copped from her collaborators, probably undeserved.
Stephen Stills
2/5
A double album, recorded at Criteria Studios in Miami in the 1970s. Many multiple takes of every song, recording sessions lasting over four days without a break, obsessive work and re-work from one of rock's most arrogant men. Stills claimed that critics hated him (possibly true), that he was passed over for the cover the Rolling Stone in favour of David Cassidy (probably true), and that Ahmet Ertegun pulled the album from stores as soon as it went gold to force him back to CSN (paranoid much?). Do I detect the influence of ... cocaine?
In a June 1972 review for The San Diego Door, Cameron Crowe said "Manassas always remains admirable if not exciting. The musicianship is generally excellent with the only pitfall being that the droning Stills' vocal pervades all but one of the LP's sixteen cuts". He also stated the "lyrics represent a low-point in Stills' lyricist career". I tend to agree.
Radiohead
2/5
I miss loud guitars. And tunes. There some actual songs on here, but most are needlessly obtuse. If I listened to this 20 times, I'm sure I would find things to like, but I just wish it rocked a bit more like 'Bodysnatchers', a brief highlight for me on this otherwise lethargic album. Yeah, a whole album more like Bodysnatchers is what I want.
I'm sure that if I listened to this a lot, I could learn to love this, but I'm just not bothered. I really liked The Bends and OK Computer, but I feel like Radiohead are stuck in a willfully obtuse rut. They can't work up any real energy, and it has just devolved into abstract droning. And not droning in a good way. If you read the ecstatic reviews that came out on the day of release (eg BBC or Pitchfork) it really feels like the emperor's new clothes. But I just don't see anyone that excited about this album now.
It's hard to imagine myself ever getting enthused or passionate about this album. If I had to conduct Berry Gordy's sandwich test (https://www.christinebedenis.co/2015/10/09/motown-museum/) for this album, I'd be eating a sandwich.
Beatles
5/5
It is hard to rate the Beatles, because, you know, they're the _Beatles_ and their records have become part of the DNA of popular music. It's been years since I saw down and listened to Rubber Soul all the way through. It is such a transitional album between their early material (songs are still really short, and with heaps of hooks), but the lyrical concerns and style are becoming more sophisticated, along with the more studio-oriented arrangements and production.
I love the punchy, all-killer-no-filler approach. Only one song is over three minutes, and there is not a wasted second on this record.
I can hear the influences they have picked up in America (Motown, the Byrds, Dylan). I just rated a Byrds album recently, and their super-bright guitar sound is all over this record, but with much better songs. The beginnings of their drug experiments are starting to be reflected as well in a bit broader scope (although there are still plenty of straight love songs here).
Dodgy lyrics of Run For Your Life aside, this is a wonderful record. Short, confident, beautifully played and arranged, great vocals. And an important sign that they were changing direction in a way that nobody quite realised yet.
The Rolling Stones
4/5
Exile is one of the sacred texts of rock and roll. The story of the recording sessions are the stuff of legend, but I think it is really Mick's work trying to wrangle and edit the mess into a coherent album that is the heroic achievement of this album. Oh, and Charlie keeping everything moving along.
Like most doubles, this is over-long. Trimmed back, this would potentially be as focussed as the previous three albums. But the Stones never really managed that level of focus again; too much drugs, booze, money and fame. That they made this record at all is a miracle. It is a classic, and there is a lot to learn about how to play rock and roll here, but not their best. The Stones are at he height of their powers, but the rot has set in.
Lou Reed
4/5
Lou was actually capable of writing the occasional album of accessible and enjoyable songs, post Velvets, and this his most consistent and best solo album. Bowie's production really lifts the songs. Mark Ronson and Herbie Flowers need to be highlighted as best on field for their playing contributions. Some absolute classic songs (Wild Side, Satellite, Vicious).
Tom Waits
5/5
My mate, Peter, said he couldn't understand why Tom Waits stopped doing actual songs, and just devolved into "crashing rubbish bins around while screaming", not entirely unfair assessment. Swordfishtrombones was the beginning of that 'devolution', which continues, on Rain Dogs, which is my favourite Tom Waits record. It hits a kind of mid-point between the bar-room balladry of his early albums, with elements of the creepy circus, rubbish-bin-crashing production of his 90s albums.
There are some absolute crackers songs on this record (Time, Downtown Train, Hang Down Your Head) that deserve their status as modern standards, along with more atmospheric grooves (Jockey Full of Bourbon, Tango Til Their' Sore), and occasional rocker (Big Black Mariah). It doesn't surprise time that Jockey and Tango ended up on the soundtrack of Down By Law; they fit the dissolute atmosphere of that film (also starring our hero, Mr Waits, as a dissolute loser)..
I love Waits quote about production style "If I want a sound, I usually feel better if I've chased it and killed it, skinned it and cooked it." The wrongness of the sounds, the deliberately bad recording quality is, to my ears, charming, but I know not everyone thinks so. MVP on the album is Marc Robot, who is a guitar player who very distinctly plays 'wrong' a lot, but in a way that always catches my ear.
In my youth, when friends had a particularly bad break up or some other life set-back, we would buy a bottle of Jamesons, and sit up to 4am commiserating. And this is the record I would play.
Megadeth
2/5
This is probably one of the best examples of mid-80s thrash metal recorded (especially given that Metallica's 80s albums often suffered from pretty shitty production and mixing). It is hard to think how they could have improved this within the confines of the genre; the playing is super tight, the lead lines are lightening fast, Mustaine's lyrics are suitably nasty and sung with the appropriate sneer. It really is perfectly done for what it is. The band is clearly incredibly well rehearsed and super-tight (despite the ongoing heroin issues for half the band).
The album even benefits from being recorded cheaply and a bit roughly (on an independent budget), but with a major label coming in with some better money for a really good mix and mastering. The tracks have enough roughness to make them compelling, and a sense of immediacy and danger (with minimal overdubbing, editing or click-tracking), but enough work to make sure the album doesn't sound like it was recorded with tin cans and string (as with many 80s metal records). Comparing the original Randy Burns mixes on the deluxe edition shows the improvement this mix and mastering made).
Mustaine clearly set out to produce the ultimate metal album (for the time); faster, tighter, heavier, meaner and better sounding than any of his contemporaries (especially Metallica), and I think he succeeded at that.
But, apart from the title track (which I would happily put on a metal playlist any time), the rest of it is a bit mechanical. The guitar solos are particular problem for me; they are lightening fast and technically proficient, but it just seems like typing to me. And Mustaine's sneering vocals wear on me after a while.
My mate Tim and I listened to quite a bit of thrash around this period (mostly local Sydney bands, like the Hard-Ons), and so this wasn't completely out of my wheelhouse when I was 17 (which would be the perfect age for this), and I am pretty sure I was aware of this record, but it didn't connect with me then and it doesn't connect with me now. I can appreciate it, but I just doesn't move me.
Joni Mitchell
4/5
A transitional album for Joni, from more straightforwardly confessional songs into more character-driven songs. Also, she is starting to lean into her interest in jazz by employing the L.A Express band to back her, lead there by her frustrations with the limitations of rock players. and it becomes her most critical and commercially successful album.
The songwriting is confident; intricate and sophisticated, and wonderfully played, ably supported by the jazzbos backing her. This is still clearly a pop album, but an intelligent and grown-up pop album. She hasn't moved into the more challenging jazz of her subsequent albums.
Free Man in Paris is my favourite track here, but the album is perhaps a little too polished for my taste (I like a little more grit), but there is much richness here that rewards multiple listens.
John Oates (of Hall + Oates), discussing 'Blue" on the My Favourite Album podcast (https://myfavoritealbum.libsyn.com/165-john-oates-on-joni-mitchell-blue-1971 , from 18:30 onwards) compares Mitchell's openness about her personal life in her songwriting and the way her love life was played out in the media to Taylor Swift. Interestingly, in the five years since that podcast, Taylor has also moved into a more 'adult' musical mode, and I suspect that it will become more common to talk about Joni and Taylor in the same conversations, and comparing their legacies. I think you can see it in this album particularly; it is personal, artistically ambitious, unashamedly commercial pop, but not dumbed down for it. I think we forget that Joni was a powerful and uncompromising pop artist.
The Cramps
5/5
I was a teenager, sitting up late one night watching Rage on the TV. I got a lot of my musical education sitting up into the wee small hours watching music videos, which often delved into the esoteric and alternative as the night wore on. And it was probably about 2am when I saw this live footage of the Cramps performing 'Can your pussy do the dog?' (https://youtu.be/Bta9s0hONRo?t=413), and I immediately sat up and recognized this as the real deal. It was cool and sexy and dangerous and raw.
The Cramps always had that.
Over their career, you can see the way they refined their aesthetic (and Poison Ivy's guitar playing had certainly improved by 1986), but this debut album is such a great example of what rock and roll is. To loosely paraphrase Charles Shaar Murray, if rock and roll was about technique, then Emerson lake and Palmer would be the greatest rock band of all time (hock, spit). But it isn't.
This album sounds like it was recorded in a tin shed with one microphone (Phillips Recording, in Memphis), and I'll est my hat if this took more than a day to record. No overdubs and not a lot of re-takes, this is a warts and all blast of rock and roll, taking the blueprint of rockabilly, and hyping it up into something even bigger. It's fast and loud and dangerous and sexy and cool and wild and raw, and all the things that make rock and roll really great. to try and confine this to a pigeonhole of 'psychobilly' protects us from the frightening implication that _this_ is what true rock sounds like, and not something new and niche.
The originals fit in seamlessly with the covers, showing that this is not an aberration, but part of the continuum of rock. I have been listening to this record obsessively for the past few days. It is, in many ways, a terrible record -- poorly recorded, badly played, juvenile in spirit, obnoxious and wild -- and for all those things, I love it. It is a tonic to my soul after enduring so many pretentious, overproduced, too refined albums (Stephen Stills, I';m looking at you).
It is a great regret in my life that I never saw the Cramps live. Mea maxima culpa.
Faust
4/5
I love me a bit of noisy krautrock, and this does exactly what it says on the tin. Opening track 'Krautrock' (that's a hint, perhaps) is 12 minutes of motorik, one-chord drone-rock (in a good way). The rums don't even come in until 7 minutes in.
The shorter songs are indeed more song-like, and stand up as great songs, which can be a surprise for some krautrock bands, who can stretch out of groove, but not really write a song.
Really enjoyed this, and putting it on my want list to purchase. Going four stars instead of five, as this is a really great example of this genre, but not necessarily for everyone.
The United States Of America
2/5
Not really rock enough for me. I like her voice. Stranded in time is a pretty good song, with an excellent string arrangement. but the collages and synth wibbles all over everything are just really annoying. I can see what they were maybe aiming at, but the technology just wasn't there yet to do anything other than sci-fi movie soundtrack noises. The free-association lyrics and willfully 'quirky' arrangements with incongruous jump-cuts are also distracting - 'The American Way of Love' is a really extreme example of this.
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
2/5
I was a bit excited when we kicked off with The New Stone Age. "Ooh," I thought, "this is a bit more rockin' than I was expecting. I thought it would be all bleak, tuneless landscapes and dirge interspersed with moments of fey synthpop".
But, alas, my expectations were not incorrect. This is a tedious album, an "onslaught of emptiness, ... a new brand of meaninglessness" (Lynden Barber in Melody Maker) , an album that "gives off the dry stench of self-importance" (M. Howell in the Boston Phoenix).
I feel like I could have been more into this in the 80s when I listen to a lot of quasi-experimental synth-based music. But now, I yawn, and move on to the next album.
Various Artists
5/5
And we're back to the question of how we measure the actions of the artist against the art... Phil Spector, was a misogynist, bully, and convicted murderer. And this album is clearly his brain child, and in many ways, the pinnacle of his producing career. As he mostly concentrated on singles, this is certainly the most greatest _album_ he ever produced. I own a couple of different pressings of this album, because you always need one on hand in December.
And it sounds great. The full wall of sound, the best of his stable of talent (Darlene Love and Ronnie Spector are MVPs here), and the amazing orchestra.
We listen to this album obsessively every Christmas season. It is the greatest Christmas album of all time, and a pivotal text of rock and roll. People still try to emulate that sound.
But I never listen to the Christmas message from Phil. It's just too creepy. While I do not want to hear a message of goodwill from a misogynist, bully and convicted murderer, I won't let Phil's sins deprive me of the glory that is Darlene Love, Ronnie Spector, and the wonderful group of singers who really lift this album. Without them, this album would not be the wonder that it is.
My favourite moment is Ronnie Spector's broad New York accent when she sings the word "Frosty" in Frosty The Snowman. I love it every time I hear it.
Gorillaz
3/5
I never really liked Damon Albarn much, a few notable singles excepted. I find this piece of high concept nonsense not nearly as interesting as it reckons it is. Dan the Automator's production lends this album some interest. and Del the Funkee Homosapien is worth a listen when he appears, but this is primarily the Damon Albarn show. His unfocussed warbling just never really builds enough energy to light me up, and usually sounds out of place with the backing tracks. It just strikes me as over-hyped demos. I don't even like 'Clint Eastwood' that much. 19-2000 is OK (and the Soulchild remix even better), and I liked Double Bass (perhaps not surprisingly, an instrumental).
My kids all seem to like Gorrillaz, though. I suspect that they encountered songs on video game soundtracks when they were kids, which is probably the appropriate age and context in which to experience Gorillaz.
Country Joe & The Fish
2/5
This album is the epitome of San Francisco 1967 psychedelia, but without any features that raise it above the level of a caricature of SF psychedelia. Not a single song sticks in my memory; all I can hear is that dreadful farfisa organ.
Lynyrd Skynyrd
3/5
Best in class Southern boogie rock. Comparing the demos to the album cuts, you can hear how well prepared the band was to record (with arrangements detailed and honed), but also how well Al Kooper recorded the band, getting a great sound out of them without polishing off the things that make the band great. But it doesn't really speak to me that much. I don't understand the appeal of Freebird (except for the blistering solos at the end, which are, rightly iconic)
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
3/5
Captain Beefheart is an artist that has been on my list for trying to get into. I've tried to listen to Troutmask Replica a few times, with little success. It is the musical equivalent of Joyce's Ulysses; lauded by some, but impenetrable and difficult. Maybe starting with Troutmask is jumping into the deep end too soon, so I was glad to see this come up on the list. I wanted to give the Captain a real chance with a more approachable record.
So, sitting down to really listen (and I listened through three times), this album I really liked. It sounds like some of the edgier rock of 1967 (Zappa, Velvets), but more firmly rooted in the blues. The Captain's vocals are surreal and gruff (obviously influence on later Tom Waits), but not so far out into left field as to be incomprehensible.
MVP is Ry Cooder, whose playing is superb, and you can tell the songs that he did the arrangements for. Standout tracks: Sure Nuff 'n Yes I Do, Dropout Boogie, Electricity, Plastic Factory and the cover of Grown So Ugly.
Enjoyed, would listen again, and feeling better prepared for Troutmask when it turns up on the list.
Napalm Death
2/5
Ah, Napalm Death... I appreciate that they exist, and I am sure they were heaps of fun live, but do I really want to sit down and listen to this album? It is hilariously badly recorded; guitars awash with chorus (side a), bass like a fart, cookie monster vocals and cymbals, cymbals everywhere. So many cymbals...
Confession time; my band in the 90s did a Napalm Death inspired song, that ran to 15 seconds. At one memorable gig at Macquarie University, we played it nearly a dozen times in row, which we thought was hilarious. The audience was less impressed.
I admire the pace and energy, and I love the commitment to brevity. "You Suffer" is a landmark in that respect. Much is stated of their 'socially aware' lyrics, but I mean, really, how can you tell? And it all starts sounding pretty similar after 10 or 15 songs, especially the less developed material on side b. In truth, you only ever need to listen to one Napalm Death song, and that is their cover of "Nazi Punks Fuck Off" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdkdR92a7dU
Serge Gainsbourg
4/5
This has been on my want-to-buy list for a while, and an album I occasionally spin on streaming. Creepy concept aside, I really enjoy this album, with it's laid-back funky feel, terrific string arrangements and crack session band (including Vic Flick, Big Jim Sullivan, Herbie Flowers), with Gainsbourg's gallic cool vocals over the top. It is atmospheric and sexy. This was clearly a massive influence on trip-hop, hip-hop and certain branches of 90s indie (Belle and Sebastian, Stereolab, etc), and was widely sampled or imitated in the 1990s.
There is a singular vision to this album, and it almost plays like a suite, book-ended by Melody and Cargo Culte, which are the outstanding tracks. This is an album that takes its time, but doesn't waste your time. Unique and influential, hard to describe. Listening again, this has worked its way up my vinyl want-list priorities.
Circle Jerks
2/5
Mark Deming of AllMusic reviewed the album, stating, "As such things go, it's tight, reasonably well played, the songs kinda sorta have hooks, and Keith Morris is a pretty good frontman, but if you're looking for nuance, you're pretty much out of luck. Then again, if you were looking for nuance in a Circle Jerks album, you've obviously been misinformed as to how this punk rock stuff works"
I sometimes enjoy seeing hardcore live, but do not really need to listen to the records. OK. At least it's short.
Ghostface Killah
3/5
Another Wu-Tang album. OK, I like the woozy and gritty lo-fi funk feelof the backing tracks of this album; the opening salvo of Shakey Dog, Kilo and The Champ is a fantastic opening. There are a zillion producers across this album, but there is a consistent feel across the album. I suspect that is the influence of Dilla. even though he only produced two tracks, the fingerprints of his time technique is all through this record. And it has the trademark Wu-Tang grittiness and cinematic scale; check out the horn stabs and soulful wailing on Shakey Dog.
That said, this has the weakness of most hip-hop albums of its vintage; too long, too many skits, casual misogyny, and I am bored to death with lyrics about drug dealing. There are a few weak tracks in the back end of this record that could easily be edited out, along with all the skits. What is the obsession with skits on hip-hop records? They are NEVER good. Not even the skits on "3ft high and rising"
But I will give this three stars for that opening run of songs, which I really dig.
Public Enemy
5/5
I bought all of the first four PE albums as they were released, and listened to them incessantly. This album is the bookend of their imperial period, when they were unarguably one of the most important bands in the world. Maybe not the masterpiece level of It Takes a Nation of Millions or Fear of a Black Planet, I have a massive love for this record.
Reading about it now, they had lost all their programming data for what was supposed to be this album. This explains the more straightforward production of this record, which is not quite the overwhelming a barrage of sound collage as the previous two records. But necessity is the mother of invention, and we have instead a more direct, though no less powerful, production.
It is pretty abrasive, noisy and assertive, enhanced by the aggressive scratching of Terminator X. It draws heavily on funk and other black forms, and even their own previous records. It is a new thing, and yet stands on the shoulders of giants. It plants itself firmly in the history of black music.
Chuck D has never sounded more authoritative, leavened by Flavor Flav, humorous but not a clown. Flav is angry on this record, and in a way, his numbers (especially I Don't Wanna Be Called Yo N.) are the angriest songs on the record (disguised with a bitter humour). The political message of this record is mature, thought out, and undeniable in its logic and emotional intensity. It is hard to think of a political band of the past 40 years that is both this eloquent and musically powerful.
I was going to rate this 4 (for maybe not being on the level of Black Planet and Nation of Millions) but the more I write about it, the more I realise how much I love this powerful, focused, and forceful record. (Favourite song: By the Time I get to Arizona; the funky power of this song is really unique, and shows the way for subsequent productions by Wu-Tang Clan, Dilla, MF Doom etc).
Drive Like Jehu
3/5
Drive Like Jehu were a band I missed the first time around, although they were theoretically right in my wheelhouse (noisy, heavy, angsty alt-rock). I think it was because this was their first Australian release, and it came out shortly after the record store I worked at, Scratches Records, had closed, and so my need, ability and desire to keep up on new releases had evaporated. And I have subsequently heard the name, but never heard any of their songs until now.
Reading about this filled me with foreboding. Terms like "proto-emo" and "math rock" inspired some dread. I don't really like either of those things. Too much empty posturing and calculation for my taste, which (despite loud guitars) can get in the way of the Rock. I like the Rock.
So, I was pleasantly surprised when I started playing this. It felt noisy and spontaneous, and while it has some of the characteristics of math-rock (changes in time signatures and tempo, some intricate guitar arrangements), this was a loud and energetic burst of adrenaline and squalling noise, that felt like they were playing by the seat of their pants. I like that,
Noisily and viscerally recorded, when the record stated playing, I was was sure that it must have been a Steve Albini recording. I am still shocked that it isn't. It has his trademark sound of an unadorned and unfussy production that doesn't get in the way of the band sounding like a band.
It reminds me of some slightly earlier records like God Machine's "Songs from the Second Storey" or the Murder Inc. S/T album, which got a lot of play in my house in 1992. In fact, I can imagine that if this record had come out in 1992, I would have been a fan.
But I'm not 22 any more. I am an old man with tired ears, and I find this album exhausting. I quite like the track Luau (which has a bit more light and shade than most of the record), By the end of the record, it all is sounding like a big noisy shouting match, and I am done.
I'm giving this 2.5, rounding up to 3 because I imagine that my younger self might have quite liked this.
Thin Lizzy
3/5
I've struggled with what to say about Thin Lizzy. I came across a review of the Jailbreak album by Marty Sartini Garner (https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/thin-lizzy-jailbreak/) which helped me bring my feelings into focus, and really applicable to Live and Dangerous. I shall now quote liberally:
"Like many songs of its era, “The Boys Are Back in Town” evangelizes the poseur myth of rock’n’roll: It wants you to believe that the music can whisk you away from who you actually are. … Thin Lizzy’s unwavering belief in their power as a band and the simple joy they get from playing together is so strong, it nearly makes the legend feel like it’s worth believing in, no matter if you know how all of these stories pan out. Who wouldn’t want to feel this free, even if the freedom dies the moment the record’s over?
…. The band is simply too happy, too taken by how much they enjoy what they’re doing—both the music they were making and the way it allowed them to see themselves—for the power and aggression of these songs to come across as truly dangerous or liberating. … In effect, it turned the band into something like professional wrestlers working the circuit—the muscles they flex are real, the fights themselves aren’t, and they can still feel the humming in their bodies for days afterward.
They knew how to use this to their artistic advantage. On its surface, [“Jailbreak”] serves as a warning shot, the cry before the battle: “Tonight there’s gonna be trouble,” Lynott promises. It’s tough-guy shit, but it’s impossible to believe. All four of them are strutting, making a show of how easily they can control their power. This swagger—the knowingness of it, how plainly they telegraph their pleasure—is absurd; escaping prison has never sounded less risky. The original Thin Lizzy played with David Bowie and Slade, and Lynott’s experience observing expert showmen up close, as well as the band’s own connection with their audience, let them embrace the absurdity of living one’s life as a rock star. It’s a trait they shared with ZZ Top, and it’s what makes Lynott as irresistible on “Jailbreak” as Billy Gibbons is on “La Grange.” He’s clearly having a ball, savoring the posture of the chorus as he leans deep into the words “Don’t you be around,” practically cooing for the listener in a way that is anything but threatening. He obviously wants you to be around. …
Lynott enjoyed a reputation as a poetic lyricist, and his rakishness has an air about it that is popularly associated with poetry, or maybe just with poets: He implies a self-contained sensuality, a somewhat tragic devotion to love, a presumed dedication to deeper things. Put another way: He was a little pretentious. It’s certainly a way of saying that his lyrics were usually decent at best, but that pretension makes him a compelling figure; it gives these songs a charge they would lack in hands that weren’t so silky."
This really put a finger on what I liked (and also disliked about this album); they have rock and roll swagger to burn. They are tight and heavy, and can swing, and they are having a ball. They play the rock and roll outlaw bad-boy image for all it is worth, although (and this is the key point of the review that spoke to me), _nobody_ really believes it. But they are having a blast, and they are inviting the audience to have a blast with them. I listened through to this, and then checked out the footage of their 1978 gig at the Sydney Opera House (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aif_E102wU&t=2174s), and man, they could tear it up. And the audience seems to be having a pretty great time.
How live is this album? While there is certainly some post-production overdubbing and polishing (a lot less than on Kiss Alive, I suspect), this is a great sounding record, and the excitement comes through. I was reading up, and apparently the track Southbound was a soundcheck recording, and you can really hear the difference in energy level. The band is really feeding off the audience, and the energy level is really high.
The twin guitar attack is tight and exciting (I enjoyed Robertson and Gorham trading fours on Emerald), and helps establish the blueprint that clearly influential on New Wave of British Heavy Metal and the bands that develop after that.
Producer Tony Visconti has given the whole album a terrific sheen without compromising on the visceral excitement.
Thin Lizzy had toured with Slade and Bowie prior to this, and learned a lot about stagecraft. Apparently Chas Chandler (then Slade's manager) threatened to throw Thin Lizzy off the tour because of Phil Lynott's poor stage presence and lack of interaction with the audience. How far he came in just a few years! You can hear on this record (and see on the Opera House footage) how he could work a crowd. Clearly, they were a terrific live band and a really great night out, I'm sure.
It's a pity the songs are a bit weak. Well played, but a bit rote, and clearly just posturing at being dangerous.
This also suffers from the problem of most double albums; too long, too much filler. Given their tendency to rely on their arrangements, this could have easily been trimmed to a tight and terrific single album, where the lack of variety would not have been quite as evident. Still, highlights for me include Jailbreak, Emerald, Massacre, Still in Love with you (cheesy though it might be), Suicide, and, of course, The Boys are Back in Town. Surprising cameo from Huey Lewis on harmonic on Baby Drives Me Crazy, a purely filler audience participation song that I would cut in a heartbeat.
So, I found this album energetic and fun while listening to it, but it dissolves like fairy floss as soon as it is over. Three stars.
Ministry
4/5
This records gets me really fired up. It gives me as much of an adrenaline thrill as it did when it first came out. I love the industrial repetitiveness, the crunchy guitars, metronomic beats, angry yelling, all undercut with sarcasm and humour (most notably on Jesus Built My Hotrod). It takes me back to the early 90s, when this was on constant rotation in my share house, and was a key inspiration for my own industrial band. I love this record. It's the best industrial metal album of all time (with the possible exception of the 1990 live Ministry album).
There's not really any _songs_ on this album; it is just one monstrous beat with slight variations on the same one-chord speed metal riff played across the whole album sprinkled with distorted yelling and the occasional sample. By the end of the album, they have even run out of yelling. It is a simple and repetitive idea, but it sure gets the blood pumping.
I saw them touring this album at Selinas in January 1995, and they were tight and heavy and just what you'd expect them to be like. Awesome!
Does everyone need to hear and love this album? No, they don't. It doesn't contain much to say about the human condition (except for the thrilling power of anger). The years have not been kind to Al Jourgensen and his crew of industrial outlaws; the hard living (especially hard drug use) has killed or enfeebled most of them. Uncle Al himself is a bit of a joke these days, and time has rendered the rebellious posturing of Ministry to be a bit of a Pyrrhic victory. I'm not sure it has all dated well At least this album isn't as bad, mostly, as the unfortunately titled "Land of Rape and Honey" album from 1988.
But I love it. It gets me fired up.
Mike Ladd
1/5
Jeez, whose dick did Mike Ladd suck to get on this list? The terrible rapping over amateurish home recordings has very little to recommend it. Oh, and the appalling falsetto warbling at the end of Planet 10 is just flat out bad. The occasional guest appearance of a real rapper with flow, skills and charisma highlights the shortcomings of Mr Ladd.
I am angry that this time-wasting compilation of half-arsed demos was included in the list. It does, however, feature prominently in my forthcoming book "A Million Albums You Can Happily Ignore For The Rest Of Your Life".
(A note to Mr Ladd, on the off-chance you have googled himself and come across this review: your record is not hateful. But, if you search your heart of hearts, you know. You_know_ this is not one of 1001 albums that you should hear before you die. )
Caetano Veloso
2/5
OK, nice enough. Pleasant, if slightly forgettable tunes, and cheerful 60s production. My Portuguese is sadly lacking, so I can't really get the impact of lyrics. The music is light and frothy and upbeat and cheesy, with a Latin swing that is fun. Pleasant enough, but doesn't really grab me.
Def Leppard
2/5
This is probably the most perfect pop-metal album ever made. And that is not a good thing. Polished within an inch of its life, this is just bloodless and over-long to me. Steve Albini was right when he said if you assemble perfect parts together, it doesn't make a sexy rock record. \"Perfection\" really doesn't do it for me. I know it sold a gazillion copies, and I am glad it exists, if only to prove why this approach doesn't work. It is charming enough not to be loathsome, but I really don't need to listen this again. although sitting through 45 minutes of this is boring and like eating an entire cheesecake. A single piece is a tasty treat, two is too much, and a whole cheesecake will make you want to vomit and never eat cheesecake again).
I can't believe that there is a ANOTHER Def Leppard album on this list. Why two, for god's sake? What else do they have to offer? (Note: this is the same review that I gave to Def Leppard's Hysteria album. They are, for the purposes of this list, interchangeable records.)
R.E.M.
3/5
Everyone in my family sings along in the car with "It's the End of The World As We Know It" when it comes on the radio. The singles from this album (End of the World, The One I Love, and Finest Worksong) are probably three of the best rock songs that REM ever released. The rest of the album is pretty good, with fair tunes, although the lyrics teeter on the border between opaque and nonsensical. At least they are not bone-headedly dumb (like the Def Leppard record that I reviewed yesterday).
This was the first of REM's string of albums with producer Scott Litt that were their most commercially and critically successful. He took their previously muddy production aesthetic and cleaned it up. Nothing revolutionary; clear production, muscular guitars and drums, and mixing the vocals further towards the front. The more focused approach made it evidently clear that REM were a pretty tight and accessible rock band, capable of mainstream success and radio play. It's no surprise that Nirvana's record company later asked Litt to mix some tracks from In Utero to make them more appealing for radio play.
REM have enough depth that you didn't feel like an idiot listening to them even though their lyrics are more impressionistic than literal. Maybe that allows the listener more scope to project their own meaning onto the canvas?. It does leave them open to misinterpretation (The One I Love is a
stalker anthem commonly mistaken for a love song), or just puzzled listeners (I mean, what they hell do the words of Lightnin' Hopkins mean?).
A better-than-average album, with three or four standout tracks.
Sly & The Family Stone
5/5
oh, hell yes! Here's a record that got a LOT of play in the first share house I lived in; this and Greatest Hits (1970), which has about a 50% overlap with Stand! This mix of funk, soul, R'n'B and rock is infectious and exhilarating, even more than 50 years since its first release. I won't deny that Sex Machine is 13 minutes of filler on an otherwise tight and catchy 41 minute album. And the songs are _so_catchy. Stand!, Sing a Simple Song, I Want To Take You Higher, Everyday People and You Can Make It If You Try are all classics.
Many have become standards. Within a year of the release of this album, songs have been covered or referenced by Jimi Hendrix, Ike and Tina Turner, Miles Davis, Diana Ross and the Supremes, the Jackson 5, the Meters, Booker T. and the MGs. The songs on this album have been sampled hundreds or possibly even thousands of times, which makes their influence continuous to today. Prince was clearly influenced by the multi-racial, diverse gendered, and multi-genre approach of the Family Stone. The influence of this record was both instant and long lasting, and permeates much of what we do. Even down to the way that Larry Graham is laying the foundations for what funk bass playing should be. He is just starting to develop slap bass, brought to its early peak on Thankyoufalletinme (Me Mice Elf Again) the following year.
You can see how important Sly & The Family Stone were at the time. Their appearance at the Summer of Soul Festival is clearly the high point of the festival for the audience, and you can see where they are pushing black music and musicians. If you watch the Summer of Soul documentary (highly, highly, highly recommended), you can see that many bands are still wearing matching suits and playing in an R'n'B style, although the beginnings of funk are starting to appear. And then out come the family Stone in their funky freak clothes, and tearing it up with their mix of rock and soul and funk. Some audience members talk about how they threw away their wardrobes and bought new clothes after seeing Sly & the Family Stone. You can see the influence they have on Hendrix and Stevie Wonder and P.Funk and the Motown bands and everyone. Their music, their fashion, their attitude, their arrangements, their inclusiveness. And the songs, those amazing songs.
In 2012, I was in New York for a few weeks, when I saw that Larry Graham was playing a free lunchtime gig in a park in Brooklyn. I dragged the family down there, and he tore it up! At the end of the set he played a bunch of Sly songs, and those songs still have the power to raise the roof (even in an outdoor venue). Look at the sober, lunchtime crowd reacts to I Wanna Take You Higher. Still one of the greatest shows I have even seen. You can see some highlights at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuWUfI0z51U Here's another video, where at 1:35 you can see Ed and Alfie (briefly) onstage dancing with the band https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u_b-yv9h7Q Good times!
Janelle Monáe
3/5
This is a massive survey of Janelle Monae and her (many, many) ideas and (plethora of) influences. It's like every idea she ever had, all highly polished in their baroque finery and glossy perfection. There are some cracking tunes on here (Cold War and Tightrope in particular), but I found the overwhelming quantity of stuff in this feast too rich for my blood. And it is all so much! Overtures! Psychedelic interstitials! Cabaret! Madrigals! Jazz! String quartets! Choirs! Orchestras! Pyrotechnic rock guitar solos! Some is good, but more is better!
I love her voice; and when the songs are a little more stripped back (eg Say You'll Go), you can really hear the quality of it. I wish she would just simplify a bit. Less high concept, fewer embellishments in the arrangements, just a bit more straightforward. A little bit more... human. I guess that runs against the 'artistic vision'...
Instead of being a jewel box, it is a massive treasure chest. Trying to consume this whole album is like eating a 5kg box of chocolates in a single sitting. I needed to consume this is small portions.
Iron Maiden
2/5
Having recently listened to Thin Lizzy's Live and Dangerous, Iron Maiden's self titled album does not seem like quite much of a revolution. It's an evolution of 70s hard rock; raspy hard rock vocals, twin lead guitar attack, speed and punk-like energy. It doesn't swing quite as much as Thin Lizzy. I always thought that Iron Maiden were the most British-sounding band; the rhythms are much more marching band than rock and roll swing, which undercuts the swagger a bit. And this record sounds like it was recorded through a cardboard tube. Paul Di'Anno's vocal limitations show up on occasion, along with the odd fluffed guitar solo.
The one song that stands out to me is Phantom of the Opera, which has a complex, prog-like arrangement, without losing its rock and roll energy. This points to where New Wave of British Heavy Metal and its American offshoots (thrash and speed metal, in particular) will head, but is a bit of an outlier on this record which tends towards hard rock cliche. At least it isn't as bad as Def Leppard, who embraces the cliches and ride them all the way to the bank.
This album burst onto the mainstream in 1980, which just shows how this kind of metal had been bubbling under the surface for a few years, and this was the first time the public really noticed. There are better examples of this genre (even just suggesting Maiden's Number of The Best, which is also on this list).
Side note: I keep reading about the 'punk' influences in NWOBHM. I don't really get it. It is certainly less cerebral than a lot of early-mid 70s rock, especially prog rock, and embraces a loud and unvarnished sound, although it does not reject musical technique int eh same way punk declared. I think it shares an energy, DIY ethos and relative lack of pretension with punk (probably driven by similar rejection of the mainstream), but I don't get that they are the same. And Steve Harris from Iron Maiden seems to agree with me. He claims he always hated punk.
Two stars for the album, and an extra half for Phantom of the Opera. Rounded down. Sorry, dudes.
Bad Brains
2/5
Is this one of those ones where you had to be there? I like the more punk tracks, like'I Against I', but the more metallic songs are technically accomplished, but I find less compelling. Do I need it a bit rougher edged? Do I want some more intense attitude? Is it just paler in comparison to what I was expecting? I was expecting something wilder.
I can hear that this predates Living Colour by a year or two. Hired Gun could totally be a Living Colour song. But not quite as catchy.
Primal Scream
4/5
I have loved this record since it came out. The songs are, perhaps, not that strong, but the production and mood lifts this into the all time classic range. Its a night in the clubs, with the chill-out come-down at the end. The spaced-out, dubbed-out, extended dance mix production turn this into an album that I can listen to over and over again. Loaded is a staple of my DJ sets, but in context, event he weaker songs on this album work because of the way they contribute to the mood and journey of the record. love it.
Kate Bush
2/5
Hard to know what to make of this record: it is just a bit too over-worked for my taste. Massively influential, in its way. The mix of samplers and synthesizers with acoustic instruments sounds great, but the songs are so complex and over-worked that I struggle with this in the same way I struggle with prog. The fretless bass dates the production somewhat. A bit too clever-clogs, humourless and emotionally distant. It doesn't really move me.
I was thinking 2.5 stars, but the title track makes me feel icky. Her take on Aboriginal issues is perhaps well meaning, but ultimately embarrassing and insensitively executed (this song was originally titled "the Abo Song". Some promo copies of the single are so titled). Didgeridoo playing from well known pervert (and absolutely not-Aboriginal) Rolf Harris. So, we're rounding down.
Metallica
2/5
Jesus, this album is just exhausting. And it sounds _bad_. Apparently, Lars and James now claim that the dry, clicky drums and complete lack of bass were deliberate choices. Or maybe they were an accident, having trashed their hearing touring. Or maybe it was out of spite to make newly recruited bass player Jason Newstead inaudible. Does it matter why? It was a bad choice and all of the potential reasons are bad.
It has always amazed me that James Hetfield has managed to drag three mediocre musicians into superstardom, against all the odds.
I really struggled to get through this album. I know that my mate Tim and I used to listen to it when it first came out, but, apart from 'One', I had no memories of this record. Not one memorable song. And, having just listened to it afresh, I still can't remember any of the songs, apart from 'One'.
I am so tired.... No more 80s metal, please...
Gang Starr
3/5
I was more familiar with Guru's solo Jazzmatazz albums (which I am pretty sure we sold at Scratches back int he day), although I remember some of the singles from this. I like Guru's laid back style and the jazzy, funky and inventive. It is nice to get away from the very aggressive and shout-y tenor of most 90s hip hop, and this is less violent and misogynistic than most. Guru's flow is sometimes a bit awkward, but he is so charismatic that he can sell even his clunkiest bars. I enjoyed listening to this, although not much stuck in my memory. If I wanted to play this vibe, I would be much more likely to spin Guru's solo work.
Eurythmics
4/5
This is where the Eurythmics realize that they can write an all-time classic song (Sweet Dreams), and a pretty great single (Love is a Stranger). Most of the album, though, is pretty stripped back, showing that most of the album is in fact a home recording on 8-track tape. That stripped back 80s synth pop sound can be pretty, although (as Robert Christgau points out) it can be a bit pretentious. I disagree that it is overwhelmingly pretentious, certainly compared to a lot of the stuff coming out from similar bands (see the contemporaneous parody from Not the Nine O'Clock News; Lufthansa Terminal 'Nice Video (Shame About the Song)': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FhYOcf2_5Q). It really isn't that bad. And besides, it is nice to have a pop song that doesn't make you feel slightly lobotomized just for listening to it.
I like the stripped back production. 'Jennifer' really reminds me of the Kills, a band I really like, and they must be influenced by the earlier Eurythmics. That said, I could live without the weird cover of Wrap It Up. This sounds like it was intended to be a single, but fortunately never was released as such.
Annie Lennox's voice, which is one of the great pop voices of the 80s. Her range of tone and ability to convey the drama of a song lift the Eurythmics well above the standard of similar bands of their vintage.
You can hear how close they came to not making it. If it wasn't for Sweet Dreams (the 4th single from the album!), I suspect they would have disappeared into relative obscurity.
I find this album pretty listenable, although Sweet Dreams and Love is a Stranger are clearly head and shoulders above the rest of the record. It was very pleasing that they took the lessons of those tracks and produced a string of incredibly strong singles over the next decade or so.
I was talking to Shawn just yesterday about how the 1001 list leans heavily towards classic rock and is criminally short of female artists. This piece of fresh, smart, female-fronted pop arrived just in time to save me from the hell of Stephen Stills and everything he stands for.
It's a 3.5 stars album for me, rounded up because it turned up on the list in the nick of time. Thanks, Annie, much appreciated.
Black Flag
2/5
So many hardcore albums on this list! Really, hardcore is a bit of a niche genre, so we really don't need quite so many records.
But, if you are going to listen to one hardcore album, this really is the one. Focused, aggressive, and pretty well recorded (for the time and budget, and certainly within the genre). Greg Ginn leads the band with (relatively) inventive playing, and a pleasing amount of noise. This is Henry Rollins' first album with Black Flag, and he is a charismatic and powerful vocalist, and can project both focused anger and sarcastic humour. Why anyone (including Black Flag) ever bothered recording another hardcore album, I just don't know.
But, while I really would have loved to see Black Flag live in 1981, I do not need to listen to this, or any other hardcore albums, ever again.
Queen
2/5
Queen. I love Queen they are awesome. Way, way, way over the top, because nothing exceeds like excess. This is my mate David Lewis' favourite Queen album, and that is saying a lot. See his Queen summary here: https://www.toppermost.co.uk/queen/
This record is where they worked out how to use the studio to get their trademark sounds; layers of harmony vocals, orchestras of overdubbed guitars, weird sounds and tape effects, all more more more. They really perfected the techniques that built the sound they used to conquer the world through the 70s on this record. But, the songs just aren't really there. Sorry, Dave. I have listened to this through about four times in a row today (ad I know I have listened to it several times before. I own a copy). But I just can't remember any of the songs. There are a few good riffs that come and go quickly, but everything is so overdone, and overblown, I'm just overpowered. I much prefer the (slightly) more stripped down hard-rockin' Sheer Heart Attach, or, conversely, the even more over the top A Night At The Opera, which has far far better songs, and a bit more light and shade. Fun fact: the working title of Queen II was "Over The Top".
I love this review from Pitchfork (https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/15221-reissues/), which encapsulates my feelings about the band:
"Fucking Queen. For all their reported bombast, pomp, and tendency to overshoot and double-slaughter any semblances of good taste, everything you've heard about them is still true. They're one of the few phenomena who deliver on the hype, regardless of how you approach them. Hate or love proggy album suites? Doesn't matter, Queen will make you feel good about your choice. Can't stand operatic drama, or can't get enough unitard-clad frontmen? Love to hate prime 1970s hard rock with arena sheen? Welcome to the greatest/most horrible band of the 20th century. They did and wanted it all. Yet, so much of Queen's music is still under-recognized even by people who know and love the hits."
Robert Christgau (http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=queen) was a bit more succinct: "Queen II [Elektra, 1974] Wimpoid royaloid heavoid android void. C-"
On this record, they are working it out, how to do The Sound. It took a while to learn how to simplify their songwriting (mostly) and how to apply The Sound to best effect. Great moments, but tedious hours.
Stereo MC's
3/5
Pleasantly funky and reasonably positive dance/hip-hop/indie crossover thing. Lyrics are nothing to write home about, but has a positive (if slightly superficial) vibe. Tends to blend into a funky wash. I'm sure they were fun live. Sample choice is exquisite, and they are tastefully deployed (which is certainly much better than most early 90s equivalents), which make this album sound less dated than many of its contemporaries. I like Connected, which is a great single, but the album is more of the (pretty good) same.
Tears For Fears
4/5
Sooooooooo 1980s. This album is totally of its time, but still sounds really damn great. The production and recording quality is second to none, and really serves the excellent songs. I know they feel Everybody Wants To Rule the World was a throw-away, quick and dirty (minimal) effort, but they were at the height of their powers and it kicks arse. (Fun fact: this was the first 7" that Sascha ever bought). Everybody..., along with Shout and Head Over Heels provide hooky anchors to this lean yet expansive, experimental yet commercial, personal yet cinematic album. A pop highwater mark of the decade
My favourite bit: right at the end of Head Over Heels (just on 4.00) where he sings "Funny how..." and then all the instruments drop out and he continues "time flies...." acapella, his voice slathered in reverb and a big wide phaser. It's best on the single, which just ends like that. Magic.
Astor Piazzolla
2/5
I was really bored by this tango nuevo album. Too much nuevo, not enough tango. This is overly intellectual jazz for me. The constantly swooping violin was annoying. And I am unconvinced that marimba really helps.
So, after a while listening, I thought, this really reminds me of the theme to the Terry Gilliam film "12 Monkeys" (1995), that I always enjoyed. And sure enough Suite Punta Del Este by Astor Piazolla. But that piece is not performed on this album.
Plus, he wrote the classic Libertango, adapted with lyrics by Grace Jones as"I've Seen That Face Before (Libertango)", a really fantastic song. But also, not on this album.
And apparently he wrote an amazing piece in memory of his father, "Adios Nonino", that is a classic of the tango genre. Not on this album.
So, this album seems like a weird choice on the list. It's an atypical performance by a classic composer and innovator within his genre that doesn't contain many of his most famous and genre-defining compositions.
But check out the wild life on Astor Piazolla. his wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astor_Piazzolla) is a fascinating read. Some highlights:
- "Gardel invited the young bandoneon player [Piazolla] to join him on his tour. Much to Piazzolla's dismay, his father decided that he was not old enough [he was only 14] to go along. The disappointment of being forbidden to join the tour proved to be fortunate, as it was on this tour in 1935 that Gardel and his entire orchestra perished in a plane crash"
- "Having disbanded his first orchestra in 1950 he almost abandoned tango altogether as he continued to study Bartok and Stravinsky and orchestra direction"
- "[After a classical concert in 1953] At the end of the concert, a fight broke out among members of the audience who were offended by the inclusion of two bandoneons in a traditional symphony orchestra."
- "Piazzolla's new approach to the tango, nuevo tango, made him a controversial figure in his native land both musically and politically." A politically controversial tango composer!
- He collapsed in 1990, and spent the last two years of his life in a coma.
- There is an airport in Argentina named after him.
I would totally watch a movie about the life of Astor Piazolla. And I was pleasantly surprised to find out I was familiar with a few pieces of his work. But this album was not enjoyable for me, and I never intend to listen to it again. A missed opportunity by 1001 albums to select a properly representative work.
Sade
4/5
So, usually, I don't like things that are too smooth and polished. I like a little bit of grit. But this album is an exception. I really love it. I love her voice; smooth and airy, no over-singing, just a little bit of breathiness. The lyrical content, I think, adds just that little bit of frisson. The romantic situations described a bit seedy, a bit gritty.
I was interested to read that, because they were working at a relatively inexpensive studio without automation, they recorded live and with six people working the faders to mix, so I think there is a touch more human feel than something recorded to the grid, with samples and lots of synths and super smooth mixing. This sits right on the line between smooth jazz that becomes wallpaper lite and a laid back, mellow reverie. A quiet storm. I think this is on the right side of that line, and set a path for a whole range of British jazz-inflected music to come (Soul II Soul, trip hop, etc).
Really, though, the reason I love this album is because my first girlfriend really liked it, and we listened to it a lot together. So, some fond memories there.
Parliament
5/5
I love this album. It is the ultimate P-Funk album. It is surprisingly laid, with heaps of space to let the music breathe. Everyone is stretching out a bit, and it is the band at the height of their powers; Bernie Worrell on keys, Bootsy on bass and recent escapees from the JBs Fred Wesley and Maceo Parker on horns. everyone's singing, and they give each other enough space.
It's fun and funny, and profound and aware, and funky and playful and laid-back. The soloing is surprisingly challenging, which means there is always something new to listen to. I love this record, and have played it hundreds of times in my life, and probably will hundreds of times more.
I find the songs are almost more chants or rhymes or monologues than songs-proper, but I love the way this holds together as an album. Rolling Stone reviewed it at the time as a \"parody of funk\", but I think that shows much Rolling Stone didn't get it then, although they have since acknowledged it on their list of Top 500 albums ever.
I wish I had seen this band playing at this point in time, with their Mothership stage prop descending to the stage. The Mothership now resides on permanent display at the Smithsonian. As it should be. And the album is the funkiest slab of wax in the Library of Congress. As it should be. It is almost too much fun to be a classic.
The Band
3/5
When I signed up for this project, I was expecting more albums of this kind of stature and reputation. Despite constant prodding from my mate Dave Lewis to give the Band some attention, they have largely sat on my back-burner. I mean, I've seen the Last Waltz, I know the hits, I even have a favourite deep cut ("Don't Do It", probably the funkiest thing they ever recorded). And I've certainly read a thousand hagiographic magazine articles about Music from Big Pink. I know the legends, and this is a legendary album from a legendary band. _The_ Band.
So what is it like to sit down and properly listen to Music from Big Pink? Well, I can certainly hear how this was massively influential in both song-writing and production approach. And like many super-influential albums, they were followed by a few people who did it better, and a whole lot of crappy imitators playing terrible and increasingly pale carbon copies o this records.
Can't deny the song-writing (for the most part); The Weight, three previously unheard (except on bootleg) Dylan classics from the Basement Tapes, Chest Fever, and a cover of Lefty Frizzell's Long Black Veil. Chest Fever is my favourite performance on the album. But the recordings border on demos in some cases, although is that part of the charm of it? Despite the legends of being developed int eh basement of Big Pink (the house in upstate NEw York), I gather from wikipedia that this was actually mostly recorded in some of the most prestigious studios in America at the time (A&R in New York, and Capitol and Gold Star in LA). And here comes my blasphemous opinions; a lot of the singing is pretty weak (especially Richard Manuel), and I have never really rated Robbie Robertson's playing.
This album is, possibly, a bit over-rated. And the cover art is _rubbish_. There, I said it. But it really is hard to judge an iconic album like this; so much of what has come since has been shaped by it; "authentic" production, band dynamics, the embrace of American roots styles, country-soul... And I do love that it isn't polished to the point that there is no life left in it, unlike so many albums. I can respect it, but I don't know that I really love it. I'm glad I have given it some proper attention. See Dave, I told you I would, eventually.
Jurassic 5
3/5
Pleasantly old school and not homophobic, misogynistic or hyper-violent. MCs have great flow, production is funky. Enjoyed even more after multiple spins.
My favourite bit is the last 10 seconds of "After School Special", when the kid from the introduction comes in and spits a few bars. I would totally listen to a whole track of that kid.
Talking Heads
4/5
Talking Heads is a band that changed everything for me after hearing Remain in Light. This is the beginning of their amazing four album run with Brian Eno, although the thing that really elevates this from their first album is the way that Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz embrace dance music, moving the whole sound to a funkier place.
This is not my favourite Talking Heads album. It might not even scrape into my top five (depending on whether you count bootlegs or not). But a bloody great record it is, and it is great to hear a band with a really fresh outlook finding its feet, and looking out to the future. And you can dance to it!
Stereolab
4/5
I've always thought that I _should_ like Stereolab, and I have checked in on some of their records in the past, but hadn't found the album that really grabbed me. And then I heard this. This is the shit. A mixture of krautrock, 60s French girl pop (having a French girl singer helps heighten that impression, but it is not a lazy comparison; they really sound like that), with inflections of jazz, easy listening, funk and the Velvet Underground. T
his is the record I have been always been wanting from Stereolab. And I finally found it! yes, yes, yes. I knew this project would be worthwhile.
Faith No More
4/5
Faith No More grabbed my attention when I first heard their first single (At least, the first one released in Australia); We Care A Lot. In 1987 I traipsed down to the Virgin Megastore and plonked down my hard=earned for a copy of the 12", pressed on criminally flimsy 80s vinyl. it was so thin, I initially thought there wasn't a record inside the cover. That single was later stolen from a share house I lived in, and I wish I knew what bastard took it so I could explain to them in short, percussive terms how displeased I was. I managed to pick up a 7" copy to replace it quiet recently. I should pull that out and give it a spin...
This album was released in late 1989. My mate Tim and I loved it, and used to play it a _lot_. It was a point of reference for the band we were trying to form. So, when FNM announced an Australian tour, playing at the (tiny) Marquee Club in Camperdown, we jumped on tickets. That must have been in about March 1990. In July, they released Epic as a single, and it went gangbusters. It entered the chart at #22, about two weeks before the gig on 5 August. But the end of the month it was #1 on the ARIA charts. Needless to say, the shows became a very hot ticket. Everyone suddenly wanted them, and Tim and I had them. I could not wait for this show; much anticipation.
And then the day before the gig, I started coughing. By the afternoon of the show, I could barely stand with some horrible pneumonia-like chest infection. Despite being 19 and generally feeling invincible, even I could tell that going to the show would probably kill me. So Tim scalped my ticket and made a tidy profit. He said the show was a fantastic, but I missed it. I still regret that I didn't see them in a small club at the height of their powers., when I was _that close_.
But I still love this whole album. It's basically a bludgeoning metal album, although the rhythm section swing a bit more than a typical 80s metal band, and they don't take themselves too seriously (which immediately makes them more listenable than, say, Megadeth). There are tunes you can sing along with, Mike Patton is a charismatic front man, and the keys lift the arrangements (even if the cheesy digital synths are hilariously of their time). The influence of musical genres outside of straight metal help maintain interest without descending into willfully "weirdo" genre-hopping pastiche or collage (cf Mr Bungle, Mike Patton's other band).
There were other bands doing similar things (Fishbone, Living Colour, Bad Brains), so it was hardly unique, but it was well done, and certainly more listenable than most of the horrible rap-rock that followed. or "nu-metal", even worse. This was one of the first initial pre-shocks of 80s alternative busting into the mainstream. Nirvana really kicked the doors down, but bands like Faith No More were among the vanguard. And I really dug it when I was 19. I enjoyed revisiting it now, 30 years later. I miss Tim, and this album reminds me of him.
Aretha Franklin
5/5
It is hard to say anything new about Aretha, at the height of her amazing powers here. Even the filler tracks ("Niki Hoeky", anyone?) are funky and she sings the hell out of every song, and there is a reason the standout tracks from this record are absolute classics. An unambiguous five-star all-time classic album. I could listen to this every day. Damn it, I _should_ listen to this every day.
Most surprising moment; her two whoops right at the end of "Good as I am to you"
U2
5/5
This is my favourite U2 album. I (generally) find them a bit bombastic and earnest, a bit too polished and almost completely devoid of swing. But this is the record where they discovered noise, irony and even a modicum of funk. I love industrial music, so the noisy, industrial production style really appeals to me. And, despite the deliberately trashy presentation, there are some really strong songs here, including One, which I would argue is the best song they ever wrote.
I saw U2 once in the early 2000s, and I was surprised at how closely Bono stuck to the vocal arrangements from the records, occasionally throwing in snippets of other songs (with mixed results) to try and keep things fresh, but I really got the impression that, despite his great pipes, he doesn't think on his feet particularly quickly in a musical sense. I suspect in the studio he works really hard until he finds the best performance, and that is generally locked in forever. But when he sang One, I felt that this was a song he deeply understood, musically, and it was not just a replaying of the record. His performance was much more fluid and in the moment.
While not nearly as hard-edged as a lot of the records I was listening to when this came out (Einsturzende Neubauten, Skinny Puppy, Nine Inch Nails, etc etc), this had the advantage of having really great songs at the core (which you would certainly not accuse Skinny Puppy of. The only late 80s, early 90s industrial band with really good songwriting was Nine Inch Nails). I listened to this album a lot when it first came out, and is still probably the first U2 album I would pull off the shelf (a close tie with Joshua Tree).
I listened to this record a lot, and each track still stands up for me. The songs are less ambitious, global, worthy and important, and much more human and morally ambiguous. There is a quite a bit informed by the Edge's divorce, and the band's own near-divorce. It was a bold swing at a real change, and one that paid off for them, extending their career that had perhaps run out of obvious places to go. Bono is still annoyingly full of himself, but the more self-reflective approach on this album tones that down just enough to be palatable.
Interestingly, having heard some of the demos, I think a LOT of the greatness of this album comes down to the production and mixing team of Eno, Daniel Lanois, Flood and Steve Lillywhite, who took some pretty half baked ideas and crafted them into an amazing record. Lanois can record, Eno can edit, Lillywhite can mix, but for my money, the real secret sauce is Flood. This is Flood starting to move into the big time, from the alternative bands he had worked with previously. The band threw everything and the kitchen sink on tape, but it is the editing and mixing that really lifts this into something special (and I think Flood's distinctive work can be clearly heard here). I am noticing how often Flood's name turns up on records from the late 80s and 90s on this list. He gets my Most Valuable Player award.
The Replacements
3/5
I've tried with the Replacements, I swear to god I've tried. I just don't really love it. Reviews like this one in Consequence of Sound (https://consequence.net/2008/05/album-review-let-it-be-deluxe-edition/) talk about them as "the only band that matters", and this as the greatest album of all time. But I swear, I have seen a hundred bands playing on a Wednesday night at the Sandringham Hotel in the 80s who were this good or better. Is this the emperor's new clothes, or did you really have to be there? I think the over-the-top adulation really makes it hard for me to approach the Replacements without some immediate resentment.
The shitty playing and marginal recording don't offend me, but at least half this album is filler: Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out, Seen Your Video, Gary's Got a Boner, or Black Diamond (a Kiss cover, god help me) to name a few. Reviews describe I Will Dare or Unsatisfied as the second coming of Jesus Lennon, but I don't see it. They're OK, but, you know, not all that and a bag of chips.
The only song on here that did anything for me is Androgynous. I feel like the papers are full of conservatives bashing on gender diverse people, and I found this song an unaffected and moving call for tolerance.
This album is 2.5 stars for me, rounding up because of Androgynous.
Miriam Makeba
3/5
I was not at all familiar with Miriam Makeba's early career. A somewhat strange assortment of material, but I guess this is the concept of "world music" just starting out. I think we could have lived without the novelty songs like "The Naughty Little Flea" or "One More Dance" (especially with that horrible laughing all the way through), but the variety of material (however relevant) shows that she could sing _anything_. What a voice! I could happily listen to her sing the phonebook.
The tracks closer to her South African background are the strongest tracks ont he album (The Retreat Song, The Click Song, Mbube, Umhome, Olilili, Nomeva, etc), but even with material from elsewhere, she is controlled, dynamic, and powerful. She has a confident projection in whatever genre she is singing.
Enjoyed.
Pet Shop Boys
2/5
It's all terribly tasteful and melancholic and polished and... sorry, just drifted off there for a minute. Why are there three Pet Shop Boys albums on this list? And of those three, this is probably the most soporific. I guess you could understand this as an elegy at the end of the worst of the AIDS crisis, mourning for friends and lovers lost. Apparently, Neil Tennant didn't come out until 1994 (four years after this album). I'm not quite sure how that was a secret...
This album really is incredibly well done, and the singles are OK, but the whole thing is really not my bag.
Motörhead
4/5
Just the other day my group was complaining about too many slow and boring albums recently. And now, Motorhead! Live!
Motorhead were a one trick pony, really, but what a trick it is! It's loud and fast and raucous and funny and noisy, but mostly loud and fast. I love that 'Capricorn' is introduced as a slow song (by Motorhead standards). They only really play variants on two different riffs, and Fast Eddie only knows one solo, and all the lyrics are interchangeable (and certainly not Shakespeare), but I find this album fun. Unlike most of the NWOBHM, this doesn't take itself too seriously (case in point; "We are the road crew").
This is Motorhead at the height of their powers, doing their thing. It's rougher than their studio recordings, which just heightens the raw rock and roll nature of their (limited) oeuvre. Truth be told, this album really just "Ace of Spades" at the beginning and "Motorhead" at the end, and a bunch of stuff in the middle. Fun, loud, noisy and doesn't outstay it's welcome. This is the one Motorhead album that I actually play, because it is all the best things about Motorhead.
Elliott Smith
3/5
Nice songs, really nicely recorded. I'm not quite sure why Elliott Smith has two albums on the must hear list. It's OK... just OK.
Def Leppard
2/5
This is probably the most perfect pop-rock album ever made. And that is NOT a good thing. Polished within an inch of its life, this is just bloodless and over-long to me.
Steve Albini was right when he said if you assemble perfect parts together, it doesn't make a sexy rock record. So, so polished, and over long. 'Perfection' really doesn't do it for me. I know it sold a gazillion copies, and I am glad it exists, if only to prove why this approach doesn't work. It is charming enough not to be loathsome, but I really don't need to listen this again. Sitting through an hour of this is boring and like eating an entire cheesecake. A single piece is a tasty treat, two is too much, and a whole cheesecake will make you want to vomit and never eat cheesecake again.
I can't believe that there is ANOTHER Def Leppard album on this list. Why two, for god's sake? What else do they have to offer? (Note: this is the same review that I gave to Def Leppard's Pyromania album. They are, for all intents and purposes, interchangeable records.)
Tom Waits
4/5
When I was a young man, with young friends, all prone to heartbreak and relationship drama, we had a sort of ritual. When one of us went through a nasty split (temporary or permanent), we'd chip in to buy a bottle of Jameson's, then then stay up until 3am to drink, commiserate, and play Tom Waits records. Including this album.
I really enjoy the mixture of Beefheart-style blues growling and Bukowski-inspired ballads. It's the ballads that really stand out as classics: Jersey Girl (better known in the Springsteen version, perhaps), On The Nickel and Ruby's Arms are all beautiful songs, even when filtered through Wait's increasingly graveled voice.
The Fall
2/5
I never got The Fall, so I thought "here's an opportunity to give them a proper go, listen to whole album, one that is regarded as their best and most accessible. Maybe Mark E. Smith's voice isn't the most annoying bleating you ever heard once you get used to it. Maybe this is not just one of those bands that John Peel fell in love with and played so much that they became a beloved British institution through sheer familiarity, regardless of being complete rubbish. Maybe this is a band so bad that they're good."
Nope. Just nope.
Funkadelic
5/5
I recently listened to Parliament's Mothership Connection (great party album, five stars!), and it is hard to believe that this is from the same P-Funk collective. It is dark and disturbing, and funky, and funny and scary and rocks pretty hard.
The title track is one of the most monumental rock guitar solos. It is bold choice to mix out most of the rest of the band, and to lead the album with a ten minute long single take guitar solo. The album is bookended with the much more up tempo, frantic Wars of Armageddon freak out, that pre-sages Miles Davis' electric albums. The songs in the middle are all winners, although darker in tone than typical for P-Funk. Super Stupid in particular is one of my favourite rock songs ever, and certainly the best Hendrix song that he never wrote. Can You Get To That, Hit It and Quit It, and You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks are all classics, and widely sampled. This album is all widely covered and sampled. showing how influential this record is.
Half the band quit after this album (although some of them came back), and they never made another album quite this heavy ever again. And it was probably unsustainable. I love it, classic, five stars.
(A small anecdote: I bought my copy of this album mail order in the 2000s from Ernie B's Reggae. Ernie B's stocks both kinds of music: reggae and not-reggae. This was a re-issue on the hipster 4 Men With Beards label. And the stamper on one side was misaligned, so the stylus travels and elliptical track and the record audibly goes out of tune. Very annoying. Ernie B's did refund my money, to their credit, but I have not yet managed to replace my unplayable copy of this album. But here's a tip for all you players at home; avoid the 4 Men With Beards pressings.)
The Sonics
4/5
Strychinine, Psycho and The Witch are garage classics, and the covers are well chosen (even if no improvement on the original, or even some of the subsequent covers). But it is the delivery that really sells this album. Fast, loud and out of control, lots of distortion and screaming, this is honest, take-no-prisoners garage rock. This is a 29 minute long adrenaline rush, which never lets up. I really enjoy the energy of this record.
Travis
2/5
Tasteful, gentle, soporific. I was expecting proto-landfill-indie, with completely forgettable tunes, and it was marginally better than that. But I never need to hear this album again in my life.
The production is a little bit edgier and interesting than I expected (thanks, Nigel Goodrich), but at best, at its most hard-rockin', this comes across as OK Computer Lite. Actually, I'm just listening to the coda of As You Are, and this is the worst case of Thom Yorke wannabe-ism I have ever heard.
I don't hate this, as it is custom made to be un-hateable, but it has no grit at all.
Fats Domino
3/5
Foundational rock and roll (although he maintained this was rhythm and blues, that he had been playing for 15 years before anyone coined the term "rock and roll"). It's rollicking good time stuff, but, truth be told, he travels a pretty narrow path. There really are only minor variations on two or three tunes here, and it gets a little repetitive.
I don't feel like the seminal 50s artists really geta fair shake on this list, with its obsession with original albums (not compilations). While this is a fair representation of Fats Domino at the peak of his powers, but if this took more than an afternoon to knock out in the studio, I'll eat my hat. He really was a singles artist, not an album artist. He had been putting out million-selling singles for over a decade before he released an album. This does have Blueberry Hill on it (an all-time classic), which makes it worth listening to, but I really am stretching to give this more than 2.5 stars, rounded up to 3 because this list is biased against artists like Fats.
Gang Of Four
4/5
This is such a great record. My favourite track is Natural's Not In It, but Damaged, At Home He Feels Like a Tourist, and Love Like Anthrax are also bangers. This has been copied a million times since it came, but it still sounds fresh, energizing and surprising to me. Most of the copyists still can't touch this.
The Temptations
4/5
Norman Whitfield and the Temptations convince Berry Gordy to try something new, and kick off psychedelic soul. And set the precedent that Motown can do something other than polished 2 minute pop songs. So, this inadvertently gives us a whole genre that takes off int he 70s, plus opens the door for Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder to blow the roof off. Side 1 is terrific with the title track, a psychedelic reading of Heard It Through the Grapevine and the 9-minute freakout of Runaway Child, Running Wild.
Side 2 is much more conventional, but still a great listen.
The Beach Boys
3/5
Brian Wilson is no longer on the road, and concentrating on production and songwriting. But he hasn't hit his straps yet, for better and for worse. Help Me Rhonda and When I Grow Up (To Be A Man) are stand-out songs, with Dance Dance Dance and I'm So Young also pretty strong, but the rest of this album barely rises above cliched filler tunes. The harmonies are terrific (with strong incorporation of jazz chords into their doo wop style). and the backing tracks are starting to channel the best parts of Phil Spector production methods, without yet degenerating into the worst excesses that lay around the corner ('Vegetables" anyone?).
I think this album gets a critical pass because it is part of the run-up to Pet Sounds, and a progression beyond the more adolescent girls & cars songs that preceded. Not that the concerns of this album are much more mature. Brian Wilson is clearly still trapped in an adolescent fantasy world, and preoccupied with disturbingly young women.
But the Beach Boys are really still a singles band at this point (case in point: Help Me, Rhonda is far better on the single version), and the 1001 albums list's obsession with albums precludes the best way to listen to the Beach Boys: i.e., on a single compilation.
Pixies
5/5
Hard to think of a more influential or better alternative album than Doolittle. Peter from Scratches put me onto this album when it came out. I loved it then, and I love it now. I have listened to this so many times that every song is imprinted on me. This is an album that I could listen to every day and hear something new in it. It has all the things I like: noise and aggression, energy and space, anger and melancholy. They really wrote the book on the loud/quiet/loud thing. And the songs are short and punchy, and there are some great tunes on here. Debaser, Wave of Mutilation, Monkey Gone to Heaven and Here Comes Your Man are all classic tunes, plus I have a real soft spot for Hey.
To quote Mark Moody in Soundblab: "Whereas so many albums of that era sound tinny and dated, Doolittle, by relying on tried and true instrumentation, pop’s structures and melodies with punk’s energy, along with sweet/salty harmonies, remains as fresh sounding today as it was bracingly college rock ready upon its release. For sheer crank up the volume enjoyment, setting aside whatever might be going on lyrically, Doolittle has to be right at the top of the heap of any indie rock collection."
If I had to pick one alternative album to give someone to listen to, I would pick this. A deadset classic.
[Peter and I saw the Pixies at the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall in the 2014. It was professional and tight and loud, but not as raucous as I would have thought they were in their initial hey-day. Kim Deal was notable in her absence, and there just wasn't the life in it that I was expecting. Not that I begrudge them the right to cash in on their legacy, and they certainly weren't terrible, but it didn't have the spark that this album has. Not a terribly sympathetic venue, perhaps. Might have been better to see them somewhere like the Hordern Pavillion. Or get in the way-back machine to 1989 when they were touring this record at the height of their powers.]
Pink Floyd
4/5
When I was a teenager, I really dug Syd Barrett, so I listened to this album and his solo LPs quite a bit. I enjoyed the mix of whimsical psychedelic pop songs and longer improvisations. The industrial band I was in during the 1990s used to play Interstellar Overdrive often when we needed to pad out sets (especially when played largely improvisational electronic sets for dance parties or similar Clan Analog events).
I stopped listening to Syd a long time back. But this album showed me new musical possibilities when I was young, and I enjoyed revisiting this record. Astronomy Domine, Interstellar, Lucifer Sam and Bike are all standout tracks for me.
Happy Mondays
2/5
In the immortal words of David St Hubbins, it's such a fine line between stupid and clever. And this band is right on that line. Were the Happy Mondays a bunch of ham-fisted, untalented, drug-addled chancers who stumbled into a music career as a cover for their ecstasy dealing, or were they the outsider poet geniuses of a new musical scene that melded indie and dance?
Well, kind of both... I find Sean Ryder's loose and impressionistic lyrics both infuriatingly stupid and also full of fresh and surprising imagery. He can't really sing, but he can get the point across. The band are technically limited (and that's being a bit generous), and Martin Hammet's (final) production slathers everything in reverb and delays, which suits the dance-clubby vibe. Apparently, the band tried to manage Hammet's alcoholism by keeping him loaded on ecstasy. They didn't really have their own musical ideas: they pilfer and grab musical snippets from wherever, most notably the lift of Taxman for Lazy-Itis. But when they play back their magpie gleanings, they emerge in an idiosyncratic and unfiltered way that actually is something fresh. This accidental innovation is a mixture of lack of musical knowledge, carelessness, low inhibitions, and heavy drug use. I suspect this sounds great if you are off your head on acid.
Some of the songs here are really rubbish (Lazy-Itis for example, which, believe it or not, is actually worse in the One Armed Boxer Remix, which is featured in the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6otmccrb2c ).
The Mondays really hit their straps just after the release of this album when they start teaming up with proper dance remixers like Paul Oakenfold, Vince Clark and Andy Weatherall to start producing really great dance versions, like the W.F.L. 12" or the Hallelujah Club Mix which came out shortly after this record. The dance production really highlights their strengths and covers up their weaknesses as a band (particularly the inept drumming). So, this album may be a musical turning point, but frankly, not the best representation of the curious and specific pleasures of the Mondays at their peak.
I'm sure this was great in the Hacienda in 1989, but at the end of the day, all I can really hear is the drugs. So many drugs.
Mott The Hoople
3/5
I read Ian Hunter's "Diary of a Rock and Roll Star" when I was a teenager, and all i can remember is a lot of humble-bragging about how tough life is on the road as a rock star. And this is the soundtrack album to that memoir!
You can hear how much they learnt from Bowie and Mick Ronson (who produced their previous album), and also the heavy Dylan-esque affectation. It's a pretty good early 70s glam rock sound. I kept having to check that it wasn't Mick Ronson playing on a lot of the songs.
But there's nothing here as good as "All the Young Dudes", although they are not afraid to run a (admittedly quite credible) facsimile of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars, even down to the "You're not alone" refrain at the end of "Hymn for the Dudes" (lifted from Rock and Roll Suicide").
Elastica
4/5
Elastica have been criticized for recycling hooks from Wire (Connection draws from Three Girl rhumba) and the Stranglers (Waking Up leans on No More Heroes), and I hear Bowie (Lined Up from It's No Game) and the Pixies (S.O.F.T. from Tame). But, in the words of Elvis Costello "It's how rock & roll works. You take the broken pieces of another thrill and make a brand new toy." And in all these cases, their broken pieces are tastefully chosen and the new toys are thrilling.
Justine Frischmann does do the flat-affect monotone vocal styling that was a feature of Britpop, although she isn't quite as bored as the blokes sometimes seem (I'm looking at you Damon and Liam). But the playing is energetic and straightforward rock and roll.
Short, sharp, smart and to the point, there are a bunch of catchy post-punk tracks here with a point of view and something to say, and I really enjoy the listen. They are energetic, muscular, snarky and smart, sexy and stylish and cool as fuck. I listened to this album straight through 3 or 4 times in a row, and it never outstayed it's welcome. The highlight tracks (Stutter, Connection, Car Song, Lined Up, Smile) are numerous, and the whole thing speeds by and is done and dusted before you get the chance to draw breath.
50 Cent
2/5
I don't like gangsta rap. Never did. This album is credited with reviving the genre, but is not a strong example of the form. I don't generally rate Dr Dre's production, and there is not much on this album (except In Da Club and possibly P.I.M.P) to change that impression.
The album is over-long, monotonous, and self-obsessed. Fiddy is certainly no Tupac, Biggie or Snoop, the rappers he most clearly idolizes. It's cliched and hollow and generally unpleasant.
Exception: In Da Club is a bangin' track, but once you've heard Beyonce do it, you'll never need to listen to Fiddy again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvSnSd2-DKY
Red Hot Chili Peppers
5/5
Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Nirvana's Nevermind, Primal Scream's Screamadelica and Trompe Le Mode by the Pixies were all released int he same week, September 1991. I was working the counter at Scratches Records in Newtown, and we sold a lot of copies of all of those, but this album was certainly amongst the most consistent sellers over the following year as they kept releasing more hit singles. This record was on pretty consistent rotation at the store and at home for the next year or two.
I went to the secret gig they _almost_ played at the Lansdowne Hotel after John Frusciante quit the tour in Japan and delayed their tour. Reliable sources said they were had rehearsed a replacement for a few days and would play with the Meat Puppets and Hard-Ons at the Lansdowne. Until an idiot DJ announced the rumour on Triple J late that afternoon, and the band freaked out at the crowds that turned up. I did spot them loitering backstage, but they didn't play. But I caught them when they eventually came back to the Hordern Pavillion a few months later, and they tore it up. By that stage, they had a bunch of hit singles and turned into one of the biggest bands in the world.
I played this a lot when it first came out. I had been a fan of Mother's Milk prior to this, and really enjoyed the looser, less polished feel that Rick Rubin brough to this record. It's a little less frenetic than their previous records, and the more organic production suits their playing. "Mellowship Slinky in B Major" or "Suck my kiss" are probably the best examples of the agreeable funky nonsense on offer. Frusciante really is the star player on this record. They were not an intellectual band, but they had feel and energy and charisma at this point in time, and were at the height of their powers.
But I am not sure how I feel about it now. The Chili Peppers have not aged well as a band. I have loathed just about everything they released after this record, and the seeds of that deterioration are here in this record. The weak link is Anthony Kiedis. I feel like Under the Bridge is the initial success that convinces Kiedis that he can be a more melodic and 'sensitive' singer, and it is all downhill from there. His lyrics are nearly all terrible, especially when he thinks he is being profound, and the spectacle of a nearly 60 year old man strutting around like Sir Psycho Sexy has progressed past ridiculous into being creepy.
So, the 30 years of increasingly terrible music that followed this record has put a bit of a sour taste in my mouth, and I haven't listened to this album is quite a while. But, coming back to it after quite a long break, I can pretend they never did anything after this, and it _is_ a great album, consistently fun and fresh all the way through. I feel bad for denying myself the charms of this record.
If you'd asked me in 1992, I certainly would have called this a five star album, and, when I look at those other classic albums released in the same week, it's not out of place with those 4/5 star albums. I think I am going to have to overcome my habitual distaste for what the Chili Peppers now are to (grudgingly) give this five stars, despite Kiedis' terrible lyrics and borderline singing.
Rocket From The Crypt
1/5
This album is so boring. The energy level is consistent and just palls. It is recorded and mixed in such a way that an individual track would pop when played on the radio as the best thing you heard that hour, but listening to the whole album is exhausting. I hate his whiny voice, which just seems like posturing. I hate the arrangements. There is no point. It generically 'rocks', but there is no real grit to it. I'm sure they put on a decent live show (and it seems like they do a lot of live gimmicks), but these songs bore and tire me.
I give it a second star because it is energetic and decently recorded.
Actually, I think Come See, Come Saw is just a re-write of Know Your Product by the Saints. One star off for plagiarism of a far better song.
Sonic Youth
2/5
Sonic Youth are starting to learn to write songs, rather than just making a helluva noise. Now, don't get me wrong; I enjoy a helluva noise as much as the next man, possibly more. But, seriously, how many Sonic Youth albums do you need? There are five (five!) on this list, and I would argue that they don't really hit their straps until Daydream Nation.
This 1001 albums project really likes an album where a band is starting to develop into the changes that would make them great, rather than just sticking to the albums that really are the band at their peak.
I was kinda interested in this record, and I didn't hate it, but found it really inessential. The only song that really leapt out of the speakers at me was Bubblegum , which is a cover. There are some arresting soundscapes on here, but their songcraft has a long way to go.
Wake me up when it is time to review Daydream or Goo.
Sonic Youth
4/5
Weird. Yesterday's record was EVOL, and I finished my review with "Wake me up when it's time to review Daydream Nation", and very next day here it is.
This was the first Sonic Youth album I listened to a lot. I'm pretty sure that Peter Prichard recommended this record to Tim, who bought it and let me make a tape copy. I have since bought my own copy.
This is the album where they really started to write songs, without sacrificing the noise. The noise is now in service to the song, rather than just for its own sake, which is the weakness of most of their prior albums, none of which have ever grabbed me. I love noisy song approach, and it still influences what I like in a record (ie, I like some noise). Some great songs on here: Teen Age Riot, Eric's Trip, Kissability, Hey Joni.
Steve Shelley is the secret ingredient who keeps everything grounded and rocking. Bless him. And Kim Gordon is too cool for words. I really dig this record. I really enjoyed hearing it again for the first time in a long time, and, despite my well known distaste for long albums, I didn't feel like the double album is too long.
Pavement
2/5
I really wanted to like this. I always _wanted_ to like Pavement. But I just don't hear the tunes. I liked Cut Your Hair (bought the 7"), but everything else I've ever heard from them leaves me kinda 'meh'. I know many fans and critics really dug them, like they were the second coming of whatever, but I never heard it.
They sounded like a 1000 shitty bands (and I mean that in a good way. I like a shitty band) that played at the Sandringham Hotel in the late 80s/early 90s. I just didn't get excited by them as much as the hype would lead me to expect. Maybe you needed to see them live?
I am grateful for the impetus to listen to this album all the way through (and I listened to it twice), but I cannot for the life of me remember a single thing I heard.
Spiritualized
5/5
Minimal krautrock/shoegaze/psychedelic songs, with massive (and noisy) orchestral arrangements. The thing that elevates this particular album is the raw emotion of the lyrics. The hurt of lost love, compounded by an unhealthy relationship with drugs, leaves the narrator of this extended suite completely laid bare and vulnerable. The emotion is exhausted, sung in a deadpan delivery as an exhausted calm after the (musical) storm.
I was a bit obsessed with this record when it first came out, and I listened to it on continuous play for probably a year. I love that the songs are quite simple, yet played on this maximalist scale. A masterpiece.
Siouxsie And The Banshees
3/5
It surprises me how quickly Siouxsie and the Banshees evolved from a punk band who couldn't really play their instruments into a polished outfit with a distinct point of view. I This album is really polished and distinct. Some production choices have dated a bit, but it still sounds terrific. I credit John McGeoch as MVP on this record, but it is clearly a team effort. Spellbound is a real stand-out track, but this atmospheric and creepy album has a unified and unique vision. Enjoyed listening to this, but truth be told, if I was going to pull one of their records off the shelf to play, it would the Once Upon A Time singles compilation.
B.B. King
2/5
B.B. King is a classy performer, with a crack band, and he knows how to put on a show with his polished uptown blues. This is really the ur-text for a whole class of of by-the-book players (Joe Bonnamassa, I'm looking at you), who play play increasingly bloodless imitations of what B.B.King laid down here. And I really shouldn't blame him for the horrible blues lawyers who came after this, but I can't help but hear it through that lens.
I can admire this, but not love it. I like my blues with a _lot_ more grit.
The Zombies
3/5
This hits all the sweet sports for rock critic cult album; psychedelic chamber pop, a flop on release in the 1960s, band broke up due to record industry shenanigans, and ripe for rediscovery by rock archivists, and hailed as a forgotten masterpiece. See also: Skip Spence's Oar, Shuggie Otis' Inspiration Information, the Kinks' Village Green Preservation Society, Love's Forever Changes, the Beau Brummels' Traingle, the Electric Prunes' I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night, The Pretty Things' S.F. Sorrow, Nick Drake, Syd Barret, jeez you could probably name a dozen others.... It's _such_ a cliché., and there are a _bunch_ of them on this 1001 albums list. It's a jones that white boy rock critics just can't resist. It's the cult that sold a million Mojo magazines. And they don't sound that different, you know?
That said, this album is a corker. Time of the Season is a dead set classic, and stills leaps out of the speakers as soon as it starts playing. Car of Cell 44 is my other favourite on this record. They could write a cracking tune, beautifully arranged and played, and Colin Blunstone's voice is really great. The album is recorded with that wonderful warm late 60s Abbey Rd sound. This is probably the best of the albums of this type that I have reviewed in this project. A few tracks are a little filler, and Butchers Tale (Western Front 1914) was a bizarre choice of a single. God bless Al Kooper for insisting that the record company release Time of the Season as a third single.
Shame about the misspelled album title, though.
Ice T
2/5
oof, this was a tough listen. I like Ice-T. He is smart and charismatic, and I saw him live at the Enmore Theatre in 1989 with my mate Tim, and he was terrific live. I liked the Power album, and some of the Iceberg. But this is not good.
It sounds like an early blueprint for gangsta-rap, even though it comes well after Straight Outta Compton and some of the other foundational-texts of the genre. It should sound a lot better than this. He repeatedly refers to himself as the \"O.G.\", and mentions his classic track \"Six in the Morning\" multiple times, which sounds like just trying too damn hard to establish his O.G. status cred.
The misogyny is appalling. And he sure loves the n-word (to an almost ridiculous extent). And there is so much flab on this album. Home of the Bodybag, MVP and Ya Shoulda Killed Me Last year (and most of the skits) are just Ice rambling off the top of his head (not even free styling).
And so long! At 72 minutes, this could have been significantly edited down, and made a much stronger album. I really wanted to like this, but it's flabby, lazy, repetitive, irrelevant and unpleasant. And Ice-T can be so much more than that. Not his best.
X-Ray Spex
5/5
Loud, colourful, fun, unapologetic. This is a punk album that still feels relevant. The simultaneous embrace and critique of consumerism feels very contemporary, even 40 years later. It's energetic and fun. I listened to this through four times in a row, and enjoyed it more every time it went through.
This is 4.,5 stars; the only failing is that it doesn't have Oh! Bondage Up Yours on it, which would make it perfect. (I know this was corrected on the deluxe CD reissue, but I REALLY want a vinyl version with it on). But I'm rounding up, because I enjoyed this so much.
I think "I Am A Poseur" is my new personal; theme song.
Kate Bush
3/5
Super lush and ultra polished, this is sophisticated and mature songwriting that was released just as I was embracing noisy, energetic and unpolished rock and roll. I had a number of friends (mostly female) who were very much in love with this album when it first came out, but it didn't really click with me at the time. The title track was memorable, but the rest of the album washed over me. Just a bit too smooth for my taste.
So, have my tastes matured enough to dig this album? Well, a bit. It's very of the 80s without being too dated (Mick Karn's bass and Dave Gilmour's guitar notwithstanding). It's super tasteful, with a few tweaks that stop it from being pure wallpaper (real drummers, uilleann pipes, Trio Bulgarka, Dave Gilmour tearing it up), but the best moment is probably This Woman's Work, which seems to be the song on this record with the most ongoing resonance.
I own this record and appreciate it, but really, I'm unlikely to play it often.
Jazmine Sullivan
3/5
Look, the 1001 albums list has a clear problem with being incredibly white-boy, rock centric. The list is heavily weighted towards male, 60s and 70s white rock. Like, a lot. It is sweet blessed relief to hear a black woman singing it out. And she's pretty good. Great voice, great feminist point of view, good production. I dig it.
My position on skits is well established; don't like them.
Also, I wonder if this album (or EP?) is just too recent to really award it a must-hear classic status? Surely there are a few more albums from the past that would fill out the massive blind spots on this list (especially with regards to female artists).
Like I said, I dig it. And, as I am sure Jazmine Sullivan herself would agree, the 1001 list needs to put in some effort to properly representing the whole history of female artistry in the list.
Metallica
3/5
Metallica's Black Album is metal for people who don't really like metal. It' loud, sure, with big catchy riffs and lots of angry yelling, but I find it hard to really ascertain what I think about it.
Bob Rock (still unforgiven by many old school Metallica fans) helped the band slow down, simplify, increase the melodic content , turn up the bass and embiggen the sound to polish a commercial monster that sold a bajillion copies and turned Metallica into one of the biggest bands in the world. What I still don't understand is where the band (and record label) got the idea that a thrash band could become a blockbuster mainstream success. And yet they did, invested a year and million dollars in this perfectly honed unit-shifter., And shift units it did!
In some ways, this fits into the same cultural space as AC/DCs Back in Black; it's a highly polished hard rock album from veteran road warriors, that sells to the point of ubiquity. But it lacks the humour and cheeky charm, and most of all, the swing of AC/DC. Paying out on Lars Ulrich is a cliché these days, but I swear I can hear him counting the beat while he plays. The slower, simpler beats highlight his limitations (no swing), and this is rare example of a hugely successful band that doesn't have a great drummer. There's nothing wrong with having a drummer with limitations (see Mo Tucker or Meg White) if it adds to the musicality of the band. You have to wonder what how much better this record could sound like with a great drummer. AC/DC are a good comparison, as they are also working in the simple, hard rock genre, but they play with swing.
The songs are catchy (especially the singles), though I find the length exhausting.
I own a copy of this album, but honestly never play it. It's an important album, as probably the biggest unapologetically and unambiguously metal album to sell this many copies. But it is overplayed and over-polished for me to the point where I am a little sick of it, although I can admire the achievement,. I begrudgingly give three stars for having the ambition to turn metal into a mainstream genre, and actually achieving it.. But that means it really is just (louder) pop music.
If I want to listen to metal (which I sometimes do), this is not the album I would choose to play.
Cee Lo Green
3/5
I feel like I have reviewed a bunch of albums like this; perfectly produced, highly skilled, over long... it doesn't have the slight edge that captures my attention. Another Ok album I don't think I ever need to hear again. And did it really need to be 73 minutes long? Interestingly, once spotify had finished playing this album, it started on his first album, which grabbed my ears much more immediately
AC/DC
5/5
Possibly the greatest hard rock album of all time. Lean, punchy, dumb, sexist and aggressive, but also funny and catchy. The production is stripped of ornamentation to an almost punk-like degree, the band is moving away from blues rock and into a harder, leaner thing. It's a dumb formula, but, my god, what a formula.
Fela Kuti
4/5
This album has been on my want-list for quite a while. it's far more Fela than Ginger (probably to its strength). I love the funky intensity of this album; it's perfect for a sweaty night of dancing. Love it.
Little Simz
3/5
One of my great pleasures in life is when my children introduce music to me. Hal recently recommended Little Simz to me, and pointed me at her later Sometimes I Might Be Introvert album, which I really like (especially the song Point and Kill). I hadn't spent any time with her back catalog yet.
I rate her flow, which is much more in the British grime tradition than an U.S. inflected style. I love the production (led by her main collaborator, Inflo, from the Sault collective). The use of real instruments is funky and soulful. I love that the album is concise and to the point (and no skits -- hooray!)
Given that most hip hop records on this list are some form of gangsta, it was sweet blessed relief to hear something fresh and outside of the gangsta genre (which I really don't enjoy), although Boss leans heavily on the n-word, but I love it when she calls out "I'm a boss in a fucking dress!"
I am relived to have an album on the list that is by a woman of colour, and not in the rock tradition. I would argue that this album is a bit too recent to truly tell if it is a classic album that you MUST hear (given that she won the Mercury Prize for her following album, it suggest she has more to offer).
I give this 3.5 stars because I think her later album is better, and round down because I think this is a bit too recent to be on this list. but don't get me wrong; I really enjoyed this record, and found it a breath of fresh air after weeks of white-boy rock.
Nina Simone
5/5
Ok, so this is a five star for me.
It's hard to believe that this album was constructed over tracks left over from recording sessions across the previous few years. The material is understandably eclectic, but held together by Ms Simone's authoritative voice and piano playing. There are standards, ballads, folk songs and one (astounding) original, mixing love songs with the political. She is completely in control of the dynamics and presentation of the material, and it comes out with a consistent and definitive voice.
Four Women is a powerful song of racial inequity and discrimination (banned on many radio stations at the time, with the still common conservative tactic of claiming that material calling out racism is, itself, racist.) Subsequently sampled by Jay-Z on The Story of O.J., picking up on the themes of racial discrimination (although there are elements of his message I find a little baffling. Art speculation as a cure for racial inequity?)
Her version of Lilac Wine is definitive and was clearly massively influential on Jeff Buckley, who lifted her arrangement intact for his album 'Grace'.
David Bowie was also a massive fan, covering Wild is the Wind on 'Station to Station' in explicit tribute to Nina Simone. And it obviously stayed close to him; he released it as a single in 1981, opened his 200 Glastonbury set with it, and performed it at his final ever live show in 2006.
I have listened to this album straight through three times in a row, and I hear more from her performances every time. She is so in control of her performance, even when she goes slightly out of control, such as her screamed "my name is Peaches!" at the end of Four Women. This is a masterclass in how deeply a musician can understand and project a song. She is at the height of her formidable powers on this record. A five star classic, perfect and massively influential. My hidden gem on the album: If I Should Lose You. It's beautiful and heartbreaking.
A moment of reflection on the 1001 albums list; why does Paul Simon (the adjacent artist on this list) rate six album inclusions, and Nina Simone only one? More evidence of the white-boy rock critic bias of this list. I cannot understand why an artist of Ms Simone's stature and breadth of material only rates a single inclusion.
N.W.A.
1/5
Around 1989, Triple J, the Australian public 'yoof' radio network, just recently expanded to a national network, decided that it could establish its cred by putting "Fuck Tha Police" into rotation. It was a national scandal, mentioned in parliament, that the government-funded national broadcaster would play such an 'evil' piece of music. A Triple J journalist was suspended for playing it, which led to industrial action (including a whole day of playing Express Yourself, and nothing else, on repeat). You can read the details here: https://au.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/flashback-triple-j-challenge-authority-nwa-marathon-12171/
As a result of all the attention, NWA became a cause celebre and a way of signaling your rebellious nature, and this album sold a ton of copies in Australia. And a lot of people who bought the album based on "Fuck Tha Police", listened to it, and then decided that this was definitely not for them, and offloaded the CD.
At the time I was working at Scratches Records, an alternative record store , that bought and sold second hand CDs. All second hand CDs were test played to make sure they were OK before they hit the shelves, and so I listened to this album a bunch of times in 1990-91. People were constantly coming in to sell their CDs of Straight Outta Compton. So I listened to this album all the way through a number of times when it was a relatively new release.
Now, I liked hip hop. But this I couldn't hack. I understood the rebellion and rage of Fuck Tha Police and Straight Outta Compton. Express Yourself is a fair enough song. But the most of it.... violent, misogynist, homophobic, and deeply unpleasant. This is an important album and massively influential. Cube is a charismatic MC with pretty good flow, and Dre's production was the blueprint for West Coast hip hop.
But I find this hard to handle, and am still upset that the success of this set the tone for much of hip hop ever since. It's influential, sure, but its influence is largely negative, and, frankly, I wish this album never existed. I do not want to listen to it ever again..
Bebel Gilberto
2/5
Pleasant, samba-flavoured jazz-lite. I like her voice, but this is hardly the most inspired album. Is it significantly different from other samba albums from the previous four decades? Why did they choose THIS album? It doesn't really have anything to particularly recommend it, other than some occasional Portishead-like loops and synths. Soporific. Except Bananeria. I like that song, although exactly why we need another cover of this song from 1975, I don't know.
Did not hate, but seems like a pointless inclusion on this list.
Elvis Costello
3/5
I frequently have cause to complain about the white boy rock critic bias of 1001 albums list, and this is kind of a case in point. Elvis Costello, bless him, is the quintessential darling of white boy rock critics. There are six (six!) EC records on this list, and, while I am a fan of EC, I find it hard to regard this record as essential listening.
Admittedly, I find a lot of his 90s output hard to stomach (a covers album! a ballet! collaborations with unexpected artists like the Brodsky Quartet or Burt Bacharach! concept albums!), and so this more straight-ahead rock album is much more to my taste.
Re-uniting with the Attractions is a good thing, and I enjoy the relatively unadorned rock presentation, but the songs seem under baked, and there are plenty of other EC and the Attractions albums that are better. Why is this one essential listening? I loved 'When I Was Cruel' a lot, and think it is a far better example of later-period EC rocking out.
Love EC, but this album is a bit "meh", really. Maybe I'm being too harsh. Even a mediocre Elvis Costello album is still pretty good, so I am giving this 2.5, rounded up.
Heaven 17
3/5
Here's an album that I have never really given a chance before. I have seen this a million times in bargain bins, but have never given it a chance. I think, mostly, I was put off by the cover art, not realizing that it is satirizing the go-go 1980s, not a sign off of cocaine-smoothed, success-obsessed, smooth synth pop. The sound is really 80s, but in a way that holds up, and certainly with an edge.
I always loved Fascist Groove Thang (the 7" lives in my DJ box), and I really cannot explain why I never gave the whole album a go. I own the Luxury Gap album, which I also never really listened to.
I suspect that, had I picked up a copy of this when I was a teenager, I really would have dug this. And it is far better than post-split Human League. IK listened to the deluxe reissue with a bunch of bonus tracks, which really stand up. They were clearly on a creative roll around this time. Star player: John Wilson on bass.
Funky, political, satiric, and often catchy, with an innovative sound. Would listen again.
MC Solaar
3/5
Smooth, funky, sophisticated in both flow and production. Exquisite sample choice. This has dated really well (although I suspect the French rapping covers any lyrical deficiencies). Pleasant and laid back without being wallpaper. I regularly play the 12" of the title track in my DJ sets, and the album stands up similarly well, with the exception of Ragga Jam, which is the fly in the ointment of this album.
Rush
2/5
I want to like Rush, and this is the album I _would_ like if I liked Rush. But I just don't.
Fred Neil
3/5
Spare, beautiful, sad. Great voice, great guitar picker. It's got Everybody's Talkin' on it. I'm not a massive 60s folk fan, but I can admire this. (The folk/blues raga is a bit strange)
Gene Clark
4/5
So this is what I came to this 1001 albums project for; an album I did not previously know, and needed to hear.
I don't think I had ever heard of or even seen a copy of this album in my 35-odd years of trawling record stores. I did, of course, know who Gene Clark was. I have only relatively recently come around to country rock, 'which explains why I had generally avoided his oeuvre for a long time, but reading the way that David Geffen buried this album probably explains why I had never come across it. And, in all fairness, if I had heard it before I turned 40, it probably wouldn't have registered with me. But now, I am old enough to get it.
Now, this does hit the white boy rock critic sweet spot; magnum opus by ex-Byrd, buried by record company and essentially lost for 40 years. recorded in a reported cocaine storm at great expense by the top LA session musicians of the time, the risk was that this would actually be another Steven Stills album (shudder!). But, wondrously, it avoids that path. The songs are really strong (personal faves: Silver Raven, title track, Some Misunderstanding and Lady of the North), and the production, castigated at the time as pretentious and over-blown, is rich and lush. I don't feel; it overpowers the material. It unites the country, RnB, funk and gospel feels into an unhurried cinematic panorama.
Gram Parsons talked about a Cosmic American Music, but I think Gene Clark may have actually recorded it here.
A revelation.
Elvis Presley
4/5
Elvis' first album, and a mammoth landmark in rock and roll. The first rock and roll album to top the Billboard Pop Charts (where it sat for ten weeks), and the first rock and roll album to sell a million copies. This straddles the Sun sessions (five tracks) and RCA pre-army years (seven tracks), it has Elvis still rockin', before the Colonel and the movie studios and major label really buffed the edges off Elvis with lousy song choices and insipid backing (although some tracks sail close to the wind, like One-Sided Love Affair).
The RnB covers (like I Got A Woman and Tutti Frutti) are serviceable, but not as good as the versions by Ray Charles and Little Richard.
This shows, already, the types of music that Elvis liked to put out, with a mix of country, RnB, rock and roll, ballads and almost novelty pop songs. We can see how much Elvis likes a ballad, and his vocal styling is powerful and energizing and everything here oozes with confidence and charisma.
The band swings (especially on the Sun recordings).
I can see why this was massively influential at the time, but I generally prefer Elvis' later imperial phase. Trying To Get To You was a surprise discovery for me, I really dig it.
But the towering monuments on this album are Blue Suede Shoes (which eclipses Carl Perkins' original version, through ubiquity if nothing else) and his haunting version of Blue Moon. I love this track, so evocatively used in Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train movie,.
Arcade Fire
2/5
Described as anthemic, grandiose, dramatic, sweeping, cathartic, emotional, oh, how the critics swooned.
I am so bored.
Bored, bored, bored, bored, boringly bored, bored, bored.
I am so bored, I can't even be bothered writing a new review. This is recycled from the Arcade Fire's Funeral album, which at least had the song Wake Up on it. Nothing as catchy as that on here.
The National
2/5
Lord help me, Arcade Fire yesterday, The National today.... major snoozefest.
I completely lost interest in alternative music in 2000s. I had kids (who liked pop music), and a busy life, and I thought it was just that I was getting old and irrelevant that I wasn't particularly interested in a lot of the new alternative music coming out. I read enough to be aware of the bands that were getting critical acclaim (The National, Arcade Fire, Wilco, Neutral Milk Hotel, etc, etc), but I just thought I was getting old and just didn't get it.
These days I am less inclined to blame myself. I really try with these records, but they are all so fucking dull! It's the emperor's new concept album, I swear. Even the singles are dull. How is it possible to write a song called "Bloodbuzz Ohio" that is this boring?
It's literary and worthy, emotional and poetic and profound and tasteful and blah blah blah blah blah, I am so bored.
Blue Cheer
4/5
As pitchfork says, Blue Cheer are "musicians who... live not to perfect their technique, but to simply rock". Well, that sounds GREAT to me.
The playing is rough as guts and pretty over the top, especially the lead playing. Lots of bends and trills, feedback, barely in tune. The slow, heavy, vaguely blues based playing is a prototype for metal in general and stoner rock in particular. This is the shit.
This sounds like they set up in a room, chucked a few mics in randomly and just started jamming it out. It's loud, noisy and obnoxious. And that's what I like!
Wilco
3/5
This was a hard one, and I listened to it a few times. This album has quite a reputation, partially as a result of its history (which I only know vaguely).
I love the sound design. It is weirdly recorded and played, with lots of noise, distortion, collage and extraneous sound, which I find appealing, but I can see how it is not mainstream. It is unusual to find this is an a gentle/semi-acoustic album (as that approach is often more common in industrial records, that are more into sound design). It reminds me of Grandaddy, a band I love.
The songs are clearly growers. They didn't grab me at first listen, but I can tell that they could, potentially, grow a lot. That being, said, I gave this a repeated, good hard listen about a year back, and none of these songs have stuck with me, and I am never troubled by the desire to spin it.
This is better than the Arcade Fire or The National, but still only OK for me.
CHIC
5/5
If you are following my reviews, you will note that I tend to like my music and bit raw and noisy, not too polished. But all that goes out the window with Chic, here at the height of their powers.
I always keep a couple of Chic singles in my DJ crates, because they are guaranteed floor fillers. I was playing a party just last weekend, where there was a break for speeches and cutting the cake. I played Le Freak to get people back on the dance floor after the interruption. And it worked, because it is just impossible to resist.
I confess that I've never listened to this whole album before, and it is a dead-set winner all the way through. It's disco, but funkier than a lot of disco. Check out the break in I Want Your Love at 4.30; it's 8 bars of Bernard Edwards, Nile Rogers and Tony Thompson in the pocket, with nothing else. And they are deep in the pocket, as for the whole album.
Vocals by Alfa Anderson, Luci Martin, Luther Vandross and David Lasley are exceptional. The orchestrations are classy and compelling. The whole album is classy, cool, smooth and funky, almost irresistible on the dance floor.
Daryl Easlee, reviewing for the BBC, says "C'est Chic isn't even Chic's best album (that was their next one, Risqué) but it is a bright, shining example of what mass-produced, intelligent dance music should be. Thirty-two years old at the time of writing, it remains irresistible."
Le Freak is the monster single (the biggest selling single of all time on the Atlantic label, apparently), but you could spin any track from this record and people would dance, and that is awesome. Five stars.
LL Cool J
4/5
Just last weekend, I was talking to my dear friend and DJ-ing partner, Peter, about the fact that we haven't had any LL Cool J on this list so far, and, voila, here he is!
"Don't call it a comeback, I've been here for years". The majority of hip hop albums on this list are gangsta rap, which was emerging in 1990, and LL was feeling threatened. "Don't worry" said his grandma, "just knock 'em out". hence the mission statement of this record.
I love LL, and spin a lot of his singles regularly (special shout out for Going Back to Cali), but this is his best and most consistent album. His flow is a bit old school, but I like his laid back confidence. At his best, he almost whispers. He is so confident, he doesn't need to shout (unlike much of the genre) although on occasion he will raise his voice.
The production is funky and varied, great work by Marley Marl.
Six singles from this record, all pretty damn good, and the title track is an all-time hip-hop classic.
This record is a corner stone of hip hop, and a real classic.
Aerosmith
1/5
Over polished, derivative, boring. Work-shopped and honed within an inch of its life. Cliche ridden. I've seen this described as one of the high points of 80s hair metal. And that is damning with very faint praise. I never want to hear this corporate rock drivel again as long as I live.
Guns N' Roses
4/5
Man, I really want to hate this album... but it is a catchy hard rock romp. I mean, it's objectively terrible, but far and away best in class, and sort of fun.
Marc Burrows in Drowned in Sound writes (in 2018):
"There are several moments during Guns N’ Roses recent Download Festival appearance where the phrase ’The Most Dangerous Band In The World‘ pops into your head. Not because it’s apt, but because it’s hard to square that much-touted tagline with what you’re seeing – a three-hour plus set overblown with classic rock covers, fronted by a rock n’ roll Liberace, rings dripping from his fingers, fringed jackets swapped every three songs. But every once in a while, just for a few seconds, the polished surface cracks and you get a glimpse of the exhilarating scum underneath. A reminder of the band this once was. Every time that happens, without fail, it’s during a song from Appetite For Destruction.
When GN’R crawled out of Hollywood in the mid Eighties they were fucking feral. Penniless gutter rats, three of them strung out on smack, all of them boozehounds, all of them messed up in some way. In LA’s thriving glam scene, amid the pretty-boys of Poison, Mötley Crüe, Ratt and Great White, GN’R were from another, scuzzier planet. … From the very beginning GN’R were a rare real-deal in rock n’ roll. A perfect storm of punk, metal and sleaze-rock with an unexpected sideline in epic ballads…
Appetite for Destruction, their three-decade-old debut was the perfect representation of that band. You can taste the scum. "
This reminds me of Thin Lizzy's Live and Dangerous (a clear influence). They have an amazing rock'n'roll outlaw swagger (that they backed up with some real life bad behaviour), but does anyone REALLY believe they are all that dangerous? And I never really bought the 'punk influences'; I mean, they covered a bunch of punk songs over their career, but their sound is consistently hard rock/lite metal. The rhythm section has a lot more swing than most bands of the genre, which I appreciate. Big choruses, catchy riffs, high energy and bit more authentic rock attitude than most of their contemporaries, this is an album I secretly enjoy. They later self-inflated into a bloated pomp-rock behemoth, which was occasionally amusing, but usually best ignored. But here, they are lean and mean, and (somewhat) dangerous to know.
N.E.R.D
2/5
Nope. Bored. I can see that this album has been expunged (rightly) from the latest edition of 1001 Albums.
Pitchfork writes: "Debating the validity of Pharrell Williams' bandname seems like a contentious trifle, but the dude continuously positions himself as a wide-reaching musicologist. In the press, he seems convinced that merely mentioning the fact his record collection contains Steely Dan, Chick Corea, Stereolab, and EPMD coupled to his role as producer of tracks for the likes of Britney Spears and Philly's Most Wanted makes him a pop prodigy crossover messiah. The name "N.E.R.D." arrogantly admits to a higher IQ, while excusing Williams' potentially embarrassing prog-R&B; hybrid as a goofy cult experiment. Sadly, like a tackle-shocked J.O.C.K., Fly or Die is stupid and boring."
Agreed; stupid and boring.
The Kinks
2/5
Yet another white boy rock critic cult classic... an overlooked gem of 1960s chamber pop, just like soooo many others we have reviewed as part of 1001 albums. I mean, it's pleasant enough (by design).
This marks the point at which Ray Davies had successfully torpedoed his career by fighting with seemingly everyone who might be able to help him, and the Kinks transition from pop-hitmakers to cult favourites (i.e., commercial irrelevancy).
I have long liked the title track (never released as a single in the UK!) and The Last of the Steam-Powered Trains is a rollicking English take on Smokestack Lightning. But I have no great nostalgia for the Britain of years past, so it's a bit of a non-committal shrug from me. The 1968 NME considered the album "too twee" even then, and I tend to agree.
2.5 stars, rounding down.
Metallica
1/5
Oh my god, Metallica manage to out-pomp themselves. This bloated, two hour long slog through Metallica's back catalogue embellished with Michael Kamen's admittedly cinematic orchestrations deliver the biggest, most bloated, most loudest, most bombastic, most EVERYTHING metal album of all time. Only Metallica could pull off something like this. It does suggest that they could potentially deliver a passable James Bond theme. I could absolutely live without the crowd cheering and sing-alongs, though.
But listening through this album felt like marching on Moscow with winter approaching. It was just tolerable at the outset, but then the days shorten and the ice winds blow in. By the end, I am huddled in the endless snow, eating the boiled boots of my fallen comrades to avoid starvation. I am a 2000 mile march from home and hearth, and surely will die here, never to return, buried in an unmarked grave at roadside. Tell my wife and children I love them...
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
5/5
I love this album. So smart, so melodic, such great production. The songs are varied, each with its own identity, great playing, whip-smart lyrics, great melodies, inventive and tight playing. Beatle-esque in places, this album was great leap forward, and showed much more of the breadth of what E.C. could achieve. I could listen to this album over and over without getting bored. The singles are classics (although I have increasing discomfort with the use of the n-word in Oliver's Army. I gather E.C. feels similarly.)
Beatles
2/5
I understand why this album is on the list; it is a great artifact of the Beatles going into Beatlemania. Recorded with a little more time and polish than Please Please Me, but retains a strong connection to the Hamburg Beatles (especially in the covers and Astrid Kirschner influenced cover). This was the UK's second ever million selling LP (after the South Pacific soundtrack). Massively popular and influential.
But is it really that great to listen to now? I own this record, but I don't think I ever pulled it off the shelf in preference to other Beatles records. This deserves to be on the 1001 list, but not even nearly my favorite Beatles album. But it's the Beatles, you know?
Doves
1/5
Contrary to its inclusion on this list, you could (and should) lead a long, happy and fulfilled life without ever hearing this album by these tepid Coldplay-wannabes. It made so little impact on me, that I have just finished listening to it and cannot remember anything about it. Forgettable tripe.
Le Tigre
3/5
I'm kind of shocked that there isn't anything by Bikini Kill on the 1001 albums list. I mean, they are abrasive and difficult sounding, with angry yelled political lyrics, but given the seeming million hardcore albums on the list that fit that description, why is the most important band from the Riot Grrl scene neglected? Too feminist, perhaps? Or am I being too cynical?
Anyway, Kathleen Hanna, frontperson and leading light of Bikini Kill, followed up that band with a largely forgotten solo album, and then formed Le Tigre. And this is their first record, recorded on the cheap for a tiny independent feminist record label. The mission statement is there in the first song: "Wanna disco?/ Wanna see me disco?/ Let me hear you depoliticize my rhyme" This is feminist punk wrapped in a danceable pop format. This hearkens back to the punk ideal of barely being able to play your instruments (bad guitar, bad bass, augmented with basic drum machines and some samples), influenced by 60s pop (who took the bomp, indeed?), hip hop, punk rock , surf, etc, but simplified down to a basic core. There are unabashed hooks across the album, and some catchy songs. The hook from Deceptacon is sampled in the Sound Opinions podcast opening sting, alongside other iconic riffs, Hot Topic and My Metrocard are my favourite songs on the album.
The whole thing is amateurish and badly recorded, and pretty simple, but it's fun and energetic and political and funny. It's unpretentious fun, made for a small audience (I mean, really, it came out on the Mr Lady record label. This was a small, independent release, with little expectations of being big. It has had a subsequent life, that I suspect nobody really foresaw).
I dig it. I don't want to be part of your revolution if I can't dance.
Beatles
5/5
It is hard to rate the Beatles, because, you know, they're the _Beatles_ and their records have become part of the DNA of popular music. Hard Day's Night is one of my favourite Beatles albums, and one that I regularly pull off the shelf to play all the way through. It's a full on pop album, with increasing confidence in the studio, and less reliant on the (admittedly thrilling) rock and roll adrenaline of their previous albums. No covers here.
Bob Stanley said "If you had to explain the Beatles' impact to a stranger, you'd play them the soundtrack to A Hard Day's Night. The songs, conceived in a hotel room in a spare couple of weeks between up-ending the British class system and conquering America, were full of bite and speed. There was adventure, knowingness, love, and abundant charm."
I love the punchy, all-killer-no-filler approach. No song is over three minutes, and there is not a wasted second on this record. The tunes are all cracking, the production un-fussy, the band rocks (dodgy solo in "And I Love Her" aside), the hooks are super catchy, and the whole thing is slathered in charm. It's the ultimate Beatlemania album. Five stars!
The Only Ones
2/5
The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music named The Only Ones one of the 50 best punk albums of all-time, claiming that the Only Ones were "the closest thing the UK had to Johnny Thunders' Heartbreakers, a laconic, shamble of a band who were, at moments, touched by a creative greatness that made you get out of the glare".
By sheer coincidence, I just finished watching a documentary on Johnny Thunders literally an hour before this album popped up for me to review. And let me tell you, the Only Ones ain't no Johnny Thunders. I don't hear creative greatness, and there ain't no glare.
"Another Girl, Another Planet" is a classic song, but the rest of this album I found forgettable and generally enervating.
Steely Dan
3/5
Steely Dan. Just a bit too smooth, a bit too clever clogs for me. I just need a little bit more of an edge to really appeal to me. There are a few slightly rockier numbers on this album that work a bit better for me (Night by Night, for example). I don't mind smart rock and roll, but I just need a bit more rock. There is some filler here (East St Louis Toodle-oo - neither satisfyingly rock nor jazz)
I own this record, but almost never play it, and have considered giving it to my son (who likes prog and jazz. He was a very excited to find a copy of Countdown to Ecstasy in a record store bargain bin recently).
Actually, I'm listening to Night by Night again, and it's pretty good... I'll bump my rating up a bit I think...
The Doors
3/5
God, I totally don't know what to do with the Doors... many people go through a Doors phase in their teenage years, which I somehow bypassed, and I am aware that the hip consensus seems to be to sneer at the Doors.
Morrison is a pretentious prat and not nearly as deep as he pretends, although he certainly knew how to strut around in leather kecks convincingly -- Iggy Pop, possibly the most compelling rock and roll front man of all time credits Morrison as his inspiration. I acknowledge Morrison's formative influence on rock star posturing, for better or worse. The band are a glorified lounge act, aspiring to bar band status when they get fired up. The lyrics are often pretty naff... and yet, and yet, this record is surprisingly listenable. Most songs are short enough to not outstay their welcome, the tunes are catchy, the band can occasionally rock (although their take on the blues borders on pastiche) and their dynamic interplay is not too bad. The lyrics are not TOO dumb (for the most part).
I really want to hate the Doors, but this album is kinda fun. I can forgive the band for this record.
The Rolling Stones
5/5
In my first share house, this album was constantly on the turntable. It was a favourite in that house, and, as a result, is probably the Stones album I know and love the best. It's got a cool, slightly menacing vibe. They had only recently really discovered their greatness (on the Beggar's Banquet album), and this album is confident, fantastically arranged and played (with nearly all guitar playing by Keef).
I occasionally dabble with other albums, but truth be told, this is my favourite Stones record, and the one I would recommend to someone who asked me where they should start listening.
The Incredible String Band
1/5
I listened to this all the way through. I found it pretentious and dull and tuneless and twee and with so little redeeming anythign that I went past boredom into active loathing.
The 1001 list LOVES under-rated lost psychedelic 'gems.'. And this album is possibly the worst example yet. I am sick of it.
2/5
When Radiohead stopped making proper guitar albums after OK Computer, other bands moved into the space that had been abandoned. Coldplay took the softer end, and built a stadium sized career out of it, and Muse ditto with the louder end. It is no surprise that the bombastic end of Radiohead crossed with a healthy dose of Queen also turned out to be a stadium-filling beast. With magpie like references to other moments of bombastic excess (Soundgarden, Ennio Morricone, ELO), this is cleverly composed, schmickly produced, and expertly played, but really, at the end of the day, this is sound and fury, signifying nothing.
The Byrds
4/5
So there are five (five!) Byrds albums on the 1001 albums list. Which seems, to me, too many. I would accept the argument for the inclusion of Sweethearts of the Rodeo and this album, though.
The concepts make perfect sense: contemporary folk songs played in the style of the Beatles. And they invent the whole template of jangle-pop. Massively influential over the years, this is still a really enjoyable album. Great playing (McGuinn really took to that electric 12-string), great singing, including wonderful harmony singing, and some top notch songwriting (four Dylan numbers, and some terrific Gene Clark originals, notably I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better). And it packs a punch, at only 32 minutes.
The closing cover of We'll Meet Again is a mis-step, but otherwise a classic album.
The La's
5/5
My mate, Peter from Scratches, put me onto this album when it came out. he loved it with a passion, and I loved it too. Is it possibly the album the Beatles might have made in 1965 if they hadn't made it big? The tunes are all first rate, and There She Goes is one of those all-time classic, can't-be-improved, \"play it again\" pop songs.
Apparently, Lee Mavers kept re-recording and remixing and polishing the album, and the record company finally took over the tapes and had Steve Lillywhite do a (quite sympathetic) mix for release. Lee immediately disowned the record as not meeting what he heard in his head, and he never recorded again. That left this as one of the perfect one-album bands. (If you look at a list of great single-album bands, many of them are artists who were fairly prolific, but only released a single album in a particular line-up. I mean, Blind Faith and Derrick and the Dominoes often appear in those kinds of list, but you could hardly accuse the members of those bands of being \"single album\" artists). In this case, he NEVER did anything else, leaving this perfect (but possibly imperfect?) single document. It's a massive \"what if\" scenario... I mean, Noel Gallagher took this formula and ran with it to great success.
The songs are great, the playing has a charming mid-60s British invasion sound (early Beatles, Byrds, etc) and you can sing along to every song on the record.
I have played this album a lot over the past 30 years. I keep a spare copy, just in case one gets damaged. There is never a time that I wouldn't happily throw it on the turntable. This is one of my all-time favourite records, and I find it hard to think of any way to improve it. Five stars.
Wilco
3/5
I completely lost interest in alternative music in the late1990s/2000s. I had kids (who liked pop music), and a busy life, and I thought it was just that I was getting old and irrelevant that I wasn't particularly interested in a lot of the new alternative music coming out. I read enough to be aware of the bands that were getting critical acclaim (The National, Arcade Fire, Wilco, Neutral Milk Hotel, etc, etc), but I just thought I was getting old and just didn't get it. These days I am less inclined to blame myself. I really try with these records, but they mostly don't light my fire.
That said, this album is the best I have heard so far from this cohort. The songs are appealingly melodic, and clearly growers. They didn't grab me at first listen, but I can tell that they could, potentially, grow on me a lot. I like this more than Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, of which I cannot remember a single note, despite repeated listening. This is much better than the Arcade Fire or The National, who are both boring and pretentious.
I vaguely recall "Outtasite" from the radio when it was first released. The songwriting is melodic and fairly straightforward (c.f. the overly literary blancmange from the Arcade Fire or The National, or even later Wilco records). There are a handful of pretty good songs here, played with dynamics and a rough-edged verve. I dig the unpolished and spacious production.
I think the double album was a mistake. I mean, Outtasite and Outtamind are different recordings of the same song. That's padding the runtime a bit, and we really don't need that. I think a 40 minute album of highlights would have had a much stronger impact, although maybe the double album run-time strengthens the inevitable Exile on Main Street comparisons. It's pretty good, but it ain't no Exile.
So, over all, pretty good. I like the cover art. Three stars.
Funkadelic
5/5
All hail the P-FunK! Who says a funk band can't play rock?
Every time a P-Funk album comes up on this list, it's like a massive breath of fresh air. I reviewed Maggot Brain a while back, and it is a masterpiece, but much darker than this. This album is so great; fun and funny and slinky and funky and rockin' and wild and super catchy. The title track is a mission statement of the all-inclusive Funkadelic party, and we are all welcome.
I have listened to this album three times through today, and it gets better every time. There is something new to hear every playing. I love Eddie Hazel, but Mike Hampton and Gary Shider are tearing it up in his absence. Interestingly, the bonus tracks on the version I listened to included a 1978 live recording of the Maggot Brain track, which is as majestic as the album version, but a bit more celebratory and less foreboding.
Funkadelic are at the height of their powers here, but in a more positive space than at the beginning of the decade. I love this record and could easily listen to it every day. Five stars.
Cat Stevens
2/5
I understand that this was super popular in the 1970s, but so was Mogadon, for for many of the same reasons. Boring cod-philosophy, inoffensively produced to the point of torpor. Occasional sexism (Wide World).
For me, this one crosses the line from merely bland to actually aweful.
Maxwell
4/5
This is one of the first albums of the 90s neo-soul movement, and I am quite partial. While still not yet showing the influence of J.Dilla (who, along with the playing of the Roots, marks the later works of the Soulquarians neo-soul recordings), I dig this. Wearing his influences (Marvin Gaye, Prince, Sade) on his sleeve, and roping in some collaborators from those artists, this is smooth, sexy and lush. I prefer the funkier tracks on the first half of the album (Urban Theme, Sumthin' Sumthin', Til the Cops Come Knocking), the back end of the album descends into slow jamz territory. I listened to this three times through in a row, and enjoyed it.
1/5
I do not even know where to begin with my loathing of this album. The juvenile title, abysmal cover art, the terrible songs, the annoying vocals that swing between yelling and whining, the terrible production, the angry and misogynistic lyrics, and just plain base idiocy of it all. I only just managed to get through all 75 minutes of it, and now have to wash the nasty taste out of my mouth.
God, this is just awful....
Jeff Beck
3/5
My mate Dave will be pleased to see this album pop up, he being a big fan of Jeff Beck.
I read a lot about this being a seminal text in the formation of heavy metal, but I think that is drawing a very long bow. I mean, the recording of this was influential in the formation of Led Zeppelin, but this is a British heavy blues album, not really metal at all.
The reliance on covers points to the lack of song-writing strength. Some of the covers are... questionable choices (Greensleeves and Ol' Man River, I'm looking at you two) or only very thinly veiled re-writes of existing blue numbers (Rock My Plimsoul is an original? Really?). But You Shook Me and I Ain't Superstitious really set the scene for British heavy blues.
Playing is generally great (although Nicky Hopkins has a tendency to noodle, in my opinion) and Rod Stewart has never been in finer form. Beck is pushing what a guitar can do at the time, but he's not unique in this. It's not quite as pyrotechnic as Jimi Hendrix and the songs are not as strong as Jimi or Cream, and the arrangements aren't as tight as what Led Zep would later do. It's listenable, but really the only track I would go back to is I Ain't Superstitious.
Curtis Mayfield
5/5
A super funk classic. Lush arrangements, super funky rhythms, Curtis' beautiful vocals. A far better album than the film probably deserved.
The Cure
3/5
Rumour has it, the recording of this album completely depleted world reserves of digital reverb.
But seriously, this album is the Cure's most cinematic album. It's pretty gloomy and depressing, but the songwriting is stronger than their early 80s gloom albums. There are few memorable songs (Lovesong, Lullaby, Fascination St), but generally this is a wash of atmosphere, deservedly beloved by goths everywhere. How it sold 3 million copies, I'll never know.
If you were going to pick one Cure album to listen to, this would probably be a good choice. But better off playing their singles compilation.
Slint
3/5
What a great story; the unheard album that becomes a cult classic and effectively establishes a genre. Loving this album becomes a shibboleth of "you wouldn't have heard of them" coolness. I worked in an independent record store in Australia during 91/92 and was totally and completely unaware of this record. And it was my job to be across stuff like this. No reviews, no advertising, certainly no touring.
I did not hear of this album until the early 2000s. I had dipped my toe into post-rock, but generally, I generally like a steady driving rock and roll beat (that I can bug out to), so the stop-start nature of post-rock gives me the irrits. I think that was always my problem with this record; the first song, Breadcrumb Trail, is particularly stop-start, changing time signature, far too clever-clogs for my taste.
But listening to the rest of the album, I found much more tolerable as that aspect was much reduced. And by the time you get to the closer, Good Morning Captain, we are into driving two chord rock. The whispered, occasional screamed, lyrics are almost inaudible and completely devoid of tune, which makes hem seem a little superfluous. I think that, if I listened to this about 25 times, I would learn to love it (it sounds great; really immediate and un-fussy).
But does it fill me with the desire to run out and form a band, or even just buy a copy of this album? Sadly, no. I am generally too old and settled to buy records just because they make me look cool and knowledgeable, and so, Slint, I will, with regret, walk past your record and purchase something else.
PS- I do appreciate that CD copies of this album have "this recording is meant to be listened to on vinyl" printed on the back. Especially at a time when vinyl was basically wheezing its dying breath, this is a cool gesture. Also, the front cover photograph is pretty damn great.
Steely Dan
3/5
Oh god, I try so hard with Steely Dan... lots of people I really respect _love_ Steely Dan, and yet, and yet, it doesn't really move me. Robert Christgau once described Steely Dan as "the Grateful Dead of bad vibes". I think he meant it as a compliment. I think it is apt, in that both bands attract incredibly devoted followings for reasons I don't quite fathom.
Christgau reckons this is the Dan album to start with, being the most 'rock' (although we use the term 'rock' in an early 70s 'take it easy' L.A. kind of way, which reminds me of why we needed punk.
But don't get me wrong: Do It Again and Reelin' In The Years are terrific singles, and I quite like Dirty Work. They are all songs I would happily listen to any day. But I just can't buy into the cult of Steely Dan.
Paul Revere & The Raiders
3/5
If I'm going to listen to 60s garage rock, it just needs to be a bit more wild for my taste. I am overwhelmed with 'meh'.
2.5, rounded up for not being too bad.
Hawkwind
3/5
I guess you had to be there... I don't mind space rock, and this rocks more than most. I found the first 20 minutes vaguely entertaining, but this just goes on _forever_. Orgone Accumulator, Time We Left This World Today and Master of the Universe are the only songs that really stand out as songs, compared to the aimless noodling and meandering noises that make up most of the album. The synthesizer wibbles and swirls are incessant. I could live without the spoken word, as all of the lyrics are science fiction twaddle and so really need a tune to carry them. That said, this is a precursor for a lot of the psych and doom metal that I listen to now (Wooden Shjips, Boris, Electric Wizard, etc), so it's not all bad. The cover art is outstanding. And I'm sure the live show was pretty fun, if you had enough drugs. But I don't really need to sit through the whole record again, let alone the extended re-release with an hour of bonus tracks.
Blood, Sweat & Tears
2/5
While I might admire Al Kooper's vision to fuse rock and jazz (particularly big band jazz), he had left the building by this second LP, and BST were on their way to becoming a harbinger of everything that is loathsome about over-engineered 70s jazz-inflected rock music. According to the wikipedia page, the band has had more than 165 members over the years, and the band has essentially become as franchise instead of a band.
In his lengthy contemporary review, Jon Landau of Rolling Stone dismissed the album, writing; "The listener responds to the illusion that he is hearing something new when in fact he is hearing mediocre rock, OK jazz, etc., thrown together in a contrived and purposeless way." I could not agree more.
Spinning Wheel is pretty great song, but everything else on this album is just awful. Of the covers, there is a not a single song where the BST version has anything to offer compared to earlier versions. God Bless the Child made me vomit into my mouth a little bit. Blues Pt. 2 is an appalling pastiche of blues riffs and posturing. The more I listen to this, the more I dislike it.
Very recently, I purchased (for $2) a Taiwanese bootleg pressing of BST Greatest Hits from 1972. It has five tracks drawn from this self-titled album. It is worth $2 just for Spinning Wheel and Lucretia McEvil, but the rest of the album probably needs to go on skip. Or in the skip.
Big Star
4/5
I first came across 'Holocaust' and "Kangaroo' as (exquisitely tasteful) covers on the first This Mortal Coil album, which I listened to a lot over the years. Big Star were one of those bands you heard about, but their records were just impossible to come by, and, in fairness, this one wasn't even really an album. It has been released on a variety of labels, under different titles, with different track listings, and, while their is a now a complete set of recordings available, there is no definitive album.
It really surprised me to read that these songs had been extensively demoed before recording, because these recordings are chaotic and damaged. The songs are haunting and often sadly beautiful, but the recordings fucked up (pardon my french).
And I can understand why record companies didn't want to touch it. According the Pitchfork: "Fry shopped the album to labels in 1975 in the hopes of recouping some of the money poured into the project. Nobody bit. Lenny Waronker at Warner asked, 'I don’t have to listen to that again, do I?' Over at Atlantic, Jerry Wexler claimed 'This record makes me feel very uncomfortable.'" It was more than three years until it got its initial release on an indie label, well after the band had split up (and it is even debatable whether this was ever a Big Star album).
There are aspects of the album that speak to care and ambition (the strings arrangements, for example), but much of the album seems deliberately bad sounding. This adds to the discomforting feeling that the album imbues, and even Alex Chilton's voice (So strong and compelling in the Box Tops) is fragile here. The songs are intense, and I can see why this band and this album have become cult favourites, highly influential on many alternative artists in the 80s and 90s. I want to mention This Mortal Coil, Jeff Buckley, REM, and Sparklehorse, off the top of my head.
Stephen Deusner in Pitchfork writes "For many listeners-- including, for a few years, me-- Big Star were more legend than band. They were the beloved patron saints for struggling musicians: These albums were inspired and inspiring but never found a wide audience, yet the fact that they eventually became so revered offered encouragement to young songwriters with their own dream of big stardom and No. 1 records. Even if you never found an audience in your prime, you could always hope for later cult success. And to some extent, of course, the myth overtook the music"
I have listened to this through a number of times today. It is uncomfortable and haunting, but there is a depth there. The myth of the album is almost overwhelming, but these are songs that I am learning to love. It's a weird and difficult album though. It's a challenge to give this a star rating; it's got some really beautiful aspects, but it is also so broken. I'm really struggling to know what to think. 3.5 stars, rounded up.
Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five
3/5
The single of The Message is the first real hip hop song I ever heard. The video got a lot of play on Australian TV, even if the song was pretty much ignored by radio (which tended to shun black music, especially music that really pushed the boundaries, as this did). The single is so compelling, and set the tone for hip hop to come, especially the opportunity to be politically and socially aware. I wish a few more rappers had followed the path (gangsta rappers, I'm looking at you."
I'd never listened to the album all the way, and it is a mixed bag. Things I liked: the early sampling, the appropriation of funk and disco riffs, the playing of the excellent Sugar Hill band (Keith LeBlanc, Doug Wimbish and Skip McDonald went on to form the excellent Tackhead industrial dub), the proto-electro synths. The Message and Scorpio are dead-set classics, and much of the album is surprisingly listenable. The flow is not as sophisticated as rappers are these days, and the scratching is embarrassingly basic by today's standards. the ballads (Dreamin' and You Are) are appalling, and should be relegated to the bin.
This is clearly a formative text in hip hop, and I was surprised at how well it stood up (generally), and how many of the foundations of hip hop were already here. This was more sophisticated and listenable than I was expecting, much to the credit of the terrific backing band. But, I might spin the singles, but wouldn't sit down to listen to the whole album.
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
1/5
It's the emperor's new album. I've tried, but nope.
Sigur Rós
3/5
Jayson Greene (Pitchfork) said of this album "If you are inclined to sniff suspiciously around grandiose music, examining it for kitsch, you probably reeled away staggering from Sigur Rós, who proudly stink of it. This was another part of their appeal and their strength: The music is texturally complex, for sure, but the emotional framework is deliberately simple and clear."
Hard to state more clearly; the sound is cinematic and huge with large emotions, even if rendered somewhat cryptic through use of Icelandic and (made up) Hopelandic lyrics. Does this make them an ideal screen on which the listener can project their own emotions? Maybe. It doesn't connect for me, though I can hear the massive influence of the scope and sound, which you hear everywhere in TV, films and advertising. I can listen to this, but I don't trust it enough to be moved by it.
Stevie Wonder
5/5
Stevie Wonder is one of the all time great singer/songwriter/musicians/producers/harmonica players, and this is one of his great albums from the height (and midpoint) of his imperial phase, which Slate described as "the Greatest Creative Run in the History of Popular Music". The songwriting, singing, playing and production are all of the highest quality, resulting in a warm, inviting, complex, funky, and above all, deeply human record.
This album contains a lot of examples of the genius of Stevie's songwriting. His songs are harmonically complex, rich and deep, full of surprises and moments that push against musical cliché (although he doesn't always avoid that in the lyrics, the ballads can tend towards the sentimental), but it all sounds so effortless and intuitive. I could happily listen to him sing the phone book. When I saw him in concert in 2008 in a massive arena, he started singing his first song, and I burst into tears. I love his singing so much.
This is an absolute classic, and a record I would recommend to anyone as an album you should own and listen to regularly. I always hear something fresh when I listen to this record, but it is also familiar and inviting, and you can dance to it, too. This is as close to a perfect album as you will ever find.
The Flying Burrito Brothers
4/5
Gram Parson's solo albums were my entry into the world of country rock. I enjoyed this record, which is of the same cut (although no Emmy-Lou Harris, missed here). Hippie Boy finishes the album on an unfortunate and dated joke, but the rest of the album fuses the influences of rock, country and r'n'b in a away not really done before. Parsons is really stretching out what (cosmic) American music can be. The playing of the band and guests should not be underrated either, with weird and wonderful variations on traditional country playing throughout. GP and Grievous Angel are 5 star albums, but this is well on the way.
Radiohead
3/5
I miss guitars. And tunes. Some actual songs on here amongst the electronic bleeping, but needlessly obtuse. If I listened to this 20 times, I'm sure I would find things to like, but I just wish it rocked a bit more.
Mercury Rev
3/5
This was not what I was expecting. I had in my mind that Mercury Rev were the kind of boring, semi-corporate quasi-indie band that proliferated in the late 90s and early 2000s, and with which I was (and continue to be) bored by. But, when I started playing this record, I recognized the songs Holes, which is a a woozier, more interesting song than I was expecting.
The connections to the Flaming Lips are significant. This album was the one of the first of that late 90s softly psychedelic, quirky rock sound (possibly twee?) that followed, especially centred around the production of Dave Friedman (Flaming Lips, Tame Impala, Pond, etc). I liked some of the records that followed more than this, but I can see how this was instrumental in breaking the way through and showing that music like this could be commercially viable. I admire that they made it for themselves, as this was highly unfashionable at the time, personal, and quirky. It certainly did not resemble much on the charts at the time
Some critics have accused this of having some strong songs (Holes, Opus 40, Goddess on the Hiway), and some filler. I don't mind the "filler". It's different and weirdly produced, even if not particularly memorable. I really am on the line of 3 or 4 starts, but, in my heart of hearts, I wished this rocked just a little more, and his singing voice does get on my tit after a while. I can also live without the musical saw. I am putting it in as a three, on the understanding that this is clear 3.5.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
3/5
This loud, rough and ready, and quite garage-style album was _really_ out of step with the prevailing production style for major (and major-label) artists at the end of the 1980s. No drum machines, minimal overdubbing, noisy guitars, all creating a real garage rock vibe. It's pretty raw and immediate, which I like.
In hindsight, we can see this was prescient of the changes that grunge ushered in a year or two later (although, the undergrounds scene had always embraced this kind of sound). it was only really revolutionary if you were a long established major label artist. But, Neil Young's flannel shirt wearing, feedback embracing, live in the room sound certainly resonated with many of the major rock artists that came up in the early 90s. But I don't think Young really heralded the way; there were plenty of bands that are more influential on this movement. Young seems almost completely uninterested in musical fashion, and his (understandable) rebellion against he then current sound of corporate rock and roll accidentally coincided with a whole movement. It made him temporarily relevant, even if still a long way from the cutting edge.
So, I quite like the sound of this record; the guitars are loud and the live-in-the-room immediacy appeals. It rocks, although I wish Young would embrace brevity. There is no reason for songs as long as these (there are 2 over ten minutes!). It's just indulgent. But I do like Neil Young when he turns up the amps (my favourite Neil Young album is the Deadman soundtrack, no lie).
But I find Young's baby boomer, old hippy bullshit lyrics incredibly annoying. Worst offenders are "Mother Earth (Natural Anthem)" and "Days Used to Be". His subsequent railing against the mp3 format and spotify (and seemingly any technology since the steam engine) are wildly out of touch. OK Boomer, you had a good time living a yurt with your old lady in the 60s. Glad to hear it, now fuck off.
Billy Joel
2/5
I respect Billy Joel's songwriting chops. These are incredibly successful songs and have been played on radio a bazillion times, and I know most of this album backwards just from the ubiquitous nature of the thing. But it bores me to tears. In Slipped Discs – the Worst Rock ’n’ Roll Records of All Time by Jimmy Guterman & Owen O’Donnell, they list Billy Joel as the Worst Rock and Roller of All Tie, stating "No single performer has done more to encourage musicians without a shred of rock credibility to think that pretending to rock out is the same thing as rocking out than Billy Joel." I strongly agree.
Billy Joel is not rock and roll (despite Billy's later protestations); it's much more popular song based in the Broadway tradition. And it is very successful in that mold. But I don't really need it in my life. Sorry.
The Band
3/5
When I signed up for this project, I was expecting more albums of this kind of stature and reputation. Despite constant prodding from my mate Dave Lewis to give the Band some attention, they have largely sat on my back-burner. I mean, I've seen the Last Waltz, I know the hits, I even have a favourite deep cut ("Don't Do It", probably the funkiest thing they ever recorded). And I've certainly read a thousand hagiographic magazine articles about The Band. I know the legends, and this is a legendary album from a legendary band. _The_ Band.
So what is it like to sit down and properly listen to the album? Well, I can certainly hear how this was massively influential in both song-writing and production approach. And like many super-influential albums, it was followed by a few people who did it better, and a whole lot of crappy imitators playing terrible and increasingly pale carbon copies of this record. The Band really did set the template for Americana. People are still copying this record.
There are a few absolute classics on this record (Cripple Creek, Dixie, King Harvest), but some filler, too. The recording quality is a bit more coherent than Big Pink. But here come my blasphemous opinions; some of the singing is weak (especially Richard Manuel), and I have never really rated Robbie Robertson's playing.
This album is, possibly, a bit over-rated. But it really is hard to judge an iconic album like this; so much of what has come since has been shaped by it; "authentic" production, band dynamics, the embrace of American roots styles, country-soul... And I do love that it isn't polished to the point that there is no life left in it, unlike so many albums. I can respect it, but I don't know that I really love it. I'm glad I have given it some proper attention. See Dave, I told you I would, eventually.
Simply Red
1/5
What's the difference between Simply Red and a bull?
A bull has the horns up front and the arsehole at the back.
According to wikipedia, Mick Hucknall was among the people present at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester in June 1976 where the Sex Pistols were playing. This gig was influential in the formation of Joy Division, the Smiths, Buzzcocks, The Fall... and Simply Red? Jesus, Mick, you were right there; were you not paying attention? How do you see one of the single most influential punk shows of all time and end up doing... this?
This is a slightly warmed up regurgitation of soul with tepid jazz inflections, all passed through the 1980s cheese-ulator production filter. The over-reliance on synths sucks all the warmth out of the record, and the drum machines squeeze all the swing out of everything. The cover of Talking Heads' 'Heaven' is appalling. It's an insipid and inhuman record that only Patrick Bateman could love.
The more I listen to this record, the more I despise it. I own a copy of this record, which I think I need to get rid of immediately. I am _never_ going to listen to this again.
Cheap Trick
4/5
I was chatting with my mate Dave Lewis a few years back about how I didn't really like live albums... except then I started listing off some of my favourite live albums, and I realised that, actually, I do quite like live albums. I don't mind the rough recording, or flubbed notes, or the crowd noise. What I really like is the sound of a band really tearing it up, playing with a real edge. And Cheap Trick At Budokan is a classic example of just that. This is exactly what power pop should sound like: melodic, tuneful, catchy, and (above all) rockin'.
This record was something of a "guilty pleasure" amongst the grunge-leaning musos I hung around with int he early 90s, and Surrender would regularly pop up as the obligatory cover for a number of local pub bands around that time. I confess that I don't find the songs particularly memorable (except for Surrender, of course), but I LOVE the way they deliver this set. it's fast, loud and almost out of control. The tunes are catchy as hell, and you can rock out to it.
This really is the archetype of everything you could possibly want in a live rock album. I should spin this more often.
k.d. lang
4/5
I worked at Scratches Records in Newtown in the early 90s when k.d. Lang's Ingenue was released. We had a significant lesbian clientele, and we sold boxes of this album. I reckon we probably sold more copies of this in 92 than Nirvana's Nevermind. It was a big seller for us, and it got a lot of play in the store. I thought it was ok at the time (although my favourite track was a non-album track on a single b-side called Barefoot). But this wasn't really my bag at the time. I was young.
Not having listened to this in nearly 30 years, I was curious to see what I thought after all this time. My tastes have changed (and broadened) over those years, and this is right in my wheelhouse now. I love torch songs (Dusty Springfield, Peggy Lee, Julie London, etc) and this fits right in that tradition. The songs are sensuous, filled with longing, the arrangements are spacious and tasteful, and her voice is amazing. Nobody had really made an album like this in decades.
There had been lesbian torch singers before (Dusty Springfield, for example), but not an out lesbian. The pivot from her country albums and leaning into her new out identity (although it is debatable how deep in the closet she ever was. I see that haircut on the cover of Shadowland) made her a new type of crooner
These days, I love this type of album of torch ballads, and I wish there were more like it on this list. This was a magic discovery for me, and i need to track down a copy of this LP.
Wild Beasts
2/5
Irrelevant and pretentious wallpaper. Was 2009 such a crap year for new music that critics had nothing else to praise but this tepid blancmange?
According to Wikipedia,this is Wild Beasts best selling album, having shifted a grand total of 55,000 copies in ten years. Clearly, the punters know what the critics don't understand. Which is that this is dull and unimportant and no fun. You can happily go to the grave without having heard this.
The Beach Boys
2/5
In 2012 I was in New York City,band had the opportunity to see the Beach Boys, including Brian Wilson, performing in Central Park for GMA (https://youtu.be/ASfjoEadmow). They only performed about four songs (including soundcheck) and it was at 8am, but it was a chance to see Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys for free, so I dragged the family off to see the show. Between songs, Brian was super cranky, and admonished the (bored) crowd for bouncing around the beach balls that the production had provided. Most of the musical heavy lifting was done by Brian's band, but the were tight and upbeat and could still punch out a compelling rendition of their past glories.
I love Brian's earlier more pop.oriented song writing and particularly his amazing vocal harmony arrangements. Here's a piece I wrote about twenty years ago for McSweeney's extolling the virtues of Don't Worry Baby (https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/dont-worry-baby-by-the-beach-boys). Little Ed is now a 6'4" man, which goes to show how.long ago I wrote that piece.
This is by way of saying that I love the beach boys, but as a singles band. I never really bought into the "Brian is a Genius" cult, especially the "Pet Sounds is a work of unassailable perfection" dogma. I'll wear my heresy proudly: "Vegetables" is a shit song.
I know that Surf's Up is like a shibboleth for a certain sect of alternative white boy rock snob. So I really tried to hear what they are talking about on this record.
But what I hear is the last grasp of a band that had really burnt out three years earlier. New management had stepped in and made some tough decisions. Brian is largely sidelined (although I'll come back to that), with Carl placed in charge (good move). Dennis held back most of his songs for his solo record (probably not great), which left only a few songs from Brian leftover from the aborted Smile sessions, and some material of variable quality from the rest of the band. The band are on record as trying to arrange the songs to sound like the Beach Boys (even though they _were_ the Beach Boys). A few songs are alright (Feel Flows, Long Promised Road), but some are embarrassingly bad (Take a Load Off You Feet, A Day in the Life of a Tree, Student Demonstration Time). Like, really bad.
New management had also tried to make the band more relevant by ditching their matching outfits (good move), playing some high profile shows in credible venues (good move) and embracing more socially relevant subject matter (not so great). The results of the new concerns with environmentalism, political upheaval and social unrest vary between clumsy (Don't Go Near the Water) and painfully reactionary (Student Demonstration Time, Disney Girls, Looking Towards Tomorrow). An attempt to speak to the kids showed how out of touch they really were. I suspect that one of the reasons that white boy rock snobs like this record is that they find the politics appealing.
Many of these choices helped extend the band's longevity, although taking over the lead vocals (A Day in the Life of a Tree) is pure hubris. Would it actually have been better if the Beach Boys had faded away in 1970 instead of staggering through the 70s and 80s to diminishing returns? I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.
But there are those three Brian Wilson tracks a the end of the record. I'll say straight out that A Day in the Life of a Tree is rubbish. Til I Die and Surf's Up are beautiful songs, with Brian's gorgeous and sophisticated harmonies, which I love. But the lyrics are nonsensical.
I can hear the influence of this album all over alternative music on the 90s and 2000s, such a Spiritualized, Polyphonic Spree, Flaming Lips, Tame Impala, MGMT and a host of others. I can see how much people have built on this template. But, for my money, there are only four good songs on this record, and none of them are as good enough to hold their own with the Beach Boys best singles. And the rubbish songs are really shite. This is a 2.5 star album for me, rounded down for being over-hyped.
A final word on the cover. Another choice by the new management, and it is genius. The juxtaposition of the image and the title is so evocative. The image is called The End of the Trail, and that really was prophetic. This album was the last gasp of a dying band. The corpse kept twitching for decades (see the 2012 video linked above), but this really was the death throws of their creativity.
Turbonegro
2/5
It sounds ok, I guess. It's energetic and loud, and the guitar player is pretty hot stuff, but the singer is rubbish and the adolescent sniggering lyrics and rock and roll posturing wear a bit. I mean, I can see the appeal, but it really wears its influences on its sleeve, so why wouldn't you just listen to Ziggy Stardust or any Motorhead record or something instead?
Ian Dury
3/5
Stompin' band at the height of their powers, and a charismatic front man. Sometimes the lyrics are little overly clever (Dury never saw an easy rhyme he didn't like; Billericay Dickie is an example there), and the line between sexy and sexist is often crossed, and has dated poorly (Wake Up and Make Love With Me is a case study in why we need consent training).
Still, Dury is trying to shock and provoke a sense of fun. It's hard to be too outraged when you're dancing, after all. Dodgy sexual politics aside, this is a fun listen and the cover photo is ace. Would buy.
Deep Purple
5/5
Dave C. was a regular fixture in various student share households I lived in during the early 90s. He loved Deep Purple, and we played their albums a lot, especially the Mark II version of the band, and especially this album. Deep Purple were then, and remain,an uncool outfit, but I really love In Rock. It's everything you could want from a 1970s hard rock outfit; driving rhythm section, wailing guitars, vague classical allusions, and a screaming lead singer. This album has all of it, and the n-th degree. And it doesn't take itself too seriously, which makes it a ton of fun.
Speed King is my all time favourite Deep Purple track; Ian Gillan has learnt all the right lessons from Little Richard. The scream he does in the middle of the line "Tutti Frutti WOOOOH, so rooty" is one the absolute great moments of rock and roll. I could listen to that all day.
Frank Black
3/5
I love the Pixies. I discovered them with Doolittle, and then bought all of their albums thereafter at release. I played and loved them a lot. I even like Trompe le Monde and Bossanova. But when they split, I transferred my affection completely over to Kim Deal and the Breeders.
I know I listened to Frank Black's first couple of solo albums (including this one) when they were released but I found little that grabbed me, and easily forgettable. It felt like a fading carbon copy of the Pixies, almost like someone trying to make a record that sounded like a Pixies record. But without the power or biting edge. Frank Black has released a pretty prodigious catalogue of music since then, all of which I have managed to ignore.
So, coming back to this album nearly 30 years after release, do I find it any more compelling than I did at the time? It's slightly better than I remember, but I still stand by my initial assessment. Not much that sticks out here, except for Headache which is a pretty good song. I like that the tracks are short and to the point, but with 22 tracks clocking in over an hour, there are more than a few songs that could have been happily left on the cutting room floor. 'Fiddle Riddle' and 'Ole Mulholland' are the first tracks I would cull.
On a 1001 list note, I do not understand why this album is on the list but the Breeders 'Last Splash ' is not. It was a much more successful and impactful record both commercially and critically at the time, and, I would argue, has had a much greater lasting influence. Plus, Last Splash is a lot more fun than Teenager of the Year. I find it hard to ascribe this substitution to anything other than chauvinism.
The Sugarcubes
5/5
I instantly took to the Sugarcubes as soon as I heard them, and bought this album when it first came out. Birthday is an instant classic. Peter regularly drops 'Birthday' into the set when we are DJing together, and it still pops , 35 years later. My mate Tim and I saw them at Selinas at the Coogee Bay Hotel in 1990. I remember that Bjork was great and compelling, but that Einar was equally annoying.
This record is weird and naughty and funny and scary and funky and dark and rude. It certainly has precedents (B52s, Birthday Party, Gang of Four, etc.), but when you look at them all in a list like, it is a pretty oddball mix, and could never be accused of being a copy of any of them. They really understand pop, but the way the tunes are constructed is compelling and unique. It was pretty clear from the beginning that Bjork was a vital creative voice (both literally and figuratively). They complained at the time that media attention focused mostly on her, instead of the band, but she really is the star of this album. And history has gone on to prove what a star and great artist she is. Her approach is always fresh and surprising, and you could hear that from this, her first international appearance.
This album is still fresh and surprising to me. Bjork is still the star, and Einar is still annoying (in a good way, like Fred in the B52s). Five star, classic.
The War On Drugs
3/5
I have never consciously heard anything by the War on Drugs. It's got a strong influence of Americana-ish, but with a hazy spaced out production. It doesn't surprise me that the guy was largely writing about his own depression. It's a fair record, but didn't set my world aflame.
TV On The Radio
2/5
"A bombshell: as good as it undoubtedly is, this record isn't going to change your life. Nor will it be considered an OK Computer or a Velvet Underground & Nico in ten years' time. Did it ever promise to be? Some people seemed to think so, and many still might." - Rob Webb, Drowned in Sound.
It's ten years on, and I think his prediction has become true. This was the flavour the year, 2008, but do we really still need to listen to this record? It sounds great, it's smart and approachable, even if little short on real hooks and energy.
1001 Albums; I suspect this was a relatively fresh album when putting together whatever edition this went into, but I'm willing to bet it will be cut from the next edition. Just my little prediction there.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
3/5
I've been meaning to read Lizzy Goodman's 'Meet Me in the Bathroom', her well regarded oral history of the NYC rock and roll scene in the early 2000s. It covers the much hyped scene that included the Strokes, Yeah Yeahs Yeahs, Interpol, LCD Sound System, etc. But I haven't got around to reading it yet. Part of my tardiness has been a general antipathy towards many of those bands as over-hyped, style-over-substance poseurs. The Strokes were especially too-cool-for-school, louche, rich kids showing off for the cameras, more interested in doing drugs and shagging models than actually rocking out. I never really bought their 'saviours of rock and roll' posturing.
I probably lumped the Yeah Yeah Yeahs in with that whole crew, and had not really given them a proper listen. They were, in fairness, massively hyped on the basis of one ep (which was pretty good) and a single (which was OK) before they even put an album out. Lots of press and photo shoots for a band that is barely out of the practice room never bodes well for the longevity of a band. This album was met with some of the inevitable skepticism and backlash that follows that kind of hype. The NME was certainly responsible for the early crash and burn of many a young hopeful in the UK, and the same trend seemed to be occurring in this New York scene.
But it's 15 years later now, and now that the dust has settled, how does this album strike me? Well, it rocks. The guitar and drums cut loose, and the playing is noisy and dynamic (which is to my taste). Karen O is a charismatic and compelling front person. She tends towards louche restraint on occasion, as was endemic in that scene (Julian Casablancas is the worst fucking offender at that), but she is usually energetic and compelling. after three listens, there were some songs that caught my attention and memory. Of the albums from this particular scene that I have heard, this is my favourite so far, even if not wildly different from a bunch of local bands I have heard tearing it up at my local small venue.
Maybe that's what I find so off-putting about the hype thing. I have seen bands as good as this at the Sandringham or Moshpit or the Burland Community Centre or in a fucking laneway in Marrickville, that might release a demo tape as good as this, but nobody has ever heard of them. I love this kind of band, playing as if their lives depend on it in a sweaty pub in front of 30 people. It's real, it's special, it's right in front of you. It's loud, close-up, gritty rock and roll. But will it save the world? Is it the greatest thing ever? It's the greatest thing right there in the moment for those 30 people, but it's an ephemeral thing. And that's its beauty. I bet I would have LOVED the Yeah Yeah Yeahs if I has seen them as unknowns in a small bar. But as a worldwide musical phenomena? It's not the right context for what they are doing.
But I will acknowledge that The Yeah Yeah Yeahs is a fucking great band name.
Van Morrison
4/5
Van Morrison is one of the great cranky bastards of rock. Throughout his career, he has often struggled to overcome (or even conceal) his contempt for his audiences. At this particular point in time, however, he knew he was on his last chance with his record company. Astral Weeks had been a critical success, but had not found wide commercial appeal, and he had one more shot in the locker to get his career going. And so he made an album that would accessible and enjoyable for wide audiences.
The tunes are cracking, his voice is fantastic, the horn-led band is warm and welcoming to listen to. The lyrics are still a bit spiritual, but a bit more accessible. It's a really easy album to listen to. Given that he has spent the next 50 years being a cantankerous arsehole, it's kind of a miracle that he had this in him. He was difficult to start with, and I don't think that success and cocaine did him any favours. I find it easier to listen to this album if I don't think too hard about Van Morrison the person.
4.5 stars, rounded down for bad behaviour.
Blur
2/5
I never really understood the cult of Blur. Some great singles, but over-rated albums. It's a British thing, isn't it? Maybe you had to be doing coke in Camden in the 90s with the Britpop crew to really _get_ it. And I don't know why they have THREE albums on the 1001 list. They were certainly an epochal English band of the early 90s; they were massive selling and really important in the British scene at the time. They are the most Britpop of all the Britpop bands (Oasis were, ultimately, a bigger band, but they are not quite so typical of the scene). The NME wasted miles of column inches to their every move, and particularly their supposed rivalry with Oasis. Noel Gallagher once described this album as ""Like Southern England personified". I'm not sure he meant it as a compliment (qv. 'London Loves').
Girl & Boys is a terrific single (especially the Pet Shop Boys remix on the 12", which I regularly spin when I am DJing). Robert Christgau opined that it was the only good song on the album. The rest of the album is comprised of generic indie rock or novelty songs. Parklife annoys me more every time I hear it. And it isn't the only novelty song on the record (The Debt Collector, Far Out,
But in fairness, I'm not British, and so the specific concerns of such and Anglocentric album don't really speak to me. If you look at the chart performance of this album, there is a marked difference between how it charted in Britian compared to anywhere else in the world, which I think speaks to the cultural specificity of this record. And you certainly don't need to listen to THREE different Blur albums in your life.
This is a 2.5 star album for me, in that it isn't really _bad_ per se, except that the constant over praise from the British music press still annoys me. Rounded down.
Iron Butterfly
3/5
Stephen Erlewine at allmusic.com (https://www.allmusic.com/album/in-a-gadda-da-vida-mw0000177147) wrote this very astute review:
"With its endless, droning minor-key riff and mumbled vocals, "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" is arguably the most notorious song of the acid rock era. According to legend, the group was so stoned when they recorded the track that they could neither pronounce the title "In the Garden of Eden" or end the track, so it rambles on for a full 17 minutes, which to some listeners sounds like eternity. But that's the essence of its appeal — it's the epitome of heavy psychedelic excess, encapsulating the most indulgent tendencies of the era. Iron Butterfly never matched the warped excesses of "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida," either on their debut album of the same name or the rest of their catalog, yet they occasionally made some enjoyable fuzz guitar-driven psychedelia that works as a period piece. The five tracks that share space with their magnum opus on In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida qualify as good artifacts, and the entire record still stands as the group's definitive album, especially since this is the only place the full-length title track is available."
I lived in a share house on Shepherd St in the early 90s where side 2 (the 17 minute title track) was played a lot. We never spun side 1, and listening to it today, I remember why. It is boring and unremarkable guff. But the song In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida is really great. I mean, it is a rambling repetitive drone of a song with a 2.5 minute drum solo in the middle, but, if you can stomach the self-indulgent psychedelic noodling of it all, it really is best in class. it is more listenable than, say, Pink Floyd's Interstellar Overdrive and certainly better than anything ever by the Grateful Dead.
So, the songs on side 1 are struggling to even make two stars for me, but I really love the title track. Three stars, on balance.
The title track does turn up as cultural reference occasionally, most notably in the Simpsons episode where Bart switches out the church sheet music with "In the Garden of Eden" by I. Ron Butterfly. The organist struggles through the whole 17 minutes before collapsing with exhaustion (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulDC1w1ydLI). The strangest cover, though, must be its appearance in the Resident's deeply disturbing medley of deconstructed 60s hits (https://youtu.be/lPCoM1Kcf_o?t=787). Try it, I dare ya.
JAY Z
3/5
I really love the production of this record; the use of old soul records (including the pitch-shifted 'chipmunk soul' samples) was massively influential, but rarely matched. The use of samples is lush and big scale (not the scratchy old funk samples that had been previously more common), and, as lover of the original tracks, I find this really listenable. It's pop rap, but it's hard to argue when it sounds this good.
Jay-Z's skill and flow are pretty amazing, although he manages to make it sound effortless and natural. That said, this album (as most of Hova's output) is a monument to his ego. The endless braggadocio is just a bit of a yawn after a while. If it was me, I'd trim this album back by 20 minutes, and maybe encourage Mr Carter to expand his areas of lyrical interest.
Sepultura
2/5
This album was clearly highly influential on nu-metal, and is far better than most of that godforsaken genre. Despite the occasional touches of Latin percussion, field recordings of indigenous song, and acoustic guitar, this is still an hour of yelling, yelling, yelling, over a brutal and repetitive metal riffage. I am exhausted. And the 13 minute percussion jam at the end of the album just adds insult to injury.
Alfie, my 15 year old son, wandered into my office while this was playing and his ears pricked up. "What's this?" he asked. When I told him, he went "hmm" in a thoughtful manner and wandered out again. It wouldn't surprise me if he added this to his playlist. But it does go to show, this really is intended for teenage boys, not middle-aged men.
Scritti Politti
3/5
I remember when this album came out, there was a kid at school (whose name escapes me now) who was particularly evangelical about synth pop in general and Scritti Politti in particular when this album came out. I don't think he was aware of their past as a Marxist agit-prop, post-punk collective. And in all fairness, there isn't much about this very expensive production that would suggest such a past. The singles certainly caught my attention at the time, influenced by his proselytizing,
This album is probably the pinnacle of 80s synth pop. Sophisticated, polished, intricate, smooth, light. Robert Christgau wrote that "the high-relief production and birdlike tunes and spry little keyb arrangements and hippety-hoppety beat and archly ethereal falsetto add up to a music of amazing lightness and wit that's saved from any hint of triviality by wordplay whose delight in its own turns is hard to resist." I'm not sure that I am taken with the lyrics; they're clever, but I feel like Green Gartside is a bit in love with his own cleverness. Generally, I find his approach a bit narcissistic, which makes the album hard to love. Although, Miles Davis was a fan, and covered Perfect Way on his Tutu album.
I love the singles, notably Wood Beez and Perfect Way, but a whole album is like eating a 10kg bag of fairy floss. Light and fun for the first few handfuls, but sweet to the point of nauseating over the space of a whole album. I own a couple of Scritti Politti albums (including this one), which I never spin all the way through. I should ditch the LPs, and invest in copies of the singles instead. That would work better.
De La Soul
5/5
3 Feet High and Rising is my favourite hip hop album of all time, and probably in my top ten albums of all time. I reckon this was played at nearly every party I went to between 1990 and 1993. I bought it when it was pretty fresh out, and still play it today.
It's funny and smart and silly and surprising and funky and playful and thoughtful. I hear something new every time I listen to it, and it always makes want to dance. So many great songs on here, and great hooks. This is one the late 80s sampling records that showed how the use of samples, recontextualizing moments of other records drawn from a diverse and eclectic collection, can gel into a new work of art that has something new to offer,. Sadly, the legal ramifications mean that it is hardly feasible to make records like this (or Paul's Boutique or A Nation of Millions) these days, and it kept this album from being readily available for a long time. Which is a damn shame, because this album is so great.
It introduced the idea of skits on hip hop albums, which I generally find to be annoying blight, but I love this record so much that I will forgive the skits.
I still play songs from this record when I'm DJing, and they always get people on the floor with a smile on their face.
An absolute classic, five stars.
Elton John
2/5
Elton John doesn't do it for me. I know a lot of his material from its incessant play on commercial radio, and I enjoyed the biopic, but I would never choose to put any of his records on the turntable. I would not buy one from a $1 bin. I don't change the radio station when one of his songs comes on (as compared to Billy Joel, whose music I actively despise), but neither do I respond with familiar enjoyment (as opposed to Fleetwood Mac, who I always enjoy when they come on the radio).
I can no longer tell if his classic songs (and there is really only one on this album) are actually good songs, or just played so much that they are familiar. Like, just played so much that we confuse ubiquity for enjoyment.
This is almost exactly the same review as I gave to Yellow Brick road. Except that this album doesn't have the same number of classic singles. Tiny Dancer is a pretty good song, although most of my fondness derives from its appearance in Almost Famous.
I don't like Bernie Taupin's lyrics; I find them needlessly obtuse, and sometimes just downright silly. Elton can write and sing a good tune, but this album all seems pretty much the same (understandable, given that it was his third album of 1971). All the songs are a bit too long and over-orchestrated. I found this a real struggle to get through.
The Bees
3/5
Pleasant enough. Sunny, relaxed, fun to listen to. But the clear standout track is A Minha Menina, which is a barely-altered cover of a track by Os Mutantes Mutantes. Why is this album a must-listen? 2.5 stars, rounded up for being fun.
Pulp
4/5
I was not a huge fan of Britpop. It was often Anglocentric to the point of disappearing up its own backside, and not nearly as good as the cocaine led them to believe. There were, to be fair, some really great singles that came out of it, but the albums often left me unimpressed, especially given the hype they received from the UK music press.
This album, however, I really enjoyed at the time, and it holds up pretty well. It's clearly an album about Britain, but is far less celebratory than, say, Oasis or Blur. The deftly drawn vignettes of grimy bedsits, bad drugs and worse sex have a universality to them, and are presented with wit, charm and a dramatic flair.
That's the word that I feel summarizes this album best; drama. Jarvis Cocker understands the drama in the songs, and sings with a dynamic range that really heightens the drama of his stories (as opposed to many Britpop singers, who sing with a bored and flat affect that gives me the shits). The arrangements aren't anything to too unusual, but they are well matched to the dynamic range of Cocker's vocals. The avoidance of trendy production techniques means that this album still holds up well 25 years later.
The singles are cracking (especially Common People), but there are a bunch of songs that really grew on me over a few listens.
3.5 stars, rounding up. Would buy (at a reasonable price)
Guided By Voices
2/5
This one is complicated. I have tried to dip into the GBV back catalog before, and have been hindered by two factors;
1) the massive size of their catalog (35 albums, plus 22 solo Robert Pollard albums, plus all the miscellaneous stuff), and
2) the critical praise. I mean, look at this review of Alien Lanes from Sputnik Music (https://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/34199/Guided-by-Voices-Alien-Lanes/)
"The genius of this is that the album is a bombardment of staggeringly good songs, with nothing less than the staggeringly good anywhere to be found. That they managed to preserve so much brilliance, without giving it a vacuum-packed feel and managing to do the thinking justice with their delivery in such a small space of time, is astounding. And what’s more – oh, so much more – is that everyone involved has an absolute ball doing it."
This is just bullshit on the plain face of it. There are, in fairness, a couple of pretty good songs on this record; Game of Pricks, Motorway, Little Whirl. But there is some awful throw-away shit as well; Hit, Gold Hick, etc.
And so badly recorded. This is where this gets complicated for me. I like a grungy, lo-fi aesthetic. I love that this is an album of sensible duration (41 minutes) with short songs (28 songs in 41 minutes!). Pollard can write a good tune when he tries, and the band can crank out some passable rock and roll. But, and this is a big 'but', some editing would help. Does EVERYTHING need to go on tape, and does it all need to be released? And I am looking at the GBV fanboys here: does every note need to be praised to the heavens?
Really, this is the demo tape for a potentially good album. A decent producer would listen to this, identify the good songs, send the band into rehearsals to work up some arrangements, which could then be captured for posterity. How good would this album be if you picked the best 12-15 songs and recorded a passable 2 1/2 or 3 minute version of each, once it had been thought through a little? All I can hear is wasted potential.
I really feel for Bob Ludwig, who is the unsung hero of this album. I bet Bob was pretty surprised when the record company asked him to try and make a silk purse out of the shitty tapes he was handed. I did a quick A/B comparison with Bee Thousand, the GBV album immediately prior, and you can really hear the difference that great mastering has made. He did a pretty good job with what he was given.
I also want to point out that embracing a lo-fi aesthetic doesn't justify cover art as deliberately ugly as this. This is just bad.
I think this album infuriates me because it could have been great, but it deliberately chooses to be shit at every turn. And the way that every hiss and sonic fart is hailed by the Cult of GBV as a work of goddamn genius just gives me the irrits. I'm giving this 2.5 stars for being an album that shows some promise, rounded down for the annoying fanboys.
Method Man
3/5
Oh, look, it's another mid-90s Wu Tang album. Sometimes I wonder at Dimery's lack of imagination in compiling this list of 1001 albums, and he clearly doesn't know much about hip-hop....
That said, this is a reliably cool mid-90s Wu Tang album. Method Man's flow is charismatic and compelling. The beats have a wonky lo-fi funky feel, with plenty of cinematic atmosphere. The album sounds good, and the lyrics aren't as unpleasant as most gangsta albums (although not without a faint smell of violence and sexism). I don't like the ham-fisted interpolation of I Will Survive on Release Yo' Delf.
I do like that this album is both a sensible album length (44 minutes), and so doesn't outstay its welcome, and there are no skits (which are, IMHO, a blight on most hip hop albums).
It's OK, but 36 Chambers is the only Wu Tang album you really need to hear.
Black Sabbath
5/5
I really like Black Sabbath. I mean, they aren't great musicians, but they managed to turn their shortcomings into a whole new genre. This is not their best record (that would be Paranoid), but it is pretty damn close. You can hear them desperately trying to be Led Zeppelin, but it turns into their own thing. There are a few classictunes on here (Supernaut, which was one of Frank Zappa's favourite songs, and Changes, later exquisitely covered by Charles Bradley). As a fan of stoner rock and sludge metal, this is one of the seminal texts. FX is really rubbish, but everything else I find fun, rockin' and charming in its own way. 4.5 stars, rounding up because I always enjoy listening to this record.
Marvin Gaye
5/5
It's easy to think of the title track as almost a cliché of 70s smooth soul, but listening to it fresh and in context, it's hard to deny how compelling it is. It is the jewel in the crown of this album, which is a sensuous and rapturous template for so much slow jam, lover man soul to come. While the remaining tracks might not rise to the level of the title track, I find is a consistently great album to listen to all the way through. I would listen to Marvin Gaye, here at the height of his powers, sing the telephone book.
This album is not quite as great as What's Going On, but this would be a career pinnacle for almost any other artist. 4.5 stars, rounding up.
Steve Earle
3/5
A pretty fair cross of country and rock. Highly influenced by Springsteen; the version I listened to included a pretty good cover of "State Trooper" on the end, just to make that influence super clear. It's OK, but does not set my world aflame.
Beatles
5/5
I don’t even know where to start with Abbey Road. I can criticise aspects of this album, but the Beatles are still the Beatles. Things they did on record, especially from their studio-based period, which may have been accidents, have become so influential they seem like deliberate strategies, and people have built whole careers based on them. Some of the marked features of this album have become integral parts of the rock lexicon; the hidden track, the medley, the tom-heavy drumming, the use of effects like the leslie speaker, etc. that emerged out of (arbitrary) opportunity or necessity.
Most noted is the side 2 medley; born of necessity to utilise partially written song fragments, it became permission for extended side-long suites with disparate fragments (hello prog rock). The fact that it worked on Abbey Road excused the confusion of willful collage with ‘clever’ song writing. McCartney is one of the worst offenders at this (qv. ‘Band on the Run’, which is a ghastly incoherent mess). On this album, it helped present material that benefited from the succinct presentation. I mean, would ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’ be better if edited down to a similar length as Polythene Pam? Possibly.
Maxwell’s Silver Hammer is, frankly, atrocious and feels like a track that might have made its way onto the White album, but does not belong here. And I agree with John and George that it was not worth the effort to record and include. But other than that, the songs are outstanding. (I was recently doing a deep dive on Let It Be, and the song writing here is SOOOO much better. Come Together, Something, Here Comes the Sun, and the side 2 medley are highlights of the Beatles catalogue. Here Comes the Sun is the most streamed Beatles song Spotify, and has always been a favourite of mine.
Despite the clear tensions in the band around this time, they seem, to have put aside the worst of their bickering to lean into what a tight band they were. Augmented by Billy Preston and really great orchestral arrangement and production from George Martin, this last recorded output from the Beatles is confident and leaning towards the future. The crisper sound from 8-track recording and a solid-state desk, tasteful use of synthesizer (white noise in 'I Want You' aside) show that this was not just recycling their clichés, but committed to making a really great sounding record.
I rate my favourite albums according to those I most frequently play, and this is definitely in my top three Beatles' albums (along with Revolver and Hard Day’s Night). Everyone should make themselves familiar with the many pleasures of Abbey Road, five stars.
The Icarus Line
1/5
Oh really? This sounds like a willfully obscure post-hardcore band much like any other. Alan Moulder mix helps it sound a little better than many. But, I mean, really, this album was barely released, and is not even on spotify at present. How is this a "must hear" album? I mean, they rock. And I'm sure they are heap of sweaty fun live... but this is really a stretch. All attitude and no songs (exception: Kiss Like Lizards).
An absolutely inessential record, with nothing to recommend it.
Sister Sledge
5/5
I used to be a sniffy about disco. It was not serious music, not very cred, too formula driven, etc. In nearly 30 years of mulling over these issues, I have come to the viewpoint that I was pretty much wrong on all counts. The “Disco sucks” movement was largely based in racist and homophobic resentment of anyone having fun without straight white men being in charge. Ideas of musical cred are also based in an exclusionary viewpoint by largely entitlement straight white guys (most critics) trying to gatekeep “good” music.
So, now I am talking to all my white, straight, male homies: all of those criticism miss the point that disco is enormous fun. It is absolutely built from the ground up for dancing (which is awesome), and largely attuned to the tastes of women and gay men. And if you’re looking for a fun night out, you can’t beat dancing with a group of women and/or gay men. They know how to how to have a good time out on the floor, and, if you’re lucky, they’ll let you tag along. If you think you’re cool by shunning disco, you are a fool and missing out. I have been DJing parties a bit lately (with my mate Peter), and there is nothing as amazing as getting a room full of people to dance, and, to really get the dancing going, you need some disco.
As to the accusation that disco is formulaic, I refer you to Sturgeon’s Law: “ninety percent of everything is crap". There is a lot of crap disco out there, but this Sister Sledge album is the gold standard. Produced by Chic at the height of their powers, I would argue that “We Are Family”, “Lost in Music” and “He’s the Greatest Dancer” are among the greatest disco songs ever. With the exception of the lackluster ballad “Somebody Loves Me”, the rest of the album tracks are excellent. I particularly enjoy “Thinking of You”. The band is tight and lays down a great groove, the tunes are memorable, and the vocal performances and harmonies are terrific (maybe not quite to the standard of contemporaries like the Pointer Sisters or Labelle, but still really strong).
This is a consistently slick, groovy and (above all) fun album, that ranks amongst the best disco of all time, and should be celebrated.
Santana
4/5
In this 1001 albums project, I feel like I have sat through a zillion late 60s white-boy psychedelic rock records, and they bore me to death. Really, when I think about it, they don't have a lot of life in them, and they meander around without much drive and they just shit me.
In that context, I can see why Santana were such a dramatic success when they suddenly emerged in 1969. Their career-making appearance at Woodstock was the highlight of the festival (as far as I can tell from the film). Because they knew how to groove. The energetic rhythm drives everything, which is what all those other bands could never really get right. The Santana band can noodle as much as much as they like (and they sure do like to noodle, especially live) because you can dance to it.
Despite Carlos Santana's name on the marquee, I'd like to call out Greg Rolie as the most valuable player here. His organ playing and singing really lift this record, and "Hope You're Feeling Better" is the standout original track on the record for me. That said, five (that's more than half) tracks from this album turn up on the 1974 Greatest Hits album, and deservedly so.
As time went by, it became clear that Carlos Santana is a bit of a one trick pony, but it a pretty bloody great trick, and never displayed better than on this record. Personally, I prefer the self-titled album, but it's a near thing really. Between the self-titled album and Abraxas, you have all the Santana you'll ever need, but you really do need it.
The Jam
2/5
I just never liked Paul Weller. Don't like the Jam, don't like the Style Council, don't like his solo 'Modfather' work. Lots of people really dig the Jam, and god knows I have tried many, many times over the past 40 years to understand it. But I just don't. Chalk this up as yet another unsuccessful attempt to get into the Jam.
The only Paul Weller track I like is the Kosmos (Lynch Mob Bonus Beats Remix). I think this is because it removes all of his singing and, essentially, all of the song itself. Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i8djfurMVQ&t=2s
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
3/5
I can see why this is a classic. Amazing harmonies, some stellar songwriting, and really tasteful production that never overpowers the vocals. If you were a singer-songwriter, this would be the bible. Young's contribution, both songwriting and guitar playing, lift things. His approach is little bit more rock and less polished than Stephen Stills' tendency towards perfectionism, which I prefer.
Jamiroquai
3/5
I quite liked Jamiroquai when they first appeared with this album. The template is largely based on Stevie Wonder, but given that he hadn't released a good record in over a decade at that point, the funky acid jazz approach was fun, and certainly welcome breather from grunge. The singles are catchy and engaging, but the album drags as it goes on. Eight to ten minute workouts might be fun live, but they tend to outstay their welcome on disc, and the less said about the didgeridoo playing, the better.
I did see Jamiroquai at the Sydney Entertainment Centre in 2002. The band was incredibly tight and super professional. I bet they never played a wrong note, and delivered a polished and perfect performance every note. And it was a bit soulless. It was perfectly competent, but never really took off. I mentioned it to my wife, and she has no memory of seeing the show (although she was standing right next to me). And this album is a bit like that; really competent, with good singles, but largely forgettable.
Jay Kay was an engaging frontman when this album came out, although as he developed his 'prat in the hat' persona, he became somewhat less likable. I mean, it is hard to take his "peace, love and environment" messages too seriously when all Mr Kay really seemed interested in was shagging models and collecting sports cars (or was it the other way around?).
But, as a first start from the gates, they are a cracking and super tight funk band with something to prove, with a charismatic frontman, which felt fun and funky at the time. The singles are pretty damn food, although the album tracks are often not much than a jazzy groove with banal lyrics. Subsequent albums followed the same pattern. I like many Jamiroquai singles and sometimes include them in my DJ sets. But the albums are inessential.
Richard Hawley
2/5
hmm, what? Sorry, just fell asleep for a bit there. Yeah, cool record collection, bro.
Beastie Boys
5/5
I was right in the zone for Licensed To Ill to act as a gateway drug to hip hop for me. I was a 16 year old suburban white boy in Australia when it burst onto the radio. We heard almost no hip hop in Australia prior to this (with the exceptions that prove the rule: The Message, Walk This Way, and, god help me, the Stutter Rap). Licensed to Ill was fronted by white boys and sufficiently rock and roll to be palatable to musically conservative Australia radio and record companies, making this one of the first easily available hit rap album in this part of the world. Within a year, I was devouring pretty much whatever I could lay my hands on, which was not a lot at the time (and explains why I have a Velore & Double-O album in my collection). Not much hip hop was getting local release out here. But this was a big hit on radio, and I loved it. And some of the records that I hunted down following this were a lot better.
But this, the second album, just flopped on release. Triple J played a few tracks, but it was just too strange and funky for the same kind of mainstream appeal. I picked it up on vinyl not long after release from a cut-out bin at Central Station Records, with the 4' long double gatefold fold out sleeve. And I played it to death. I loved the new sound. The samples were dense, eclectic and funky, and the wordplay was simultaneously smart and dumb. Legal considerations stopped this kind of sampling within a year or two, which is why this and Three Feet High and Rising and Nation of Millions haven't really ever been replicated. There is something new and surprising and fun every time I Iisten to this album.
And they are a lot of fun. I saw them touring Check Your Head at Selinas at the Coogee Bay Hotel in 1992, when they were playing their instruments, and they were awesome.
As time goes by, I sometimes wonder whether the Beastie Boys were _really_ hip hop, or whether they were an alternative rock band who happened to rap. This album is the closest to true hip hop that they ever did, and it was massively influential on the sound of hip hop. If it's real enough for Chuck D, it's real enough for me. So, I still spin Hey Ladies or Shake Your Rump in just about every DJ set I ever play.
Slade
3/5
Well, wasn't this a rough-as-guts piece of heavy glam rock! Not nearly as polished as many of their contemporaries, Chas Chandler made a good call by harnessing a pretty live and loud Slade at the height of their powers. I noticed how much better this sounds as you turn the volume up.
I also didn't realise how much Nobby Holder sounds like Janis Joplin until I heard this cover of Move Over. I'd still take Janis' version over this, but it would have kicked arse in concert.
That said, the songs selection shows me that they had a pretty narrow view of what their appeal was at the time. The songs on the album are all uniformly loud, raucous and stompin' rock and roll, which makes them seem like a one tricky pony. It all got a bit wearing by the time I was halfway through the album. It was a bit repetitive. I mean, Gudbuy T'Jane immediately followed by Gudbuy Gudbuy suggests that they were maybe a little short of inspiration.
But here is a counter-factual to consider: The expanded edition I listened to had a bunch of b-sides appended to the main album; My Life is Natural, Candidate, Wonderin' Y, and Man Who Speaks Evil. They were all pretty good (especially My Life is Natural) and provided a bit more variety of texture than the songs on the album proper. What would have happened if they had cut the four most repetitive songs on Slayed? and replaced them with these more varied tracks? Then I think we're moving from a 2.5 star album to a 3.5 star record.
For the purpose of ratings, though, I'm going to split the difference. Three stars.
The Gun Club
4/5
Kid Congo Powers described the early Gun Club as "too arty for rock people, far too rock for arty people, too cuckoo for the blues crowd and too American for punk". Well, hell, that all sounds great to me!
I remember spinning a Gun Club album when I worked at Scratches Records in the late 80s (probably 'Miami', I'm thinking), and it didn't really connect with me then. But I picked up a copy of this album almost on a whim a few years back, and hoo boy, do I get it now. As the final line of 'For the Love of Ivy' proclaims, this record is all dressed up like an Elvis from hell!
I really dig this swampy mix of punk attitude and approach with blues and country influences, which, when mixed with a healthy dose of Deep South gothic, gives a gritty swamp rock album. it's not unlike the Australian band the Beast of Bourbon, who emerged from a similar pot pourri of influences with a similar sound only a year or two later. I am a massive fan of the Beasts. Had they heard this record? Maybe. Maybe not. But they ended up engineering a very similar sound.
You certainly wouldn't accuse Jeffrey Lee Pierce of being a great singer, and nobody in the band could really play their instruments well at this point, but they approach it with a powerful gusto. The album is well titled; it is sex and fire. I don't think I've ever heard a version of Preachin' the Blues that so well understood the assignment.
This really is what I like from a rock and roll record; energetic and out of control, and pretty wild. I really like the low-budget, badly recorded, no technique, but full of piss and vinegar, sound. Maybe not everyone's cup of tea, but it's got a funky beat, and I can trip out to it.
Robert Wyatt
1/5
When the first track started playing, I was like "oh, this is isn't what I expected". it was very much in that 70s Eno-period/Roxy Music art-pop mold, with a more chilled out vibe. And I really dug it. Probably not really a surprise given the Eno production and appearance by Phil Manzanera.
But then the rest of the album is just awful. I quite like Wyatt's voice (although his tunes meander a bit), but jeez, please keep the man away from any other instrument. Much of the instrumental 'soloing' is tuneless caterwauling, and Wyatt himself seems to be the main culprit on fiddle and trumpet. It was pointless, directionless noise.
Disliked. Heaps of Sheep is the only listenable track on the record. Maybe I'm having a bad day, but this record actually angered me. Which is quite an achievement, given how chill it is.
The Kinks
2/5
I do not understand why this album is on the list. The Kinks (especially in the 60s) were a great singles band, but those best songs were usually not included on albums. And this album is a prime example of not containing singles; Sunny Afternoon is a bit of a classic, and A House in the Country got a bit of love during Britpop, but otherwise, these are not A-list songs from the Kinks.
I have been reading pop music history for 40 years, and I don't think I have ever heard mention of this album. I rate the Kinks singles, but this album? Why the hell is this on the must-hear list? Someone has a fondness for 60s Kinks, and felt the need to include something, so they put this down. I honestly feel like it was a waste of time listening to this album. Not much to recommend. Get a Kinks singles compilation instead.
Buffalo Springfield
3/5
I find it hard to review this. I am so fucking tired of Dimery's obsession with 60s rock, especially when it meets the intersection of his infatuation with Neil Young and Stephen Stills. And country influences. And fuzz guitar. I mean, this is almost the ur-example of a record that would make Dimery splooge in his pants. Ick.
I've listened to the album through three times today, and it's alright, I guess. Songwriting, singing and playing is pretty good, but let's get real here for a minute: does anyone (other than Neil Young or CSNY obsessives) need to hear any Buffalo Springfield songs other than For What It's Worth?
3/5
Oh goody, yet another late 60s/early 70s cult-favourite. Sigh.
Psychedelic influences? Tick!
Band broke up on initial release? Pretentious lyrics? Tick and tick!
Multiple re-releases on hip reissue labels? Slathered in studio trickery?
Progressive leanings? Critical darling with underwhelming commercial appeal? Tick, tick, tick, tick and tick!
We just won White-boy Rock Critic Bingo!
(I've listened to the album twice through now, and there are some mildly catchy tunes. It's not bad, but I'm not in love with it.)
Led Zeppelin
5/5
When I first moved out of home in the very early 1990s, the share houses I lived in were pretty musical in tone. We listened to a lot of contemporary alternative of various flavours, but also a lot of what we referred to as "ancestor metal". Deep Purple, Sabbath, Led Zep, et hoc genus omnes. Dave C. was never an official flatmate, but he spent a lot of time hanging out in our lounge room, and he loved this record, so we played it a lot. Personally, Led Zep II was my favourite, but this is still a pretty great record, and I find it hard to critique.
I am reminded of Jon Brion's distinction between songs and performance pieces (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_RsLDMeRj4 for an excerpt, or Sound Opinions episode #32, 2006, for the full interview). He cites Led Zeppelin as the best example of performances pieces: it's all about that specific performance by those specific musicians. And they are amazing musicians playing fantastic performances, but the songs are either simplistic (e.g. Immigrant Song), generic (e.g. Since I've Been Loving You) or loosely plagiarized (e.g. Hats Off to Roy Harper). But it is hard to imagine anyone else playing them in way that is nearly as powerful or compelling as these performances. Brion points that out that there are very few satisfying covers of Led Zeppelin songs (with the notably exception of Dread Zeppelin). I mean, have you ever heard anyone try to cover Immigrant Song in a way that didn't make you just shrug and think to yourself "the original version is much better"?
Led Zep are a cornerstone band for me, and I will happily listen to any of their first five albums any day of the week. I know the critiques (bombastic, stupid lyrics, sexist, plagiarized), but I really enjoy listening to them. Five stars for awesomeness and classic status.
PJ Harvey
5/5
I often complain about the woeful under-representation of women on the 1001 albums list. It can be a bit of a sausage-fest. But today, happily, here is an album by a great artist, and an album that absolutely belongs on this list, which happens to be by a female artist.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, I worked at Scratches Records in Newtown, which specialised in female artists. So we were very aware of PJ Harvey when she appeared. Having a wide back catalog of female artist (including lots of alternative artists), I was not surprised by the emergence of a powerful, gritty female voice like PJ Harvey, but immediately recognized her as an important artist. Her playing is muscular and compelling (which I love), her singing is dynamic and soulful, and her songwriting is fresh and arresting. I really love her first three albums, which are all packed with memorable and moving songs.
This album has a particular punch. Steve Albini's production approach is raw and immediate, which suits the material really well. He often says that all he really does is record what's there and stay out of the way of the performances, and he does that perfectly here. The performances are full of grit and bluster, and it really sounds like you are there in the room as they blast the material out. It's nearly 30 years since I first heard this record, and I still find it thrilling from the first track. I saw her at the Enmore Theatre in the early 2000s, and she is amazing on stage.
This is really what I think the best of rock and roll for me: raw, smart (without being too clever), emotional, dark, funny, dynamic, exciting and powerful. Five stars.
4/5
Side 1 of this record is one of the best sides of rock and roll ever committed to vinyl. It's sloppy and raw and loud and rebellious and offensive and fast and out of control, The decision to record the band live was unorthodox but inspired. They managed a great job of capturing the excitement of the MC5. That wild excitement has been massively influential on whole branches of rock since then. If I ever wanted go explain what rock and roll should be like, side 1 of this album is really the ur-text.
I find the whole thing flags a bit on side 2, especially 'Starship', which loses focus a touch.
The intro to Kick Out The Jams, however. is an iconic moment of rock. My recent-ish Rhino pressing has the "motherfuckers" intact, although Spotify has cut the whole spoken introduction . This proves that Spotify are gutless corporate milquetoasts.
System Of A Down
2/5
I am not, decidedly not, a nu-metal fan. I like some metal, especially 70s-style doom metal and stoner rock. Slow sludgy, heavy shit. With an actual vocal melody, for preference. More recent metal, which tends to veer between screaming and cookie monster growling just gives me the irrits. And I like a groove, so stuff that gets overly proggy with too much clever clogs changing all the time and widdly-widdly bits is also annoying. And the tendency of nu-metal to get overly wrapped up in its own white-boy super-angst misogynistic bullshit is just awful (I'm looking at you Jonathan Davis and Fred Durst).
So, that brings us to System Of A Down. Given all of the above, they are far and away the most tolerable nu-metal band I have heard. But being compared to your Limp Bizkits and Korn and Deftones and whoever else is a pretty low bar.
I like that the singer can actually sing and choses to from time to time, and they are politically right-on, which makes their lyrics 100 times better than most nu-metal bands.
I was talking to my 18 year old son, Hal, and he pointed otu that they strike a really great balance between dumb (which is an important element of all metal) and clever clogs. He also pointed out that they change time signatures and feel suddenly throughout the song, but they don't do it to be clever (like a prog band would); they do it to fuck with you (which is funny). As we were listening, some bonus live tracks came up, and they were awesome. The band was heavy and tight, and you could hear the crowd singing along. It sounded like a really compelling and fun gig. The album itself I found well recorded and energetically performed, but a little boring and repetitive, with some minor sparks of interest (like the oompah band and willfully obtuse guitar solo on 'Peephole'), but I could totally see myself having a great time at a System Of A Down gig. Yesterday I reviewed the MC5s first record, which was recorded live, and these bonus tracks made me wonder what would have happened if SOAD has taken a similar punt with a live debut record.
Note to Dimery: why on earth is this record on the list, not Toxicity, which was their big hit, and clearly the more influential album?
Final verdict is that this is not really my thing, but the best in class. 2.5 stars, rounding down for the missed opportunity of recording the whole album live.
Suicide
4/5
Like Kollaps by Einstuerzende Neubauten, this is an album that was really influential for me (and lots of other people, as well). The (frankly terrible) industrial band I played in during the 90s was unashamedly influenced by Suicide, partly because of the power of it and partly because we weren't very good, and the simple form was something we could aspire to. The guy who programmed the drum machines (Virtual Mark Selway, RIP) was a huge fan, and we occasionally would let him on the mic to sing a Suicide cover (Ghost Rider or Dream Baby Dream, usually).
The album is creepy and disturbing and abrasive and minimal and noisy, and not a pleasant listening experience, really. But it's like they squeezed rock and roll down to its bare essence, and then filtered it back through the limitations of their own way of doing things. But they showed how much you could do with so little; almost no instruments (and certainly no guitars), almost no lyrics, almost no music. And that was a massive realization; you could make compelling rock music out of almost nothing. You can hear Suicide influences all over the place, including as important foundational influences on industrial music and techno. This Pitchfork article has 15 examples of the varied people indebted to Suicide: https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/1232-15-songs-indebted-to-suicides-alan-vega/ ) I am fascinated, in particular, by the way Bruce Springsteen is clearly playing homage to Suicide in his song 'State Trooper'. It's an unexpected influence, but makes sense when you think about it. It also explains why State Trooper is my favorite Springsteen song.
I enjoyed listening to this again, and it made me want to call up the surviving members of my old band and see if they want to get back on stage and make some noise. I confess that I rarely listen to this album, but I always find it fascinating and energizing. But I can see why most people would find it difficult, unpleasant, repetitive and scary. It's four stars for me, but I understand why it would be a 1 or 2 for many listeners.
Ray Charles
4/5
I confess I am a bigger fan of Ray Charles' more gritty Atlantic sides, which are more blues/r'n'b/soul than this. This was clearly engineered for cross-over appeal with white pop audiences, and it certainly achieved that. I don't mind Quincy Jones' side 1 arrangements, which are tight and powerful. The strings side, however, is a bit schmaltzy for my taste, truth be told. It feels like pandering to the middle of the road. I'd like a bit more flavour.
That said, Ray's singing throughout is just wonderful. I don't feel like he compromises his tone or phrasing to pander to the intended audience. And the song choices are mostly excellent, drawn from the best of the great American songbook. So, four stars for Ray Charles being generally excellent, even in a middle-of-the-road outing such as this.
(Minor note; is it just me, or are there some weird recording artefacts on this record? Some of the horns and louder vocals seem a bit distorted and harsh.)
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
2/5
And this is why we needed punk. I am not fan of prog. It is often just too clever-clogs for my taste. And this album is absolutely in love with its own cleverness. Some passable moments, rarely repeated, so it assiduously avoids groove or rock (except on 'Blues Variation', which has a groove I can appreciate, but not a lot else to recommend it).
Wikipedia notes that "the album continues to evoke a highly divided reaction among critics, with some hailing it as a peak of the progressive rock genre while others continue to bewail it as its nadir."
Lester Bangs "brutally mocked" this album in his Rolling Stone review, and (on a separate occasion) wrote: "Everybody knows Classical-Rock (alternating with -Jazz) Fusions never really work. Perhaps what really paved the astroturf for ELP was 2001, that dopey cozzed collegiate smoker flick: not only did it star a computer that could kick ass on Keith E.'s in a microsputum, but crafty Kubrick saw sure the soundtrack was fattened with all the glorioski Classicorn any rube could swallow. 'Also Sprach Zarathustra'; and Keith Emerson heard the word just like he was Joseph Smith shoveling off the tablets. By the time Kubrick got to Clockwork Orange, thereby installing Beethoven in the prostate projection chamber of next-up fad of trendy androhoodlum, the insidious befoulment of all that was gutter pure in rock had been accomplished. It's worse than eclecticism, it's eugenic entropy by design, and Emerson and cohorts are more than mere fellow travelers."
Preach, Brother Bangs, hallelujah. Lester and I are clearly both in the 'nadir' camp.
At least ELP had the good graces to originally release this as a budget priced release between studio albums. I still wouldn't pay more than the original one quid fifty UK release price.
Richard Thompson
4/5
This was a surprise. I don't care for folk (or even folk rock) generally. I was aware of the reputation of this album (and Shoot Out The Lights even more so). I thought it would be a case of an album I would appreciate but not love. But I listened to this through three times in a row, and then picked out my faves (The Great Valerio, title track, When I Get To The Border, Calvary Cross, Down Where The Drunkards Roll). I very quickly became familiar with and a grew love for this record. While steeped in folk, Richard Thompson's use of electric guitar (and occasionally electric piano) really lift this. Linda's voice is so terrific, and she clearly deeply understands these songs. I really came around to loving this record. I'm putting it on my want-list.
A Tribe Called Quest
4/5
There have been so many gangsta rap albums on this list, that I was almost starting to think I didn't like hip hop. The misogyny and violence of gangsta rap just makes me more and more uncomfortable. It wasn't Ok at the time, and it just gets worse with time.
Thank goodness for A Tribe Called Quest. I like this record sooooo much more than many of the hip hop records I have been forced to listen to. It is cool and laid back, smart and funny, sensitive and insightful. I love the chilled production and Q-Tip and Phife's flow is so great.
Chris Jones for the BBC wrote that Tribe "almost single-handedly defined the alternative rap scene, where intelligence and musical nouse replaced guns, hos and bragging. ... Low End [Theory] pushed the jazz connection even further with a sparse but not quite minimal selection of grooves built around some exquisitely chosen upright bass samples ... Remember that this was in direct contrast to the West Coast G Funk about to explode onto the scene. Like its predecessor, it combined humour with insight to show the world that ‘rap’ needn’t be equated with the worst aspects of the American dream." Amen.
A great, great record that reminds us all of what is great about hip hop. It sounds better with age.
Led Zeppelin
5/5
When I was a young man living in share houses, we played a lot of "ancestor metal", including this album a lot. Personally, Led Zep II was my favourite, but this is still a pretty great record, and I find it hard to critique.
Assuming you have a taste for what led Zep do, the first disc is almost unimpeachable. The second disc has a lot more filler (Bron-Yr_Aur, Boogie with Stu, Down by the Seaside), but given that this double was a chance to clear the vaults of off-cuts and previously unfinished tracks, the standard is remarkably high.
Real kudos to the rhythm section, who really are doing the heavy lifting here. Apparently, Bonham really came into his own in the arranging of songs (eg, In My Time of Dying), and his drumming is just awesome. John Paul Jones' orchestrations and keyboard playing is exceptional. the clavinet on Custard Pie and Trampled Under Foot is wonderful.
Led Zep are a cornerstone band for me. I know the critiques (bombastic, risible lyrics, sexist, plagiarized), but I really enjoy listening to them. Five stars for awesomeness and classic status.
Arctic Monkeys
3/5
I was listening to this album when Hal, my 18 year old son, wandered into my office.
"Ah," he exclaimed, "the only Arctic Monkeys album I really like!"
"oh, why's that, then?", I ask.
"It doesn't take itself too seriously, and it's energetic, and it feels real."
True that. This is one really captures the feeling of a young person enjoying the nightlife in a provincial town.
And "I bet you look good on the dance floor" is a bangin' tune. Thumbs up!
Can
4/5
I do love me some krautrock. I love a hypnotic motorik beat (and Jaki Leibezeit is the king of the motorik beat) I like the weirdness, the stretching out, the minimal approach, the almost funkiness to it. Halleluwah and Mushroom are probably two of the greatest Can tracks ever, and this is my favourite Can album. I know this isn't to everyone's taste, but I really dig it.
Halleluwah is even better in the 18 minute version than the 3 and 5 minute edits that float around on various singles and compilations. It really needs the time to stretch out.
That said, I _never_ play the side with Aumgn; it crosses the line into self-indulgent and unstructured noise. So, one star off for Augmn. Otherwise, a massively influential album and a personal favourite. Four stars.
Side note: this is my 500th review, and it is a pleasure to get a great album like this.
Neneh Cherry
5/5
I first heard "Buffalo Stance" when it was initially released in 1988, and I didn't get it. I didn't think it was 'right' to mix genres the way this track does. I thought that if you're going to rap, rap. And if you're going to sing, sing. It was probably a full six months before the penny dropped, and I understood what she is doing here. I had been wrong and extremely short-sighted about how songs could be constructed and performed, and Neneh Cherry was visionary and right. And massively influential; artists mix rapping and singing within a track all the time now, to the point where it isn't remarkable at all. But Neneh was the first person to do it (or, at least, to do it in a way that was commercially and critically successful), and she re-wrote the pop playbook.
I am ashamed ghat I didn't immediately recognise the genius of what she did here, but once I understood, I got it. I bought the album when it came out, and it is an iconic album of the 80s. It sounds of its time, but still pretty fresh to my ears. I love her confidence and energy, and the deft mixing of genres. It is no surprise that the Massive Attach crew were involved in the production of this record, and they built on this formula with their amazing Blue Lines album.
The album is front-loaded with the singles, which I still enjoy. As a result, I realise that I usually only play side 1 (because that's where all the hits are), so it was a nice surprise to listen to side 2, and it also has pretty strong material, that I enjoyed hearing again for the first time in a while. She has such a great voice and a fascinating and original viewpoint.
I had been thinking I was going to rate this four stars, but as I listen to it again, and think about how influential it was, and how fun it still is to listen to, I really am leaning towards five stars. Dimery's list has a real problem with under-representation of female artists. I often think he doesn't understand what female artists are trying to do, and can't see the value. And this is an explicitly and wonderfully female album, and it changed the way pop music sounds. And I really enjoy listening it. I enjoyed it at the time, and I enjoy it now. I think it has to be five stars.
Run-D.M.C.
3/5
It's the first big hit album of new school rap (which sounds pretty old school these days). The minimal beats, occasional guitar, and hard, staccato rapping style was massively influential, and allowed Run DMC to cross-over to (white) rock audiences. It certainly worked for me.
I was a white teenager in 1986 when Raising Hell was released, with Walk This Way as the huge single, and it caught my attention. I bought the 12" and the album, which were amongst the first rap records released locally (other than a few singles that were almost regarded as novelty songs). I basically had Raising Hell memorized. I went to see Run DMC at Hordern Pavillion in 1988 (supported by Eric B and Rakim!), and they were awesome live.
Run DMC's previous albums were basically unavailable in Australia for a looooong time, and so I never owned a copy of this, their first record, but I certainly was familiar with the classic tracks (Hard Times, Rock Box, It's Like That, Sucker MCs). How do I find the album as a listening experience these days? Well, a bit like I find the Beatles first record. It is exciting and important and massively influential, but not as compelling as their later work, especially when they had built their confidence in the studio. I _loved_ the minimal beats of this generation of rap in the 80s, and their flow was hard, with the hand-offs between the Rev. Run and Darryl like precision clockwork (nobody really does that anymore). You can, however, hear how profoundly hip hop changed int eh late 80s, with the increasing sophistication of sampling and the change in flow style (especially influenced by Rakim). Despite my love of Run DMC (who are the Beatles of rap), I'm not sure that this really holds up as a listening experience today. But massively influential and important, god bless Run DMC.
Foo Fighters
3/5
Grunge Ringo!
I mean, it's _ok_ I guess. He can craft a tune, and he plays the guitar pretty loud, and it rocks a bit. But it's anodyne. Dave Grohl just really wants to be liked, and that stops him from really pulling out all the stops. But, this is a likeable album. And they're a likeable band.
I bought the 7" of This is a Call when it first came out, and I still like that song quite a lot. But it easily and completely fulfills all of the Foo Fighters I need in my life. I listen to their subsequent singles and think "that's OK, but I already have one single, and that's enough."
I wonder how history will treat the Foo Fighters. They are a big band (probably one of the biggest touring rock bands in the world at this point), but when they stop touring, will the world still remember them, or will they be one of those big bands that just... fades away... into nothingness...
But I enjoyed it while it was playing. And now it is finished, and I don't need to think about them any more. 2.5, rounding up because they turn their amps up loud.
Meat Puppets
3/5
The cover really gives it away; this was written and recorded quickly, with minimal editing and on drugs. Obviously, the Kirkwood brothers had some country knowledge and chops, and when they let those influences into their punk framework (along with a healthy dose of psychedelia), you get a quite interesting thing. Much more interesting than the bulk of the early 80s SST hardcore thing. Using Spot, the eclectic in-house producer at SST, obviously helped.
I can hear the influence on subsequent lo-fi bands like Pavement or Guided by Voices (especially the "no editing" thing) and on psychedelic bands like the Flaming Lips et al. That said, this is pretty sloppy, the singing ain't great, and there is a fair amount of material that probably should have been left on the cutting floor. I saw the Meat Puppets at the Lansdowne Hotel in Sydney in 1992 (I think), and my memory is that they were sloppy as all hell, and not in a particularly fun way. I was unimpressed.
Would this album have made this list if it wasn't for the three songs that Nirvana covered (with guest appearance by the Kirkwoods) on the Unplugged session? I've never really heard a satisfactory version of why they did those three songs, except for speculation that Kurt Cobain was so disengaged and out of it that they needed the extra material (and musical support) to pad out the session. It's an Ok album, and I happily listened to it three times through, but it is a pretty minor footnote to musical history.
Todd Rundgren
3/5
ugh, prog rock, ick. I get that this is kinda funny and stylistically diverse, but it is (in the words of the Rolling Stone Album Guide 2004) "an endurance test of stylistic diversity, with just three fully realized songs ('Sometimes I Don't Know What to Feel,' 'International Feel,' and 'Just One Victory') stranded in the midst of so much half-baked sonic decoration."
There are moments in here that I mildly enjoy, but the lack of focus and intent make it hard to love. I can understand that it was really inspiring to a lot of bedroom musicians who just wanted to sit in their home studios and make records pretty much by themselves (artists as diverse as Prince, Daft Punk, Tame Impala, Frank Ocean and a bunch of others), but I don't dig it myself.
To paraphrase the Spacemen 3, Rundgren was taking drugs to make music to take drugs to. Maybe if I got _really_ baked, lit some candles, and listened to this through headphones, I could love it. But that ain't gonna happen, sorry.
I do like it better than Something/Anything?, because it does, at least, have a sense of humour.
The Psychedelic Furs
3/5
Loud band with sardonic (and borderline misogynistic) frontman. Pretty is Pink was a great single, but his voice palls over the length of an album, and it all starts to sound pretty much the same.
I like the breakdown at 1:33 of It Goes On. That's a pretty muscular rhythm section.
I could live without all the saxophones.
Dizzee Rascal
3/5
Dizzee Rascal has a really distinctive flow, and the garage sound is stark and powerful. This was a fresh and radically different take on hip hop than everything coming out of America (and most of the rest of the world) at the time. It's really innovative, and it certainly captured my attention for a track at a time. But sitting through an hour of it got felt repetitive, and I couldn't really hear what makes it special any more. It just blurred into a grimy wallpaper.
Fix Up, Look Sharp popped out due to the well-deployed Billy Squiers sample.
Joy Division
3/5
Heretical opinion time: Joy Division were just a band (apologies to Scroobius Pip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWrMGXwhFLk&t=6s), and a barely competent band at that. But the way they channel the Velvet Underground through a Krautrock filter helped define what post-punk could be, and the tragic tale of Ian Curtis is now canonical rock and roll lore.
Much credit to Martin Hannett for the production that presents the shortcomings of the band (noisy, minimal, basic, intense) as features, creating an austere and claustrophobic setting for their weird charisma.
As any self-respecting alternative music fan would, I own a bunch of Joy Division records. But I never, ever listen to them. Truth be told, I just find them too bleak. I admire the achievement, the atmosphere, the influence. But I can't shake the feeling that they are over-rated, that the actual records are over-shadowed by the legend of Ian Curtis and the band, which are, now, 40 years later, inextricably linked by too many magazine articles, books, movies, and a million t-shirts.
It's hard to listen to the record without the freight of all that baggage. If I squint hard and try to listen afresh, it's a pretty good album, focused and powerful, and unremittingly dour. Not a fun day at the beach, though. I'm thinking 3.5 stars, which I am rounding down because I own the record but never listen to it.
New York Dolls
5/5
Now this is more like it! rock and roll! woo-hoo!
I so enjoyed this record. it's raw, and dangerous, and rock and roll, and funny, and offensive, and everything I want from a rock and roll record. It has dead-set classic songs (Personality Crisis, Trash, Looking for a Kiss), some songs I already loved (Subway Train), and few that I am now just learning to love (Bad Girl, Frankenstein). Loved this record. Play it real loud!
The Stooges
5/5
I have a nephew who has started collecting records. In the lead-up to birthday and Christmas, I always ask him "are there any records you want? Because, if you don't tell me what you want, I'm going to buy you records that I think you need to have." Bless him, he usually defers to my picks, and this album is one of the LPs I bought him. I _think_ he likes it...
I love the Stooges. "I Wanna be your Dog" was the cover song my old band played more than any other. Our attitude and stagecraft had a fair amount of Stooges in it (not to the point of cutting ourselves with broken glass and smearing our chests with peanut butter, but there were quite a few on-stage fist fights, and lots of getting into altercations with the audience).
This album is classic, classic Stooges, and, probably has some of the best written songs in their oeuvre. The attitude is fast and loose, and they are rocking out fiercely, but there are proper songs in there under the sneer and fuzz. I Wanna Be Your Dog and No Fun are my favourite tracks. We Will Fall is a reminder that this album was recorded in 1969 (extended raga-like psychedelic jam) and how significant an influence Jim Morrison was on Iggy Pop.
Iggy takes the lessons of the Lizard King and, at his best, distills it down to pure Id, jettisoning (most of) Morrison's faux-intellectualism and cod poetry. He is still learning how to do that on this album, but the blueprint is all there. Christgau described this album as "stupid-rock at its best", which is right on the money. It steals all the best bits of rock music that came before it, pushed it through their own dumbed-down and unfiltered performance until it is just a burst of raw power (hey, that could be a good album title. Note that down for later, Ig).
Ozomatli
3/5
This album is a gumbo of hip hop, rock and latin funk, with a gumbo of world music influences (ska, middle eastern, a touch of reggae, lots of different latin styles). It's fun, and I'm sure it goes off like a bomb live. I kept thinking "I bet this is the sort of band that played Womadelaide" [annual Australian world music festival], and sure enough, they headlined there in 2005, touring this record. But there are a bunch of bands out there that do this sort of world music stew (cooked on a rock/funk base to make it easy to understand for western audiences). They are all entertaining live, but their records all sound pretty similar, and often don't capture the excitement or energy of their live show.
I had some difficulty tracking this album down online (only two songs on spotify, patchy coverage on youtube), which suggest to me that this album does not have along-lasting relevance. It won a Grammy in the year of release, but it is not going on my want list. That said, if someone said they had a free ticket to see them at then Enmore Theatre, I would totally go.
Fleetwood Mac
5/5
Fleetwood Mac are my favourite radio band. If one of their songs comes on the radio, I will always turn it up and sing along. Love it. But I never choose to put their records on the turntable (except the Tusk 7”).
But this, _this_, is a really great album. The balance of the three songwriters means they are each bringing their A-game, and their approaches complement each other. Buckingham is cynical, Nicks mystical, and McVie optimistic. But then, their voices have their own character, but they sing together so well. It really helps this record to have a significant female viewpoint. If Buckingham had written all the songs, you have to think that his cynicism, almost bordering on bitterness, and tendency to take the centre stage on his own material would have ended up with something more like the Eagles (hock, spit).
However, Buckingham's production and guitar is nearly always in service of the song (with significantly less flash than many of his contemporaries, although he certainly has the chops to bring it when required), and McVie's keyboards are sublime. Of course, having one of the greatest rhythm sections in rock doesn't hurt, either.
It gets so much radio play, do you really need to play the album? Well, I find not, but I really enjoyed playing this through a few times today. There are some real classic tunes on here, among the best songs of west coast 70s rock; Dreams, Go Your Own Way, The Chain, Songbird, You Make Loving Fun, Gold Dust Woman (although I confess, I actually think Courtney love did this better in her cover https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngmhjiR3QOo). This is one of those records where it is easily understood why this is one the highest selling albums of all time.
I think the reputation of this record has improved in the past twenty years. It is much more embraced as a classic, rather than the slightly unhip and daggy reputation it had in the early 90s. There's a lot to love about the record; great singing and playing, great songs, it sounds like a million dollars (as it should, considering the recording budget), and the story of all the drama that went with its recording, which adds to the legend of the album.
If this isn't a five star album, it's hard to think what would be.
TV On The Radio
2/5
I never bought into the hype around the cohort of hipster bands that emerged from the New York scene (especially centered around Brooklyn) in the early 2000s. TV on the Radio weren't as (uncritically) over-rated and fawned over to the same degree as, say, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs or the Strokes. Pitchfork even described them as "soulless".
This album is a bit cleverer (and more original) than most of the other bands on the scene (even if derivative of NY post-punk from the first go around), but it flatly does not rock. And you can't dance to it.
It's really unfocussed and noodly. It could use a bit more drama, and a little less intellectual remove, or like the band are slightly sedated.
It really just sounds like demos of what might have been a cool album. Two stars.
The Who
4/5
I used to say I didn't like live albums. I was explaining this to my mate Dave one time, and started listing exceptions to my rule, and it turned out to be a pretty long list. "Maybe," I thought halfway through explaining my position, "maybe I _do_ like live albums". And I had to accept that I had been kidding myself. I like the rough and ready recording quality, the unpolished immediacy of it all, a band getting down to what they really do best.
And it's hard to think of a better example of a live album than Live at Leeds. I am not generally a huge fan of the Who, but, by god, I love this album. It really is a great example of what they do best. They are an incredible live unit at this point in time, everyone at the height of their powers and playing tight and heavy. And with a sense of humour and fun.
I own the vinyl version, but today I have been listening to the expanded edition. You can tell that, for the original release, they pared it down to the heaviest tracks, and some really non-obvious choices; only a few previous singles and an equal number of covers, played in their own style. Young Man Blues is a major reinterpretation from the Mose Allison version. The expanded version delves a bit deeper into their catalogue (including A Quick One While He's Away) and was worthwhile listening (which is rare for expanded editions, I find). But I do prefer the fat-free original version for a quick and dirty hit of powerful rock from one of the great live bands of the genre. If someone was going to ask me for a great example of the Who and/or a live rock album, this would be my go-to suggestion.
The Pretty Things
3/5
Thank you, 1001 albums, for making me listening to another record that I had meant to get around to for ages, but never listened too. And it's 1967/8 at Abbey Rd Studios. Norman Smith (producer/engineer) really had a sound going at the time, and this is strongly reminiscent of contemporaneous albums by the Beatles and Pink Floyd, also with strong involvement from Smith at Abbey Rd. Experimental for the time, but still tuneful and often surprisingly heavy (Old Man Going). A lost treasure (although there are quite a few records on this list of this ilk). Favourite track: Baron Saturday.
CHIC
5/5
If you are following my reviews, you will note that I tend to like my music and bit raw and noisy, not too polished. But all that goes out the window with Chic, here at the height of their powers. I always keep a couple of Chic singles in my DJ crates, because they are guaranteed floor fillers.
I confess that I've never listened to this whole album before. It's disco, but funkier than a lot of disco. The rhythm section are always int he pocket, the orchestrations are classy and compelling, the vocals cool and classy. The whole album is classy, cool, smooth and funky, almost irresistible on the dance floor. This really is peak disco.
But the really important track is Good Times. A #1 single in its own right, but the influence is enormous. The bassline is one of the cornerstones of hip hop, sampled a zillion times, most notably in Rapper's Delight. It's a terrific song, and has a massive footprint on musical history.
The whole album is pretty schmick and I enjoy it, but really the only track, that you must, must, MUST hear is Good Times. Five stars for that song alone.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
3/5
There are a few things I quite like about this album; it's a great swamp rock sound (even though they hadn't been near a bayou in their lives), it's brief (although still manages to have filler on it), and the singles are cracking!
It must be said that the Ike and Tina version of Proud Mary is definitive. I am also more fond of the Beast of Bourbon version of Graveyard Train than this original. Born on the Bayou is a pretty good song. They cover of good golly Miss Molly is completely listenable, but doesn't in any way replace Little Richard.
But given that Graveyard Tarin and Keep on Chooglin' are essentially one-chord vamps and fill up half the running time of the album between them. You can see that this album is pretty non-essential.
Dimery's allergy to compilations is really hurting us here. CCR are one of the great singles band (with the all-time record for most US #2 singles without ever reaching #1), so a best of is a terrific listen, but really, the albums are inessential. I assume that is partly a result of pushing out albums at a rate of knots (6 albums and 17 singles between '68 and '70). The singles are terrific, but the albums are rushed.
Look, I like the sound, and a CCR greatest hits would be five stars, but this album is inessential.
Jacques Brel
2/5
Not my thing. Not speaking French, all I hear is over-dramatic emoting, untethered to meaning. And sometimes Brel's presentation borders on the ridiculous (Les Bonbons or Tango Funebre). I will be interested to see if my mate Alan, who French fluent French, has a different opinion.
The tunes aren't that great either. I mean, I really dig Edith Piaf, and there is nothing here that lights my fire like her greatest tunes.
Paul Simon
2/5
Dimery loves Paul Simon. Six albums on the list, between Simon & Garfunkel and his solo albums. I can't work out why _this_ record is on the list. It has a critical reputation as being his most personal album, but I find the production anodyne, the lyrics less evocative than usual and the tunes more forgettable than much of his other work. Cars Are Cars is, frankly, embarrassing. No bangers on the record.
There is an all-star cast of musicians and producers contributing, but it still doesn't have much musical flavour (with the exception of Philip Glass' contribution the final 60 seconds of the Late Great Johnny Ace).
Critics seem to love this record, but I think the buying public knew a turkey when they heard it. While normally I don't equate sales figures with quality or influence, when a Paul Simon album peaks at only 35 on the charts, you have to think there is something amiss. The punters know what the critics don't understand. This isn't some sort of magnificent failure or a wild experiment gone wrong; it's an attempt at an accessible album that just fell flat.
Orange Juice
2/5
I love Simon Reynold's book on post-punk, titled after this album/song. I get why this album was a breath of fresh air at the time, but I find the "funk" unconvincing. Too, too white boy, really. The African influences, courtesy of the drummer/songwriter Zeke Manyika are much more interesting to me (eg A Million Pleading Faces, Hokoyo, or the percussion breaks on Breakfast Time), and I wish there was a lot more of that. I find Edwyn Collin's voice just a little bit too ironic crooner for my taste.
If it was a little bit faster, with a bit more layered percussion, this could have been more like Remain in Light. It has those moments (again, guitar solo on Breakfast Time, which is reminiscent of Adrian Belew or Robert Fripp) which I really like. But then he starts singing again, or they start playing terrible white boy funk.
The Mamas & The Papas
3/5
Better than average 60s pop. Vocal arrangements are excellent, and the backing by Wrecking Crew regulars is reliably solid. I found that I preferred the originals to the covers on this record. Monday Monday and California Dreamin' are stone-cold classics, and worth the price of admission alone.
I acknowledge and appreciate John Phillip's role in organising the Monterey Pop Festival, which was a watershed moment in 60s counter-culture. But he is also one of the worst human beings ever to live. It puts a nasty aftertaste on everything he touches.
Wanna blow your mind? Check out the Denial cover of California Dreamin': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_tP6LPLjJY
Tito Puente
4/5
There's a certain bachelor pad, lounge music cheesiness to this album, admittedly, but I find this enormous fun. The grooves are infectious, the brass arrangements are bold and exciting, and the vocals are compelling and charismatic (even though I speak no Spanish). But, at th4e end of the day, it's all about those rhythms!
I've listened to this album four times through in a row today, and I enjoy it all the way through every time. It's just a lot of fun, and music needs to be fun sometimes.
Kings of Leon
2/5
Yeesh, saviours of rock and roll? The Southern Strokes? Last proper band in town? I think not.
Was rock so impoverished in 2004 that this passed for excitement? I swear I have heard bands playing this schtick as well or better to 30 people at a small bar in Marrickville. And his singing has a weird affectation that really grates on my nerves.
Wildly inessential listening. 1.5 stars begrudgingly rounded up for not being completely rancid.
Motörhead
5/5
It's Motorhead! One of the greatest rock and roll records of all time. Slightly less shout-y than their previous records and marginally better recorded, but still with an urgency and energy that cuts through almost anything. I've heard that they would spend a week in the studio getting the guitar tone, but it still sounds like they loaded in, turned on (loud!), and blitzkrieged their way through a set before storming off the invade another neighbouring country. It's sexist as hell (which hasn't dated well). I know Lemmy found Ace of Spades limiting, but what a song!
2/5
interesting that there are no Ornette Coleman albums on this list, but John Zorn's tribute to Ornette Coleman... Dimery's bias towards white, critically lauded artists continues? John Zorn has carved out a little niche for himself in music, but I disagree that you really need to hear his stuff to lead a fulfilled life.
I feel like Wynton Marsalis spent the 1980s championing 'straight-ahead' jazz, attempting to set jazz in aspic and stifle any sense of innovation in the form. But Zorn showed that there were still people pushing the form into genuinely new areas that built on the traditions of the form (in this case, free jazz).
Zorn's crossover between free jazz and hardcore is convincing, even if borderline unlistenable. Moments of melody poke through the noise to hint at structure, only to disappear again into the unrelenting aggressive noise. It has been influential -- I am going to see Party Dozen this week, I'm sure they were highly influenced by this album. But it's exhausting to listen to. The only track I came close to really enjoying is Feet Music.
American Music Club
2/5
This is like a pale carbon copy of the alternative music of the 80s; a bit alt-country, a bit Smiths, a bit RM, but not a patch on any of it. I found this bland and unmemorable.
A SputnikMusic review states: "AMC slowly faded into relative obscurity and are now looked back at as a cult act, well-regarded also-rans. Clearly there was a limit to how much navel-gazing the public at large could take but it should still be remembered that AMC played their part in winning the war against ‘80s douche-bag decadence."
Let's give a minute's silence for this fallen soldier in the battle against mainstream rock. They didn't achieve anything heroic, but they were there.
Pet Shop Boys
3/5
There's an appealing louche ennui to this album that I find appealing set against the sophisticated dance pop of this album. The singles are all good, with "it's a Sin" and "What Have I Done to Deserve This?" are bangers. I love Dusty Springfield, and she is well deployed on this, her last big hit. They released an excellent cover of "You Were Always On My Mind" around the same time as this, but didn't include it on the album (except on the subsequent extended edition), which is a loss.
I like the tastefully ironic cover.
The non-singles tracks are wallpaper.
Ride
5/5
I really loved this album when it came out (1990, hard to believe it was that long ago, and was a pre-Nevermind release!), and truth be told, is probably my favourite shoegaze band. I can admit that MBV's Loveless is the true masterpiece of the genre, but Ride has better songs. I still listen to this album on a regular basis. I regret that I didn't go to see them supporting Ratcat at the Hordern Pavillion in 1991 (but seriously, can you imagine paying good money to see RATCAT at the Hordern? They were, in my mind, an archetypal Annandale Hotel band)
I love the mix of actual tunes (and vocal harmonies!) with the big walls of noise. They probably did that better than anyone. The guitar squalls are controlled and expansive, building on the lessons learned from Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr, but not taken as far as the extreme of My Bloody Valentine.
The singing is adequate, but the use of harmony highlight that the melodies are often quite pretty (especially when contrasted against the guitar noise) and allow the singing to promote the song rather than the singer. The lyrics are often a bit self-conscious or pretentious, which is forgivable given that the band members were only about 19 when they recorded this album. At least they don't fall into the typical traps of juvenilia that afflicts many immature bands (unwarranted egotism, sexism, puerile humour, etc).
Most valuable player goes to Loz Colbert, drummer extraordinaire! What a powerhouse he is. I've heard him compared to Keith Moon (reasonably apt), but 'Dreams Burn Down' sounds to me like a take on 'When the Levee Breaks'. That along with 'Seagull', 'Vapour Trail', and 'Polar Bear', are classics of the shoegaze genre, and I still find compelling listening. they became a much more conventional band on subsequent albums ('Leave Them All Behind, aside), which did not play to their strengths as strongly. But this album I love. it really is the tension between noise and beauty that I really dig. They manage to walk the fine line gracefully all the way through this record.
Talking Heads
5/5
Talking Heads is a band that changed everything for me after hearing Remain in Light. Apparently, they laid down the basic tracks in two days in Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth's loft. They were certainly a tight unit at the time.
Byrne said in Rolling Stone in 1979 "We're in a funny position. It wouldn't please us to make music that's impossible to listen to, but we don't want to compromise for the sake of popularity." And I think they were successful in straddling that line. That's what I like about this album; it's gritty and stark, weird and challenging, and smart, but also has some good tunes and you can dance to it. Eno and Robert Fripp and a bunch of percussionists bring their contributions, but it is unmistakenly a Talking Heads record.
This is not my favourite Talking Heads album, but it's close. I bought my copy from a bargain bin at Kmart in Ashfield in about 1985 or 1986, and I played it a _lot_ as a teenager because it was one of only 20 or so albums I owned. Some people talk about it as a transitional record leading to their masterpiece, Remain in Light (which is my favourite). But it is a bloody great record in its own right, and it is great to hear a band with a really fresh outlook and distinctive viewpoint playing so confidently. And you can dance to it! It's not quite as perfect as Remain in Light, so 4.5 stars, rounding up because I really love it.
Duke Ellington
4/5
Duke Ellington with something to prove, and making a big splash at the first Newport Jazz Festival. Not _exactly_ all live, but this is a majorly important historical artifact. The arrangements and compositions are top notch (especially if you listen the full recordings, which include a sort of Ellington 'greatest hits').
But the thing that is truly great is that the players are really playing in the moment, as best exemplified by Paul Gonsalves playing _that_ solo. And the crowd goes off!
The Monkees
2/5
The Monkees finally were finally allowed to write and perform on their own records. And it is not a disaster. Pleasant folk/country inspired pop rock, with some hints of psychedelia. But I can't really remember a single song on it, except Zilch (an experimental thing that I quite like)
Peter Gabriel
5/5
This is a favorite album of mine. I never liked, either the overly-prog Peter Gabriel era or the cheesy pop monster Phil Collins era. I don't mind Gabriel's later pop albums, but they are not nearly as interesting as this. This is a strange album for a man who clearly didn't mind popular appeal.
I really like the claustrophobic and weird production choices (no cymbals!) with interesting and tight players (Collins on drums, Fripp, Tony Levin, Kate Bush!) which all complement the paranoid and anxious songs. If anything, it feels like close relation to Bowie's Scary Monsters album, which came out around the same time. It's a mood that appeals to me. But I understand that it isn't to everyone's taste, but I really dig it.
Laibach
3/5
I spent the 90s playing in a (pretty rubbish) industrial band, so I am very familiar with Laibach. It's one of the ur-texts of industrial. It's pompous and pretentious and bombastic and dramatic. Their cover of Sympathy for the Devil (released at around the same time as this album, but sadly not included on it) is the reason that it seems like every industrial band ever does a cover of that song. My band certainly did.
Laibach are hardly the first band to notice the fascist overtones of rock and roll. Bowie and Pink Floyd both riffed on that theme prior to this. But Laibach take it to an extreme, and it doesn't take much to re-frame Queen's stadium anthem 'One Vision' into something much more threatening.
I mostly found their covers more compelling than their originals (on this album certainly, their Sympathy single, or their whole album cover of the Beatles' Let It Be LP), although I'm sure I have plagiarized 'Leben: Tod' on more than one occasion. It's a big stomping sound they make, and you can certainly see that bands like Rammstein have taken the baton and run with it.
Are Laibach more of an art project and/or political statement than band? If so, I'm not quite sure what that statement is. And are their records better in concept than in practice? I always found it hard to tell whether Laibach are being funny or ironic, because they are so straight faced in their presentation, and they have kept it up for over 30 years at this point. And that makes me uncomfortable, because if they aren't being satirical, well, you, fascism=bad.
So, for me, this was an influential album, although it makes me uneasy to listen to. And non-essential.
Bonnie Raitt
2/5
This is too smooth and polished for my taste.
Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic wrote: "[Raitt] never rocks too hard, but there is grit to her singing and playing, even when the surfaces are clean and inviting." That's just damning with faint praise. I need it to rock harder, I need more grit, and I need the surfaces a lot more grimy.
I like her voice (especially when in torch mode, such as "Too Soon To Tell"), but the little bit of huskiness she occasionally deploys (as in "The Road's My Middle Name") seems like a box ticking exercise in generic blues.
Her guitar playing is pretty good, especially when she plays slide, but this feels like watered down blues for a mainstream audience (read as: white people). This is music for blues lawyers.
I'm sure that Bonnie Raitt is more than capable of tearing it up, but 17 years and ten albums into her career (and with a record company botch job for her previous record), she clearly needed a commercial success. From that point of view, she hit it out of the park. But it's just too slick and safe for much love from me.
Blur
3/5
I never really understood the cult of Blur. Some great singles, but over-rated albums. It's a British thing, isn't it? Maybe you had to be doing coke in Camden in the 90s with the Britpop crew to really _get_ it. And I don't know why they have THREE albums on the 1001 list.
I found the Parklife album far too Anglo-centric for this Australian listener. I just didn't get it. But the increase influence of Amercian indie rock on this next record and more immediate and aggressive production style makes it more palatable in my opinion.
That said, there's not too many songs to write home about, except for Song 2, which is an absolute banger and far and away the best track they ever released. I happened to be in U.K. around the time it was released, and it was everywhere. I could immediately sense that this was a track for the ages, and bought the 7" from a record store in North London somewhere. I still keep it in my DJ crate; crowds go bananas when you play it, even to this day. I wonder if this album would be more listenable if they pared all the songs down to a fat-free 2 minutes like this track? Maybe much better than the versions here, which are typically over 4 minutes. And when they geta bit 'experimental' towards the back half of the album, I just want to jam a fork in my ear. It's aimless and not very enlightening.
This is a 2.5 star album for me, and it is growing on me a bit after a few listens. it's my favourite Blur album of the three I have listened to for this project, although that the constant over praise from the British music press still annoys me. Rounded up for Song 2.
Rod Stewart
3/5
Quite enjoyed the rough and ready recording, and Rod's vocals at the height of his powers. The band (largely the Faces) are that great mixture of tight and loose, and really digging in. I like the rockier tracks particularly, with the closing 'You're My Girl (I Don't Want To Discuss It)' a favourite, despite the hackneyed and somewhat sexist lyrics.
Pavement
2/5
I really wanted to like this. I always _wanted_ to like Pavement. But I just don't hear the tunes. I like Cut Your Hair and Range Life, but everything else leaves me kinda 'meh'. I know many fans and critics really dug them, like they were the second coming of whatever, but I never heard it.
Pavement sound like a 1000 shitty bands (and I mean that in a good way - I like a shitty band) that played at the Sandringham Hotel in the late 80s/early 90s. I just didn't get excited by them. Maybe you needed to see them live?
I am grateful for the prompt to listen to this album all the way through (and I listened to it twice), but I cannot for the life of me remember much of what I heard.
Culture Club
2/5
I would have been 12 or 13 when this album came out, and Culture Club were the biggest thing on the pop charts. And their cultural presence was even greater; I distinctly remember the 60 Minutes (Australia) interview with Boy George, which was BIG NEWS at the time. Everyone was talking about it.; what was he on about? Why did he dress like that? Was he (gasp!) gay? Watching it again now (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfo25Mry-ak), George is charismatic and funny, but delicately treading around issues that were highly controversial at the time, and hopefully less shocking now.
Even though he pointedly and repeatedly dodged the question of his sexuality, Boy George was clearly queer coded, and he is important for being one of the first unambiguously queer presenting pop stars. I sure Boy George's very existence (not to mention his successes) meant the world to a whole generation of queer youth. And good on him for that.
But, a musical level, it didn't do much for me then (when I was pretty firmly in the age demographic for mainstream pop music), and still does not much for me now. George's voice is a pleasant enough pop voice, but the songs and production are just... you know... OK.
The 13th Floor Elevators
3/5
Oh, yay, another cult 60s psychedelic act. Can't get too much of that stuff. </sarcasm>
I feel like the ongoing appeal of the 13th Floor Elevators has more to do with the cult of the Tragic Tale of Roky Erikson than the music itself.
It's pretty fair representation of 60s psych garage rock, but really, they only have one song that they play over and over. and that horrible 'electric jug' sound becomes intensely irritating over the course of the album.
2.5 stars, rounding up for no real reason.
Lloyd Cole And The Commotions
2/5
There's nothing wrong with this album per se, but I just don't really dig it. I remember Perfect Skin getting played on the radio when it was released, and I thought it was OK then, and it's still OK. The production is pretty good for an 80s indie-style release. His voice is nothing to write home about, and I find it a bit mannered and thin. He has a lot of trouble with the high notes.
His song writing is intelligent (and pretentious), melodic (but not super memorable), and tuneful (even if his voice is weak). He fits within the tradition of your Dylan and (more obviously) Leonard Cohen. I keep thinking "he's like a less compelling version of Nick Cave/Greg Dulli/Jarvis Cocker/insert name here", except for the fact that this album pre-dates most of those artists (at least, when they were working in this vein). Most of them don't really start this type of songwriting until the late 80s or 90s. The contemporary of Lloyd Cole that immediately springs to my mind is David McComb of The Triffids, whose songwriting is much more musically and lyrically compelling (IMHO).
I just checked my record collection, and I own a copy of this record. I don't recall _ever_ have played it. I was having a beer with some mates last week, and a few of them mentioned that they were going to see Lloyd Cole when he tours Australia soon, so he clearly means a lot to some of my contemporaries. But I have no desire to sit through a show by Mr Cole. Again, there's nothing _wrong_ with it, but there is just some spark missing.
2.5 stars, rounding down
Leonard Cohen
4/5
Some all-time great songs on this (First We Take Manhattan, Everybody Knows, I'm Your Man, Tower of Song). But, oof, that 80s production. The synths, the saxophone solos, the stacked backing vocals. His singing is not bad, probably amongst the best he has ever sounded. But is it a coincidence that I love many of these songs in cover versions? The production really distracts me. Five stars for the songs, one off for the sound.
{Footnote: I love the cover photo. Leonard's looking pretty sharp in his double-breasted suit and shades, but holding a half-eaten banana. Hilarious!}
Ms. Dynamite
4/5
I was surprised at how much I liked this. I was preparing for a reasonably generic early 2000s RnB and/or hip hop album (and there are, admittedly, a few tracks like that on the back half of the album). But it was more meldoic and catchy than I was expecting.
A review I read described Ms Dynamite as a cross between Lauryn Hill and Nelly Furtado, and well hey, I'm down with that. I liked her voice (which is indeed reminiscent of Lauryn Hill and Nelly Furtado), with a pleasant reggae-tinged inflection, from her UK background, I'm assuming.
There were a bunch of songs on the front half of the album that I found compelling and memorable (Dy-Na-Mi-Tee, Put Him Out, It Takes More, Sick'n'tired, Afraid to Fly). The production, mostly by Salaam Remi, is funky and warm, with great deployment of samples and acoustic instruments. It made sense when I read that he had worked on The Score by the Fugees and Amy Winehouse's Back in Black.
This was a really pleasant surprise, and album I would totally listen to again. I reckon if this was trimmed to a punchy 45 minutes, it would be 4 stars, but there is a little bit of filler on the back end of the record. So, 3.5 stars, rounding up.
Bill Evans Trio
3/5
Pleasant jazz trio. These days, this sound has been sooooo overplayed, it is just background music now. Is it Bill Evans' fault that the format he perfected here became the template for a thousand mediocre jazz trios, playing ever fading carbon copies of this same style for the next 60 years?
This album has to be considered best in class for its type. Clearly, warmly and intimately recorded, with quiet audience atmospherics, the interplay between three players at the peak of their powers is tight and relatively focused.
The tragic death of bass player Scott LaFaro in a car accident less than two weeks after this recording adds a melancholy note to this album. I respect Evans' decision to make this album a tribute to LaFaro, by giving him a featuring credit and including two of LaFaro's compositions and choosing tracks with significant bass solos. A touching tribute.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
4/5
Creedence released a string of really great singles, but their albums can be a bit choppy, and you can see that this is no Sgt Peper's concept album, thought out blah blah blah. It's a case of "it's been six months, better get another album out", so compile the last handful of singles and their b-sides (which are excellent), a few covers, and some extended jams. it's the same formula as Bayou Country, but the execution is all around improved.
The singles are outstanding; Travelin' Band, Lookin' Out My Back Door, Run Through the Jungle, Up Around the Bend, Who'll Stop The Rain. The covers are pretty good, and even the extended jams (Ramble Tamble and Heard It Through the Grapevine) reflect how well-honed this band was from a few years of heavy touring. They have that great mix of a loose, funky feel, while being locked in as a tight unit, knowing what each other are doing. I was chatting to my mate Dave about this album yesterday, and he was positing what if Creedence had been a better band (like the E Street Band or Tom Petty's Heartbreakers). I don't think it would make a difference, because it is their chemistry, developed through years on the road, that really makes this work, not the technical skills.
It's a great swamp rock sound (even though they hadn't been near a bayou in their lives), it's brief (although still manages to have filler on it), and the singles are cracking!
I have two concerns, however:
1- Creedence's musical appropriation makes me uncomfortable. I mean, this is a band that had never been to the south, and they built this swamp boogie sound based on a tradition that they were not part of. This album also makes it clear how much they were indebted to black musicians (all the covers except Oooby Dooby are from black artists, plus the way that Travelin' Band blatantly rips of Little Richard). How come this bunch of Californian white boys got to sell a bazillion records, based on a sound that they emulated really well? I'm still thinking about that.
2- The cover is just rubbish. It's iconically rubbish.
But, it's their best album, and a cracking listen. Sounds great, wastes little time (despite the two long tracks), you can hum the tunes and you can dance to it, a couple of absolute bangers. Four stars.
Eagles
1/5
I hate the Eagles and everything they stand for. To quote Elizabeth Nelson's excellent article 'The Case Against The Eagles' : "It is tempting to connect the [Eagles'] dual animating impulses of aggrievement and ambition to a boomer generation that would, in 1994, usher in a new era of hard-right American politics." She quotes Rob Sheffield, who calls them "the official band of toxic boomer masculinity." Thus, their loathsome nature extends far beyond the banality of evil that are their records, and becomes a malevolent cultural force creeping into our daily lives. I don't trust anyone who tells me that they love the Eagles. It's not that I don't like their musical taste -- that's fine, like whatever you like -- but I don't trust their politics. The Eagle's career is the chart of how the Flower Generation ultimate morphed into MAGA.
Their music is ubiquitous -- I know nearly all the songs on this album just from ambient music in supermarkets -- and inescapable. But ubiquity (or even 'quality') is not the same as virtue or worth. Musically, the Eagles are a pox on rock and roll, and a clear indicator of why we needed punk rock. I despise their technical proficiency, their smooth harmonies, their polished songwriting and slick production. I don't necessarily hate any of these particular facets of their music (they are all forgivable, in the right context), but combined in a monster of ambition, entitlement, sexism and hubris like this is just horrible, and the antithesis of good rock and roll.
That said, the documentary 'The Story of The Eagles' is fascinating, just as a tale of how far some people are willing to go for the sake of ambition. Glenn Frey and Don Henley are two of the greatest villains of rock history, which makes for good viewing. But I did not mourn Glen Frey's death, and neither will I mourn when Don Henley finally shuffles off this mortal coil.
So, how to rate this album? It's sold, like 30 million copies, and so I admit it is a classic album, and you should listen to it at least once. But, if you have ever been within earshot of recorded music, you almost certainly already have. It has some really big songs on it, well sung and played, and spit shined to a glossy radio sheen. Hotel California is a metaphor of itself; it is a song that we all checked in to and can never leave. Again, I really cannot stand the Eagles or anything they stand for. 1.5 stars, rounding down.
My recommendation is don't listen to the album. Go read Elizabeth Nelson's article instead. You can find it here: (https://www.theringer.com/music/2021/5/5/22420083/the-eagles-glen-frey-don-henley-50-years)
Beck
3/5
I saw Beck at the Metro in Sydney in 1994. A friend had seen the tour a few days earlier in Canberra and said I _had_ to go, to see the support act; the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. So I went, and JSBX were incredible, as advertised. But I was surprised by Beck. I had been expecting a guy out of his depth, with a guitar and backing tapes to half-arse his recent hit single and some stuff that sounded like that. But he trotted out on stage with a tight and surprisingly muscular band, and they bashed out an energetic and raucous set of rock and roll. I was sold. I bought a few of his records over the years.
But what the hell is this? Jesus, was Beck sprinkling crushed up mogadon tablets on his cornflakes ? It's very pretty, nice melodies, soaring string arrangements and all, but the melancholy is all-pervading and totally enervating.
He is on record as having always wanted to make a "depressing album" like Joni Mitchell or Leonard Cohen (or Dylan or Nick Drake etc etc. BTW, Round The Bend is more than indebted to Nick Drake's River Man. Dude should pay royalties on that). I disagree with the critical shorthand that "sad divorce album = masterpiece". This is passable in the genre, but no masterpiece. The energy, humour, and creative freshness that I enjoy in Beck at his best is all missing from this album. He usually has a million ideas, quickly thrown on tape, which didn't always stick, but were at least funny and fresh and exciting. Good tunes, well recorded and played, but not Beck playing to his strengths.
Fairport Convention
4/5
This is the type of record that I came to this project for. I don't care for folk (or even folk rock) generally. I was aware of the reputation of this album, but had never listened to it through. Who Knows Where the Time Goes is the only track I was aware of previously. I thought it would be a case of an album I would appreciate but not love.
And they were all so young when they recorded this, the second of three albums they released that year. They were an amazingly productive band, especially given the tragic car accident just prior to the release of this album that killed one member and another friend.
Sandy Denny is at the height of her vocal powers and Richard Thompson's guitar playing is terrific, but always in service to the song. Their original songs (especially Who Knows...) are strong, but it also helps to have access to a bunch of previously unreleased Dylan songs.
I really came around to loving this record. I'm putting it on my want-list. But I need a copy with Sandy Denny's parents on the cover, not the horrible US dancing elephants version.
The Hives
3/5
Dimery! You've broken your own rule about "no compilations"! This is listed _everywhere_ as a compilation of tracks from The Hives previous albums and a few EP tracks. Tut tut! Such imprecision! Why can we have this and not (say) a Little Richard or James Brown compilation? That would be much more appropriate for those two artists than the arbitrary and non-representative albums you picked for this list.
But, back to The Hives. They are enormous fun. It's loud and energetic rock and roll, which most reminds me of The Stooges with all the colour saturation turned up and the rough edges filed off. This record doesn't let up for its completely appropriate 28 minute run time. Any longer and I would get bored, and boredom is a sin in the world of The Hives.
I don't feel the need to buy and repeatedly listen to this record, but if they were playing a mid-sized venue in my town, I would totally go see them live. Or maybe even a franchised Hives band (https://pitchfork.com/news/the-hives-issue-call-for-cover-bands-saying-theyre-franchising-live-shows/)
3/5
I worked at Scratches Records, a grungy little record store in Newtown, Sydney, from about 1990-93. We used to stock the NME, although issues were about 3 months old by the time they reached us, and I used to read it obsessively. Britpop had started by the time the store shut its doors for good in 1993, but Oasis didn't go really huge until this album in 1995. I'd stopped my close following of British musical trends, but I was aware of this record, and I didn't really like it. I mean, I like rock and roll, and I like Beatlesque pop, and I like a good tune and a bit of attitude. So, why didn't I dig Oasis?
At the time, I really felt like they were the emperor's new music. They seemed just like a bunch of really average guys doing nothing special, but with a massive confidence that what they were doing was world-shaking, and they didn't have to do anything to prove it. I actively hated they way they appeared in videos and live performance footage. They just stood there, stone-faced, absent-minded strumming, while that prat at the front stood there motionless and sang in his fairly flat affect. (What was it with Britpop and that flat affect? They all did it!) I felt like they were contemptuous of their audience and they just could not be bothered putting on a performance. I have since read Noel Gallagher talking about how he hated making videos, and I think he would agree that all of their videos are awful.
And the songs really weren't that great. I mean, the tunes were often catchy, but the lyrics are really more than nonsense and doggerel (although far less pretentious than their Southern English contemporaries, thank god). The obvious lifts from songs of the past are numerous and not particularly artful.
And I hated Liam's singing. He sings the notes, but I have the constant sense that he doesn't actually understand a single word of what he is singing. here's an exercise for the reader; compare a performance of Liam singing Wonderwall with one of Noel singing it. The words are not deep and don't make a lot of sense, but Noel can actually imbue some sense of emotion. But Liam is just a blank cipher.
All the hype didn't help. The British music press didn't initially rate the album much, but did an unsubtle about face when it was clear that the record was selling boatloads and they could sell a bunch of papers if they jumped on the bandwagon.
So, how to account for the massive success of this kind of mediocre record by a mediocre band? Well, it's got to be the songs. They are derivative and artless, but I think that is their appeal. They are comfortingly familiar, with cracking tunes that sound great when you sing along in a stadium. And you can project whatever meaning you want onto them. The lyrics and Liam's blank demeanor are a Rorschach test where the listener can project whatever is meaningful to them. But I don't for a moment believe that there is any real or intentional depth or art to what they are doing.
I've never owned a copy of this record, but I pretty much know every song. As I said with the Eagles, ubiquity is not the same thing as virtue or quality. But these songs are catchy as hell, and they must mean a lot to lots of people.
Were Oasis the next Beatles? Absolutely not. They made a couple of good rock albums, but they pissed away the chance to be really great on cocaine, booze, and ego. I certainly don't buy that they were ever a decent live band.
If he reads this review, I am sure that Noel would offer to fight me. Liam would probably just thump me without warning.
Over-rated. Three stars.
Bob Dylan
5/5
I don't listen to this album very often, but every song is a classic. Is it because they are that good, or because Dylan is the patient zero of smart rock and roll? This album in particular, where he has moved past folk and truly into rock and roll (this is his first all-rock record), really is a template for soooo much that comes afterwards. It is no surprise that Jimi Hendrix was obsessed with this record, and plays Like a Rolling Stone at Monterey to (re-)introduce himself to America.
I love the immediacy of the playing, that really becomes a blueprint for so much rock to come. Recorded quickly, it genuinely rocks, and the lyrics are still fresh all these years later. Fave tracks: Tombstone Blues, Highway 61 Revisited.
David Bowie
4/5
This is special to me because of when and how it was released, two days before his death, like a gift for us all. Maybe not his most immediately memorable tunes, but the jazz guys playing rock, lush production and the lyrics imbued with depth and sense of mortality make this very special. A last loving note to us, his fans.
Echo And The Bunnymen
3/5
I shall now quote liberally from my previous review of 'Ocean Rain":
"Ooff, are Echo and the Bunnymen possibly the most overrated band of all time? Certainly, if you listen to how they describe themselves ('the greatest album of all time!"), they could never possibly live up to the hype.
Obviously, 1001 albums love them, as there are three (THREE!) of their albums on this list, of which this is probably the best.
... The lyrics are not nearly as clever as Ian McCullough thinks they are, which makes them the Doors on the 1980s. And they have dated about as well (ie, they have a shrinking fanbase that agree that they are all that, but the rest of the world shrugs)."
The whole record has this weird dichotomy of morose anguish and loneliness, against overwhelming self-confidence, ambition and hubris. Like goths on coke or something. The record is really well recorded, and the rhythm section in particularly is tight and muscular. But there is nothing on this record as good as 'The Cutter' or 'Killing Moon'. It's all OK, but not as good as they think they are.
Queens of the Stone Age
4/5
I am a huge Kyuss fan, and really liked the more rockin' QOTSA albums. I am surprised that this is the one QOTSA album on the list, and especially given that this album has been so hard to find, and made (frankly) little popular impression. But it is a bit of a transitional piece, with some recognizable Kyuss qualities (yay!) and a clear indication of where QOTSA was heading. Josh Homme's guitar and vocals are distinctive, and his penchant for a nice vocal melody make his work in the field of heavy rock stand out. I do get a bit tired with the way a lot of contemporary metal is either cookie monster screaming or operatic wailing (or both!). Homme writes and sings actual songs, you know?
I am really surprised that they chose this record over 'Rated R' or 'Songs for the Deaf' (which are superior examples of this oeuvre, and also sold a gazillion copies, at a time when heavy rock was not entirely fashionable).
I saw QOTSA at the Metro Theatre in 2001, touring on the back of 'Rated R', and they were awesome. They played a few songs from this record. I really liked how much Josh Homme was prepared to hold back on his playing in service to the song. For all of his reputation as a gun player, my recollection is he played a lot of the set like Johnny Ramone. Lots of fast downstroke power chords, and not many solos, because that was what required to rock the most. He opened up a bit at the end of the night, and tore it up (especially with the encore, which was my favourite Kyuss song, Supa Scoopa and Mighty Scoop)
4/5 would recommend, would listen again, would buy.
Pink Floyd
4/5
Bombastic, big, angst-ridden and angry. Overblown and mostly humourless. Pretentious (although not nearly as clever as it pretends to be). Yes, all of that, but a great rock opera for teenagers.
I think this is an intelligent expression of the perils of rock stardom, particularly the alienation from audience, over-indulgence in personal pain, and the seductive megalomania of stardom. It makes me wonder why Roger Waters ever got into the rock and roll game; he seems to hate everything about it.
It's not the first (or last) record to document rock and roll's flirtation with fascism (or fascist imagery, at least), but it manages to skirt on the right side of the issue by remaining self-critical.
I loved this when I was 16, and played the record a lot, and saw the film a few times at midnight screenings at the Valhalla cinema on Glebe Point Rd. These days I find it a little ham-fisted (if not excellently executed). Props to David Gilmour for one of the greatest guitar solos of all time on Comfortably Numb.
This really is one of the most important texts of rock and roll, being both a great rock record (with some cracking tunes) and reflecting back on the nature of rock and roll, and the pitfalls of successfully selling your soul to success.
Sonic Youth
5/5
It was big news, and the cause of much debate, when Husker Du 'sold out' by signing to Warners. They were the first established alternative act to sign to a major label, and many people thought that this was a betrayal of the scene, and that no good would come of it. And, indeed, you could mark that as the beginning of the end of the alternative music scene as we knew it. That was the first step towards Nevermind, the alternative album that sold 20 million copies, and ruined everything. 'Alternative' became a genre label, increasingly commodified, watered down, and marketed by uncaring major labels and radio formats, until it became meaningless. Personally, I was 16 when Candy Apple Grey came out, and I thought it had cool songs on it, and it sounded great (especially compared to the taped copy of Land Speed Record, that was part of my listening diet).
But the next important event that furthered the trend was Sonic Youth signing to Geffen. If anything, this was even more bizarre than Husker Du signing to a major. Sonic Youth, the hipper than hip New York no-wave band, prone to playing walls of feedback and noise did not seem an obvious choice to drag the alternative music scene into the mainstream.. True, their previous couple of albums has shown an increasing facility to write actual songs under the layers of noise, but this was hardly a band that promised hit singles and lots of MTV play. And yet, it cracked to Billboard Top 100 (just), and got that MTV play, and, despite some sniping, they sold a bunch of records without compromising their vision too much (although they did back off from their original intended album title of 'Blowjob'). And, while the Husker Du albums broke the initial ground, this is really the album that gave alternative bands permission to sign to major labels without feeling like they had to abandon their credibility. And it led directly to Nevermind. Sonic Youth recommended Nirvana to Geffen, and the rest is history.
I loved this record when it came out. I'd been a fan of Daydream Nation, but this was tighter, punchier, and even more song oriented. It sounds great (within its own frame of reference; I'm sure that lots of people go "what is this dreadful noise?"). Kudos to Steve Shelley, who is the sauce that really holds the band together and makes this compelling rock and roll.
But the real star of the album is Kim Gordon. She wrote all of the best (and catchiest) songs on the record, and her vocals are charismatic and compelling (if not always super tuneful). She was a style icon, and not afraid the lean into feminism, which was not a huge part of punk rock, and even less so of mainstream rock. Good on her. I totally recommend her book "Girl in a band". She's clearly angered by a lot of how she was treated by the band (especially ex-husband Thurston Moore) and the industry, and rightly so. But her approach to her artistic life is inspiring.
I saw Sonic Youth in 1993 at the Big Day Out and a side show at Selinas. They only played a couple of songs from this record, which was bit disappointing, but a live Sonic Youth gig is more about the performance than the songs. I never fell into the cult of Sonic Youth live bootlegs, although I used to hang around with some keen SY collectors, and sat through my share of poorly recorded live tapes. I certainly got the feeling that every performance was different. It is loud and dangerous and borderline out-of-control, which is exactly what I like in a rock show.
This is my favourite Sonic Youth album, and the one I play most frequently. I've bought the t-shirt (more than once). I should add that the cover is iconic, and much beloved and parodied. I really love this record. It was crucial in bringing alternative rock to the mainstream, and legitimizing a vision that uncompromising art could still sell. I'm not entirely happy with where that ended up over the following decade, from a cultural and industry point of view, but you can't deny it happened. And the songs are great, and it features Kim Gordon at the height of her powers. Five stars!
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
5/5
Elvis Costello is at his best when he is rockin' out. I can live without the excursions into art song, or string quartets, or Bacharach collaborations or whatever. I like it when he and the band are banging out quick and dirty rock albums. And he never had a band better than the Attractions, appearing on record here for the first time, and at the height of their powers, banging out a quick rock album. Some might suggest that the Attractions were a better band than Elvis deserved. They are just off the road from extensive touring, and they are tight, driving and inventive outfit.
The songs are so smart, so melodic, with such energetic playing. Nick Lower had the good sense to make sure that they captured the energy of band, and the recordings are immediate and attention grabbing. The songs are varied, each with its own identity, whip-smart lyrics, great melodies, inventive and tight playing. Beatle-esque in places, but possibly even more influenced by Aftermath-era Rolling Stones. It's a shame he picked up on some the Stones' dubious attitudes towards women.
I could listen to this album over and over without getting bored. The singles are classics and never fail to get me hyped up. And the album as a whole is all killer, no filler. 4.5 stars, rounding up.
Dead Kennedys
4/5
This is one of my favorite punk albums ever. it's got cracking tunes that barrel along at a breakneck pace, without becoming repetitive. The songs are smart and funny, and Jello Biafra presents them with force and charisma. It is serious, but never self-serious. Following Holiday in Cambodia (an all-time classic) with a cover of Viva Las Vegas is the perfect encapsulation of what is great about this record. There's always room for Jello.
Van Morrison
3/5
Here are my heretical opinions on Astral Weeks. Overall, I find this album nonsensical, vague and meandering with, little to no real focus. Van certainly projects sincerity in his stream of consciousness singing, but the lyrics can be described as "impressionistic" at best, and he seems to be singing the same tune fragments over and over. It works in an ambient kind of way. Beside You is probably the most egregious example of this on the record.
Madame George and The Way Young Lovers Do are the best formed songs on the record, and stand out as a result. I know Van didn't like the string arrangements, but often the string arrangements actually provide some structure to the songs.
I know that many people love this album, and I love the Jeff Buckley version of The Way Young Lovers Do on his Live at Sin-e ep. And Van's improvisational approach to singing was clearly a big influence on young Jeff, so that is a good thing.
Look, the record is pleasantly listenable (if you don't pay too much close attention), but I don't love it. I'm glad that I have given it some good close attention, as it highly rated by many. But it really ain't for me.
The Who
2/5
While I admire Pete Townshend's ambition to extend the rock and roll form into something larger and more intellectually challenging than to 2-3 minute single, the rock opera is a detestable and loathsome thing. This is one the first examples of the form, and one of the best realised, and I recognize the importance and influence of the album, but do I really have to sit through the whole thing? For the purposes of this project, yes, I did listen to it all the way through. So tick that of the list, but please don't make me do it again.
This is no slight on Messrs. Townshend, Moon, Daltrey and Entwistle. The Who were a terrific and exciting rock band, as proved by Live at Leeds. But this stretches my patience.
Isaac Hayes
5/5
Isaac Hayes, hell yeah! Normally, my musical taste runs to fast, loud and out of control, which is the opposite of what Mr Hayes is doing here. But I really dig it. He really wrote the book on what coudl be done by stretching out the soul sound. His arrangements are immaculate, and the backing (by the Bar-Kays) is funky and disciplined. Listening through, there are million tiny moments that I recognize from samples in hip hop and trip hop songs. This certainly has been an influential sound.
I could live without the 8 minutes of talking at the opening of "By the Time I Get To Phoenix", but that is a small criticism on an otherwise immaculate record. 5 stars.
Brian Wilson
3/5
The legend of the original Smile sessions cast a long shadow on the history of pop music. They reportedly destroyed Brian Wilson's mental health, and the tapes (oft bootlegged) became one of the great lost albums of rock and roll, and created this hypothetical question of "how would music be different if Brian Wilson had completed and released Smile?"
And here we have the answer. Darian Sahanaja did a wonderful job of sensitively facilitating Brian and Van Dyke Parks to complete a version of the material. Is it exactly what Smile would have been in 1968? Probably not, but probably close. They have done a really great job of arranging and recording a terrific simulacrum of the Beach Boys studio sound c.1968, and the songs that have been previously released are pretty close in tone to what is presented here. Arguably, this is the best (and certainly most consistent) Beach Boys album released since the original sessions collapsed.
But is it, you know, _that_ good? The best material had already been released on a variety of Beach Boys albums (Heroes and Villains, Good Vibrations, Cabin Essence, Surf's Up), and the material debuting here is not that world changing. I don't rate Parks' lyrics, and Vege-Tables is still my go-to example of how white-boy rock snobs over-rate the 'genius' of Brian Wilson. It's a joke (except that it isn't). So, it's a good sounding album, and interesting to hear how Smile might have sounded in a complete form, and answers once and for all the question of whether Smile would have changed musical history. That's a resounding 'no', nothing would have really changed. But it's great not to have to wonder about that anymore.
In 2012 I was in New York City, and had the opportunity to see the Beach Boys, including Brian Wilson, performing in Central Park for GMA (https://youtu.be/ASfjoEadmow). They only performed about four songs (including soundcheck) and it was at 8am, but it was a chance to see Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys for free, so I dragged the family off to see the show. Between songs, Brian was super cranky, and admonished the (bored) crowd for bouncing around the beach balls that the production had provided. Most of the musical heavy lifting was done by Brian's band, but they were tight and upbeat and could still punch out a compelling rendition of their past glories. It was fascinating to hear them sound-check, and how well they could produce that Beach Boys sound.
White Denim
3/5
A friend recommended White Denim to me a long time ago. Somewhere along the way, I picked up their Fits LP, which was OK, but did not become a regular feature in my listening diet, although I really like the track "Say What You Want", which also turned up on a Mojo magazine cover CD at one point.
The thing I appreciate about White Denim is that they are a bit math-rock, but it doesn't immediately sound like it unless you pay attention. What do I mean by that? I watched a few live videos, and a lot of what they play include complex riffing and changes in time signatures, and all of the other clever-clogs features of math-rock, but, unlike most math-rock bands, they don't subsume the rock-and-roll-ness under the weight of their cleverness.
That said, this album is a bit more laid back, with moments that remind me of Jeff Buckley (Is and Is and Is). I went back and re-listened to Fits, and I prefer the loudness of that album.
This album is non-essential listening. 2.5 stars, rounding up.
LCD Soundsystem
4/5
I was aware of LCD Soundsystem singles. James Murphy is almost exactly the same age as me, and, as an aged-out former music scene guy, I really related to "Losing My Edge". I especially like Drunk Girls (you should IMMEDIATELY go watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xT6cdfP_cM), but never really tried listening to a whole album until now.
Christgau doesn't really like the band, but summarises their viewpoint pretty well when he says "Dance guy or rock guy, optimist or cynic--these are the troubling distinctions irony helps keep at bay", but I think this is just a typical boomer complaint about Gen-Xers. Of this particular album he writes "One song so irresistible it makes you think the other tracks are songs too, which sometimes they are."
Most songs are, admittedly, one (or sometimes two) chord grooves extended out to a dance 12" length. Lots of indie bands (especially from the early 2000s NY scene) claim to be influenced by dance music, but I feel like LCD Soundsystem are one of the very few that really understand what dance music is. This is proper dance music played by a rock and roll band. I once tried to beat mix an LCD 12", assuming that they were recorded to the grid, only to discover that the drumming was wild. Who knew?
The album draws on the same grab bag of influences that makes up my record collection; krautrock, Berlin-era Bowie, Remain in Light, Eno, Gang of Four, acid house, disco, Steve Reich, etc. I also thought some of it sounded like Severed Heads, although I suspect James Murphy is more an 80s industrial music fan, which is where he picks up the sound.
I understand that this isn't for everyone, but it really is kinda tailor-made for me. I have really enjoyed (finally) listening to this all the way through, and it definitely goes on my want list. Is it a true classic? Probably not, but it's got a great beat, and I can dance to it.
TLC
4/5
This is a really terrific album, and I really enjoyed hearing some relatively contemporary pop music by black female artists, rather than yet another 60s garage psych band as is so typical of Dimery's list. And this album actually sold! People liked it (not universally true of the 1001 albums list)!
The production is ahead of its time (although still steeped in New Jack Swing). Singing is great, fantastic songs (especially Creep and Waterfalls). I love the cover of "If I Was Your Girlfriend" - it's a big stretch to cover Prince, especially at the height of his powers.
I love the confidence of the group, although I really don't think we needed the interludes, which dilute the power of the powerful female presence on this record. Other than that, perfect.
Ramones
5/5
I was doing a pilates class a few years back. It's one of things I need to do as an aging man to maintain some sense of mobility. The instructor complimented my Ramones t-shirt.
"Oh yeah", I said, "I saw them at the Hordern Pavilion in 1989"
"Cool", he replied. "I was born in 1994."
Suddenly I felt really old. But that did nothing to diminish my love of the Ramones or my memory of being 18 years old, in the mosh pit of that 6000 capacity show. They came out and tore through about 45 songs in a blistering set before an adulating crowd. It wasn't until I saw the documentary End Of the Century years later that I realised that this was a much bigger venue and enthusiastic crowd than the Ramones typically played to in the States, where they never really got bigger than the club circuit. That documentary also showed how formative the Ramones were on my taste.
This is an all-time classic album with some all-time classic songs on it. It's fast and loud, but the songs are really catchy, funny, but also gritty and serious. This album is both informed by the past (girl group harmonies, Stooges aggression), but also sets the tone for much music to follow. You hear the influences of the Ramones all over music to this day, and their look and iconography is also everywhere.
Charles Shaar-Murray went to New York in 1975 and wrote notes on the nascent punk scene for the NME. He rightly identified the Ramones as the best band on the scene, but bemoaned that they would never put out a record. He was right on the first point, but wrong on the second. They ended up being the longest lived of all the CBGBs bands, and probably the most influential, even if commercial success evaded them.
I love the Ramones, and especially this first album where they perfectly reveal their whole vision. Of all the records I have listened to from the 1001 albums list, this is one of the few that you really must hear. 5 million stars.
SZA
3/5
I enjoyed this. Really smooth and well crafted r'n'b. More interesting than the mainstream, with real (gasp!) personal viewpoints. Enjoyable. Sounds like this was a crushing, angst-filled experience to produce, and who knows if she will ever manage to follow it up, but here's hoping she does. Standout track for me: The Weekend.
Ice Cube
1/5
Early 90s gangsta rap. One of the best examples of the genre, but this type of hip hop left me cold at the time. I don't mind the politics, but the misogyny and violence leave me uncomfortable. Really uncomfortable. There are a surprising number of people who try to excuse the rampant sexism of this record (see the Content and Critical Reception sections of the wikipedia entry on this album), but there is no excusing this appalling misogyny. A lot of the lyrics are really vile (see "I'm Out For One Thang" as an example). The Rolling Stone review got it right: "the relentless profanity grows wearisome, the Bomb Squad beats lose steam, and Cube's attitudes toward women are simply despicable."
I disagree about the Bomb Squad production which is, in my opinion, fantastic. It's frenetic, with an underlying gritty funk. But, despite the production and occasional cameos from Chuck D and Flav, this sure ain't no Public Enemy album.
I really don't want to listen to this again. Half a star for Cube, plus half a star for the production.
G. Love & Special Sauce
3/5
I remember Triple J playing "Blues Music" on regular rotation when it was first released, and I enjoyed it at the time. But I never felt the need to buy a copy, and I haven't given it a second thought in all that time.
A couple of fun tracks here (Baby's Got Sauce, Cold Beverage, Blues Music), but the "white boys playing bluesy backing tracks with some quasi-rapping" was a bit played out in the 90s: Beck, Fun Lovin' Criminals, Urban Dance Squad, Soul Coughing, and probably a bunch of others. G. Love and Special weren't the first or the best or the most interesting or most successful of any of the purveyors of that thing. The funky and badly recorded blues thing has certainly been done a lot (this feels like a slightly more laid back Hound Dog Taylor to me). I don't mind the lo-fi recording; it really helps give this a bit of sorely needed grit.
I feel like the hip hop influence here allows G. love to cover the fact that he is struggling to come up with a good melody. It's just not his thing. And the album is at least 20 minutes too long. If this was 35-40 minutes of the strongest material, I would probably be a bit more positively inclined towards this. I'd happily listen to any of the stand-out tracks on a mixtape or if it came of the radio (especially Cold Beverage, which is the strongest song on the album), but I would much rather listen to a whole album by Beck, Soul Coughing or Urban Dance Squad.
2.5 stars, rounding up.
Kid Rock
1/5
Some time in the 90s, sthe major record companies realized that white boys were buying rap albums. They especially seemed to like sexist and violent gangsta rap. "Hmm,' they thought "I wonder if we could convince those white boys to buy even more albums if we shoe-horned in even more things that they like: heavy metal, southern rock, country music, and some racism. We'll keep the sexism and violence and drug use and gangsta posturing, but better remove any racial politics. That might make them feel uncomfortable" And hence we have Kid Rock! 14 million sales of this rancid diatribe, precision engineered to pander to the worst instincts of white adolescent males.
I listened to this all the way through, and now I feel like I need a shower. It successfully ticks all the boxes it meant to, and is schmickly produced for what it is, but the content is just execrable. It did not surprise me when Kid Rock became a vocal Trump supporter. This is garbage.
The B-52's
4/5
Sometimes, working through this particular list of 1001 albums, I tire of the bias towards white-boy, rock critic approved material. As a result, the list skews towards straight, white males and their concerns. At extremes, this leans towards homophobia and misogyny. And often it is very self-serious, and not a lot of fun.
And so, thank goodness for the B-52s. They bring a whole boatload of campy fun to their party rock. My first introduction to the B-52s was a child, seeing the video clip on Simon Townsend's Wonder World. They would often play the clip (or maybe not that often; IO just remember it so vividly). I would have been about 10 years old, and it hooked right into my brain.
Emma Madden, in her Pitchfork essay 'The Secret Gay History of Indie Rock' (https://pitchfork.com/features/article/the-secret-gay-history-of-indie-rock/) insightfully states:
'If there were ever a band that took suburbia—and, in turn, indie rock—and queered it, it was the B-52’s. With the influence of the Velvet Underground and Yoko Ono filtered through a kitschy sound, the group became the substratum of indie rock in the ’80s; their queerness deep-seated rather than explicated. “It was unspoken but it was out there,” says Cindy Wilson, the B-52’s’ sole heterosexual member. “We were saying it without saying it.”'
And the queer culture is a key part of what makes this great: the dancing, the clothes, the weird jokes, the embrace of wild fun, the love of kitschy pop culture. Indie rock has a tendency towards being po-faced and overly serious, and the B-52s are here to blow all that pretention away. And in a very inclusive way; everyone is welcome at their party.
Their own songs have their own logic. It is that wonderful blend of stupid and smart. Ricky Wilson himself though that the riff to Rock Lobster was the stupidest thing he'd ever heard. But it is so much fun, and underpins one of the best songs ever for getting party really wild. Their songs are seemingly random, simplistic and nonsensical, but as you listen through the album, they have a raw and consistent framework. They are a good example of what Simon Reynolds in 'Rip It and Start Again'; they are informed by music of the past, but they have created their own rule book. I think that's why the cover of Downtown sounds so out of place. It just doesn't fit the unique world of the B-52s.
So, I love this record. It is a tons of fun, and you can dance to it all the way through. It still sounds fresh all these years later.
Led Zeppelin
5/5
Greg Kot wrote in Rolling Stone (2001) that "The cover of Led Zeppelin … shows the Hindenburg airship, in all its phallic glory, going down in flames. The image did a pretty good job of encapsulating the music inside: sex, catastrophe and things blowing up." And, indeed, this album delivers exactly what it says on the tin.
It's a remarkable record in many ways: a bunch of (very) confident men in the early 20s blasting their way through a well-honed set. This was recorded quickly (Page claims in 36 hours of studio time) and brashly, live in the room with some over-dubbing, and all the mistakes left in. Page captured a great sound in the room, and Glyn Johns mixed it to show the power and immediacy of their performances.
I am reminded of Jon Brion's distinction between songs and performance pieces (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_RsLDMeRj4 for an excerpt, or Sound Opinions episode #32, 2006, for the full interview). He cites Led Zeppelin as the best example of performances pieces: it's all about that specific performance by those specific musicians. And they are amazing musicians playing fantastic performances, but the songs here are either pretty basic (Communication breakdown, or Good Times, bad Times) or are covers (You Shook Me, Babe I'm Gonna Leave You or I Can't Quit You Baby. Page didn't always acknowledge when they were playing covers, which is pretty shady) or essentially plagiarized songs or arrangements (Dazed and Confused, or multiple lifts from Jeff Beck). So, compositionally, not an amazing album, but jeez they could play. And here, they are just laying it all out.
When I was a young man living in share houses, we played a lot of "ancestor metal", including this album a lot. Personally, Led Zep II was my favourite, but this is still a pretty great record, and I find it hard to critique.
Led Zep are a cornerstone band for me. I know the criticisms (bombastic, risible lyrics, sexist, plagiarized), but I really enjoy listening to them. Five stars for awesomeness and classic status.
Nas
3/5
I am aware that this held up as one of the most perfect hip hop albums of all time; five microphone rating in the Source, etc. I can appreciate it; his flow is exceptional, and is the link between Rakim and the big names of the 90s (Biggie and Jay-Z in particular).
The production is schmick, although, in an article titled, "How Nas' "Illmatic" Ruined Hip-Hop," Insanul Ahmed of Complex argues that one "unintended consequence" of Illmatic was the overall decline in the cohesion and quality of rap albums: "Next thing you knew, rap albums started having a different producer for every song. And like a film that has a different director for every scene, albums became unfocused affairs. This also meant that producers weren't tied to artists anymore." I don't blame De La Soul for introducing the blight of skits into hip hop, and similarly, can't really blame Nas for the trend of multi-producer albums that followed Illmatic. I also really appreciate that it is a reasonable length for an album. I wish people would have learnt that lesson. The 70-80 minute album that became standard int he 90s just turned into bloated, over-long mess, and I appreciate that this is a tight 40, with not much fat on it.
Nas also manages to produce a hardcore hip hop album that reflects the vérité of his childhood in the Queensbridge projects without devolving into the scourge of violence and misogyny that gangsta rap seems to revel in. There is a greater poetry and emotional truth, dare I even say vulnerability, to his lyrics, which sets him miles apart from his gangsta contemporaries. That is sweet blessed relief.
I can appreciate and admire this record, but it doesn't speak to me, so it hard for me to love. I am, admittedly, not really the intended audience for this. But I would listen to this any day in preference to an album by NWA, Ice Cube, et al.
Solange
3/5
I like her voice, especially her ability to layer beautiful harmonies. And the backing production is lush and spacious. But I agree with Andy Gill in The Independent, who credited Knowles for acknowledging "a world beyond romantic cliche", but concluded "there's little punch or pop charm to the album, which boasts a surfeit of luscious textures and feisty attitudes, but a shortfall of killer melodies."
I want tunes that grab me a bit more. There are few songs that really leap out; Cranes in the Sky and FUBU come closest. I could well live without the interludes; I understand that they accentuate her political stance, especilly with regards to race, but it is 10 minutes of filler on an album that ambles along at best. The interludes just drag.
Taylor Swift
4/5
I am reminded of the serious critical discussion in the late 80s about whether Madonna was an important artist. Consensus rightly came done on the side of "yes, Madonna a is an important artist". And, late last decade, the same kind of debate arose about Taylor Swift. She joked about not having cred in We are Never Getting Back Together, blowing off an ex-boyfriend who finds solace in "some indie record that's much cooler than mine". Pitchfork, that bastion of white-boy indie music critic cred, reviewed Ryan Adma's cover of the 1989 album before they ever reviewed one of Taylor's actual albums.
I think we are at the stag enow when I think everyone can agree that Taylor Swift is, in fact, an important musical artist. Not just for her juggernaut album sales and massive tours, her enormous and devoted fanbase, her growing stash of Grammys and other awards, her massive chart success but also for her increasingly diverse and impressive catalogue. And this album, along with its sister-album predecessor, Folklore, were an important part of that critical re-appraisal. Taking advantage of the break form the album/tour cycle during lockdowns, she dug deep into what she really wanted to do and produced these more gentle folky, cottage-core records. They are something different from the styles she had previous success with, but like Madonna (or Bowie or any number of other important artists) she can explore and change. She still sounds like herself, and plays to her strengths (wordy, narrative songwriting, partly fictional, but with a confessional edge). There was an interesting discussion on the My Favourite Album podcast, where John Oates and the host favorably compare Taylor Swift with Joni Mitchell, particularly the courage to put their real emotions out there in a song (listen to https://www.everand.com/listen/podcast/647477520 from 16:30). An interesting comparison. Are the collaborators (The National,. Bon Iver, Mumford & Sons) chosen to boost the indie cred of the record? Maybe that is a little cynical, but they are mostly sympathetically chosen and add to her vision (with the exception of the singer form The National, whose voice sticks out like dog's bollocks). Certainly, after this record it was acceptable for sniffy white-boy rock critics to admit that they liked Taylor Swift.
So, listening to the actual album, she can really craft a tune, and her lyrics have a great narrative feel and the emptions feel authentic (except No Body, no Crime, which I find a little clunky). The production is lush, spacious and unobtrusive. Personally, I'd like to hear a bit more grit in it, and truth be told, I prefer her pop albums, which are terrific fun. Is this a classic album for the ages? Well, it is certainly a mark of a maturing artist with things to say and the craft and resources to say it well. But it really is a bit soon to be calling this out as a must-hear classic. I'm sure Taylor has many more albums in her, and I am fascinated to hear where she decides to go.
3.5 stars, rounding up.
Can
4/5
I love the krautrock, and krautrock doesn't get much better than this. I still prefer Tago Mago (which I find a little more focused), but this album is full of goodness.
Cypress Hill
3/5
I really enjoyed this. Cypress Hill were weirdly influential for their stoner vibes and loose-to-the-point-of-falling-apart production. I really enjoy the sound of the tracks, formed up out of sloppy funk samples, carelessly cut together to create shuffling grooves. I can dig it.
While I generally don't enjoy the violence of gangsta rap, it is hard to take this bunch of affable stoners seriously when they talk about 'killing a man'. And they seem to avoid the misogyny that blights gangsta rap.
So, 3.5 stars, rounding down.
Frank Sinatra
3/5
Lush, smooth, sophisticated, wallpaper.
The Kinks
2/5
Yet another white boy rock critic cult classic... an overlooked gem of 1960s chamber pop, just like soooo many others we have reviewed as part of 1001 albums. I mean, it's pleasant enough (by design).
This marks the Ray Davies’ shift from hit rock songs (in the American mould) to a more personal reflection on Britishness and growing infatuation with music hall. It’s highly influential on baroque chamber pop, and much beloved by critics and music snobs, but the Kinks became a cult act at this point, and I just don’t want to drink the Kool-Aid.
Waterloo Sunset and David Watts are dead-set classic songs, and worth the price of admission. But the rest of the album is just a bit meh. I have no great nostalgia for the Britain of years past, so it's a bit of a non-committal shrug from me.
Someone has a fondness for 60s Kinks, and felt the need to include something, so they put this down. I honestly feel like it was a waste of time listening to this album. 2.5 stars, rounding down. Get a Kinks singles compilation instead.
Crowded House
4/5
That Neil Finn sure can craft a tune. Tim's no slouch either, and this album benefits from their collaborative songwriting and close harmony singing. The band, as always, is warm and organic, with excellent production from Mitchell Froom. The emphasis on real instruments and live playing gives the album a classic and timeless edge, that makes it hard to date. It certainly does not sound strongly of its time. The very reasonable 48 minute run time is also on the short side for the CD era, but ensure there is not much fat on this record.
'Weather With You', 'It's Only Natural' and 'Four Seasons in One Day' are classic songs, but even the non-singles have wonderful melodies, close harmonies and lyrical and musical interest.
All that said, I'm not sure why Dimery included this album on the list as opposed to the previous two albums, which I would argue have a higher quotient of truly great songs. I mean, that first Crowded House album is a masterpiece that I would happily listen to any day of the week. I think it's because this was the album that was big in the UK, and he doesn't like the production on the previous two albums (which doesn't seem _that_ different to me). No arguing with personal taste.
Prince
4/5
I was a teenager in the 80s, and I must confess I didn't initially get Prince. I was aware of the singles from this album when they were released, but I didn’t have the album, and I didn’t really understand what the fuss was. A schoolmate, Bassel, was a fan and constantly tried to convince me of Prince’s genius, but it took a while. Sorry Bassel, I got there eventually. Then, in about 1988, the penny finally dropped and I got it. Over the next couple of years, I obsessively hunted down the whole Prince back catalogue. I played his music constantly, and I still do. I saw him at the Sydney Entertainment Centre in 1992, and he tore it up live.
Prince’s imperial phase of the 1980s is a rich treasure trove of pleasures, and this is the album where he really started sounding like Prince. It is his first album with The Revolution (instead of multi-tracking everything himself in the studio). It was his first top ten album, with his first top ten singles. It’s the beginning of his explicit mix of rock and hard funk, and clearly aimed at a cross-over crowd. The videos from this album were some of the first by black artists to get major play on MTV. The tunes have great pop hooks, but the sound is often leaning towards an experimental electro-funk, and the album versions typically stretch out each song to the length of a dance single (although there were much shorter 7" edits). His use of drum machines is distinctive and revolutionary, and the contributions of the Revolution (especially Wendy and Lisa) in the vocal harmonies and instrumental arrangements broaden his musical palate. Big fan of their work.
The run of songs that kick off the record are amazing; 1999, Little Red Corvette and Delirious make up one of the most perfect sides of an album ever. Some of the material at the back end of the album maybe not quite as stellar, but I still find fun, funky and interesting.
Is this my favourite Prince album? No, not quite. But it is the album where he first really finds his strength and true voice, ironically by leading a band instead of doing everything himself. 4 stars.
Dirty Projectors
2/5
Jeez, it's hard to know what to make of this. I know the name and cover (great cover art, BTW), but knew nothing of the band other than a vague sense of this album being a bit of a critical darling. That alone is enough to set my spidey-senses tingling; critics are often pretentious wankers who like tuneless and needlessly difficult music that is just no fun at all. For example, Paul Thompson, in his rave Pitchfork for this album (Best new release!) says that Dirty Projectors "carry with them ambitions so grandiose it's no wonder they range from wildly inventive to practically unlistenable-- occasionally in the span of the same song.... In spite of its [previous albums, but also applicable to Bitte Orca's] comparatively light tone and the band's tight clutch on melody and rhythm, it was art-damaged and, to some, impenetrable. However you sized it up, you had to admit it was intriguing, even if your interest level waned with every passing yelp. This has heretofore been the story of Dirty Projectors: a band so brainy, so good at the very particular thing they do, they can be hard to like."
Where I disagree with Mr Thompson is that he goes on to claim that this record is, by way of comparison with their previous output, enjoyable and lots of fun. Sorry, I don't hear it. This reminds me of other bands in the early 2000s with a notable Afrobeat influence (Tuneyards, Vampire Weekend), but I find this incredibly obtuse and elliptical, with none of the drive or joie de vivre that makes Afrobeat so compelling. I do not find this album fun. I don't mind fresh and challenging pop music, but this takes that to an extreme. And, if this is their most accessible album, god spare us from their other output.
Taking a deep breath, I suspect that if I played this a bunch more times, I'd find a way into it, and find some things to appreciate. Buit I'm too old and cranky to do the work when there are other records that fill this niche without having to put up with this twaddle. I note that this album is not included int eh latest edition of 1001 albums. I think this is a subtle admission from Dimery that this album was a flavour-of-the-week, without real staying power.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
2/5
This is so of its time. Written in the studio, this is a triumph of digital editing and slick production. Nick Launay brings his excellent taste and great ears to create a slick and (vaguely) dance-able aesthetic, much more sophisticated than the 3-piece punk vibe that the band brings. The album is front-loaded with the singles, although I like some of the rockier tracks that follow, eg Dull Life (which is reminiscent of Siouxsie and the Banshees) or Shame and Fortune. After all is said and done, I don’t really remember any of the tracks once they finish playing. I prefer it when they don’t veer too far from their punk roots. I really like her voice, though. And the cover photo is awesome.
The Byrds
5/5
Once upon a time, I would have hated this. Ugh; country music! But Gram Parsons was my entry point to understanding country, and I fell in love with his solo albums. I had never gone back to listen to this album, even though it is highly critically rated. And now I'm wondering why did I deny myself the pleasure of this absolute classic?
I love the songs, I love the performances. I don't even mind the songs that McGuinn re-recorded the lead vocals on (I actually think their voices are pretty similar). The chutzpah of Parsons to come in as a 22-year-old piano player (that didn't last long) and essentially take over an established and highly successful band, change their musical direction, help write and record a genre-establishing classic, and then light out to do his own thing. Amazing! Quite a talent, if an unreliable human being.
Beach House
3/5
Hmm, sorry, what was that? I seem to have drifted off for a bit...
I like her voice, and I hear elements of Mazzy Star, Eliot Smith and Jeff Buckley in their singing and songwriting, but nothing quite a tuneful or memorable as any of those artists. What it reminds me of most is a mix of Mercury Rev and Eno's Music for Airports.
I was surprised to read in the wikipedia page that, according to Alex Scally "There's very little reverb on the record". Really? Compared to what? I feel like they spent a goodly portion of their recording budget on very expensive digital reverbs.
It's super chill, and pleasant in the background. 2.5 stars, rounding up.
OutKast
4/5
This album is clearly one of the masterpieces of hip hop. But, OMG, there is so much of it! Nearly 2.5 hours! Some (much, most) of this is really excellent, but there was opportunity for editing. One star off for exhaustion.
Weather Report
3/5
I have complicated feelings about jazz fusion.... at its best it is fun and funky (eg. Headhunters) and Wynton Marsalis _hates_ it (which is a plus in my book), but at its worst....
My mate Dave (hi Dave!) used to work at a music school. He said that the first thing a lot of the students want to do, being bright and shiny 19 year old musicians with pretty good chops, is form a jazz fusion band. They form a band and get their first gig. All their friends and family turn up and say nice things. And then they get a second gig, and it's like a ghost town.... because, let's face it, while musicians like to play this kind of thing, nobody really likes to listen to it. It's often too clever clogs for its own good, and boils down to a form of musical masturbation.
At its best, jazz fusion has a good beat that you can dance to, and maybe a tune you can hum. The best jazz fusion albums have that, and I certainly prefer the more groove-oriented records than the overly clever records that rend to disappear up their own backsides (so, more Headhunters or On the Corner than Return to Forever). This record, especially side 1, certainly is great at getting in the pocket and presenting an intriguing melody. Birdland and A Remark You Made are melodically and rhythmically strong, although some tracks, like The Juggler, do tend towards aimless pretention.
And let's talk about Jaco Pastorius He really is a driving force on this record. I listened to this through a couple of times, which ten led me to go to his self-titled solo album, which is also amazing. A singular and revolutionary approach to the bass. Melodic, rhythmic, energetic, driving, inventive. It's amazing stuff. Often copied, rarely equaled.
So, while I have mixed feelings about jazz fusion, this is squarely in the 'best in class' category for me. Birdland is a dead-set classic track. I might even buy a copy (if I found it in a bargain bin). 3.5 stars
Shack
2/5
I am underwhelmed.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
5/5
I was aware of Nick Cave in the 1980s (unlike Dimery, who doesn't seem to rate his 80s output), but the first song that really caught my ear was 'Deanna'. That single was all over Triple J radio in 1988 when it was released, and I loved it. It was raw and raucous and funny and smart and dumb and dangerous, and it had a great beat. A perfect rock and roll record really. I've bought a bunch of Nick Cave albums over the years (but not nearly all, and not many during the late 90s), and seen him live a few times. He's one of the great front men of rock and roll.
I can't remember why I bought this record when it came out, but I did. I had an office job where I could play CDs during work hours, and I absolutely fanged this album. It was on high rotation for a good year, I reckon.
So what is it about this record that hooked me then, and I still love? it has a lot of the qualities of 'Deanna" that I loved back then and still love now, especially in the louder material on Abattoir Blues disc. But the gentler material moves me greatly too. The blend of desire and apocalyptic vision that permeates the whole album is a heady mix, most vivid on Babe, You Turn Me. I quote the line "You leapt into the abyss, but find it only goes up to your knees: from that song all the time. It's an image that sticks in my mind.
The album is scary and smart and often very funny. generally, you could make the argument that this is sophisticated and mature songwriting, although with the occasional moment of scatology or smut, and you could make an argument that the joke songs (Fable of the Brown Ape or Lyre of Orpheus) are a bit unnecessary. I quite like Lyre of Orpheus though; it makes me laugh.
Did the departure of Blixa Bargeld, replaced by Warren Ellis as Nick's main musical foil, breathe new life into the band? Quite possibly. I always had mixed feelings about Blixa; he scared the shit out of me (see my review of Einsturzende Neubauten's Kollaps for the tale of how I met and failed to interview Blixa).
And I love the gospel choir; it adds weight and power to the songs whenever they chime in. Hiding All Away is a really good example, especially in the coda when they are all singing "there is a war coming!"
I think Nick Cave has matured considerably since then, and I think has moved into a place of being one of the great poets of grief. I wouldn't wish the misfortunes that led him there on anyone, but find his writings on the Red Hand Files comforting.
So, where does this sit in the pantheon of this project? Is it an album that everyone needs to hear? I don't know if it's for everyone, but I love it. There is so much richness in there, I always take something away from it when I listen to it. Perhaps not perfect, but I love its imperfections. It makes it more human. I love many of the songs on here, and I don't really care what anyone else thinks. 4.5 stars, rounding up.
Radiohead
3/5
In the film Clueless, Cher teases her step-brother , Josh, for liking the “maudlin music of the university station. ... What is it about college and cry-baby music?” The complaint rock she so neatly skewers is, of course, Radiohead. And, boy, they really do lean into the maudlin complaint rock thing here.
I've listened to this a bunch of times in the past couple of days while preparing this review, and I have found it effective music to play while I work. It is pleasant background music, excerpt for that annoying backwards backing track on Like Spinning Plates, which is like fingernails on a blackboard). The songs are often barely there; just atmospheric noise (Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors, for example). But, except for Knives Out and the Pyramid Song, none of these songs are memorable. You certainly couldn't hum them or play them on acoustic guitar around a campfire. Overall, this is the sound of enervation.
It's hard to imagine myself ever getting wildly enthused or passionate about this album. But, I must confess, I found a good deal on a second-hand vinyl copy recently, and I bought it. So, I guess I hear something worthwhile here? I just wish they'd start playing guitar rock again, you know?
Fishbone
4/5
Fishbone are one of the best live bands I have ever seen (Paddington RSL, 1992). They play a wide ranging and eclectic range of styles (metal, punk, funk, ska, etc) with versatility and high energy. With a solid rock core, augmented with multiple singers, keys and brass, they blew the audience away. This album is where they first started bringing the metal elements into their sound, and really becoming what Fishbone are. They are also starting to turn their minds to more political material, with more lyrical concern particularly on race issues (although there are still plenty of party tunes on here).
That said, the common wisdom on Fishbone is that their records never really captured the incredible live band they were, and this album (which I really enjoy) shows that partially to be true. They are a bit stilted in the studio, and the recording is not all it could be.
Interestingly, I had just been listening to Alice Cooper's Billion Dollar Babies immediately before switching to playing this, and this sounds tinny and thin by way of comparison with Bob Ezrin's 70s production. It could be an artifact of the period in which it was recorded, and/or modest recording budget. Their next record, Reality of my Surroundings, has a much fuller sound, and they are the better for it.
But this belongs on the list as an example of a truly eclectic band that could bring the goods in any style they brought their mind to.
The Go-Betweens
4/5
Not many Australian bands on this list, especially not alternative leaning bands. I really liked this album when it came out, and still play it pretty regularly.
The songwriting and playing is unadorned, pretty and straightforward. It has a real Sydney summertime vibe, which I appreciate (being a resident of Sydney). The singles (Streets of Your Town, Was There Anything I Could Do? Love Goes On) are all wonderful, and Streets of Your Town is a dead-set classic song. But even the non-singles are pretty strong. Nice tunes, well played, pleasant, hummable. It's a pop album, and a really good one. A pop album that doesn't make you feel stupid for listening to it.
Do I have quibbles? yeah, a few. It is a little over-produced (in the style of the time), the singing can be a little ropey, Robert Forster's harmonica playing shouldn't be permitted in polite company, and (most importantly) the contributions of Lindy Morrison and Amanda Brown are cruelly sidelined. I mean, drums machines? Really? And a lot of Amanda's playing is very low in the mix. The way these women were pushed aside by Forster and McClennan still rankles.
I've owned this album for 30 years, and I still spin it regularly. That's the sign of a classic album. One star off for treating Amanda and Lindy so shabbily.
Amy Winehouse
5/5
I am a big fan of 60s soul and girl groups, so this album really clicked with me as soon as I heard it. Bought it, loved it all the way through. It has a real throwback sound to it, that really appeals to me. Her songwriting is totally within the tradition, and yet has a contemporary directness that makes this far more than a pastiche or homage. It is new, fresh art within the genre.
Much has been written about her voice. Her phrasing is exquisite, and there is a lived-in authenticity that you can't fake; you can feel the credibility to every word on this album. It can get pretty dark, and there is a lot of pain there, but the album is also quite fun.
It is tragic that the authenticity of this album shows us a person in quite a lot of pain with some really problematic addiction issues, and we know where that eventually led Amy. I was massively upset by the Amy documentary; that poor girl was doomed. Her family was clearly problematic, and her talent attracted people who were supportive but unable to help, or others who were much more exploitative. And that arsehole husband was the nail in the coffin.
She turned her life into art, but the success just made things worse, and ultimately was a road she could not turn back. I mourn for Amy Winehouse the human being, and also for all the records she could have produced if she had lived.
This one perfect record from Amy Winehouse is a dead-set classic. All killer, no filler. It is a regular in my DJ sets. When friends start collecting vinyl, this is the album I buy for them. Every home should have a copy. Eleventy-million out of five.
ZZ Top
4/5
ZZ Top's first album recorded in a real studio, and the quality shows. They had clearly been gigging like crazy over the previous few years, and so this unfussy recording really shows off what a tight live unit they were. And they had material that really shows off their southern swamp boogies meets Texas blues at its best.
Is it groundbreaking? Not really, but it is best-in-class for this type of thing. Short, sharp and to the point, with no wasted time or filler, this is a catchy and highly listenable boogie album.
La Grange still sparks a pavlovian need in me to play the Getaway pinball.
Michael Jackson
4/5
Michael Jackson is an artist where the issue of whether the art forgives the behaviour of the artist really hits the road for me. I believe the boys who accused him of abusing them and cannot condone those actions, and simultaneously I recognize Jackson's achievements and the importance of his art. I recognize the way that his father and fame damaged him, although that may explain but does not exonerate his actions. And these complicated feelings make it hard to listen to a lot of his music.
Michael Jackson's talent had been known to the world for a full decade at this point, but this is the first fruit of his massive ambition. Nights at Studio 54 during the filming of The Wiz had connected him with the joy of recreational dance, and that is all over this record. It's an unashamedly disco album, polished to a high gloss by Quincy Jones' arrangements and production. Side 1, especially, is just a joyous exaltation of dance. This is Michael Jackson reaching his full power and wanting to take over the world, but still in touch with the fun of it all.
Sadly, that fun faded over his subsequent albums, as the ambition, drugs, fame, and the damage of his childhood took him over. I find it hard to accept the monstrous things he did in the back half of his life. I mourn for the boy who MJ was. This album is the last time we hear a vestige of that child, soon to be sacrificed to the gods of superstardom.
I really love early Michael Jackson records, and still want to play them. This is the last album of his that I can listen to without it feeling icky. It's a really great dancing record, less patchy than Thriller. Although, when I was listening to this today, spotify followed it up with a bunch of earlier Michael Jackson and Jackson 5 singles, and they were even better. _That's_ the Michael Jackson I really want to listen to.
Badly Drawn Boy
2/5
This did not attract my attention. I remember Badly Drawn Boy getting a lot of positive press in the UK around the time; best new songwriting hope, etc. Mercury Prize winning, beloved by NME, Q, etc. But it didn't grab me at the time, and it doesn't now. Dull, and over-long. Never need to hear this again.
Paul McCartney
4/5
I have, I confess, thought very unkind things about Pul McCartney’s solo works over the years. Maybe it was too many viewings of the ‘Coming Up’ video, a perennial favourite on the ABC. Maybe it was my disklike of ‘Band on the Run’. Maybe it was the ubiquity of ‘Mull of Kintyre’ during my childhood. Most probably it was my purchase of “Shots from the Hip”, the collected writings of Charles Shaar Murray when it came out round 1990. It contains his 1975 NME article entitled Paul McCartney; ‘No, not really in a way actually as it happens’, and I think it caught me at an impressionable age and profoundly influenced my opinions on Paul’s solo career. I shall quote at length:
“Up until the arrival of ‘Band On The Run’ in the latter months of 1973, the prevailing assessment of Monsieur McCartney was that he was the possessor of a ‘basically bourgeois talent’ -- which meant that he was essentially uncommitted to rock and roll, was irremediably cutesy-pie, played and composed music with an unforgivably low cojones quotient, wrote songs that begged for Andy Williams to cover them, wimped around all over the place with a wife who seemed to have even less musical credibility than her fiendish Oriental opposite number, allowed an overwhelming facility for pleasant melody and easy-going charm to degenerate into vacuous glibness, angled his music at the mums and dads, came off poorly in comparison to the gritty honesty and commitment of John Lennon, the uplifting spirituality of George Harrison (or what looked like uplifting spirituality at the time) and the cloddish charm of Ringo Starr (from whom nobody expected anything better than cloddish charm anyway), was a swot and a teacher’s pet and a soppy sneak who didn’t even _pretend_ to relate to a seventies which had taken him at his word about doing it in the road.
... Amidst much hijinx, ‘Band On The Run’ emerges onto a suitably impressed world, and anti-Macca canards are dissipated like wet farts in a strong wind. … It was an event of almost morality-play proportions, a triumph of decency. After years of taking shit from everybody for being a square and a Blue Meanie, vindication had arrived with a surprise knockout in the twelfth round. McCartney proved that Nice Guys didn’t have to Finish Last; that you could be a Kleen Kut Kid and a scholar and a gentleman and still make a decent album.
...which is where things start getting heavy.
‘Venus and Mars’ is not only one the worst albums I’ve ever heard from a so-called ‘major artist’, but it’s also the most decadent. … ‘Venus and Mars’ is a symptom of decadence because it is the product of a considerable talent in an advanced state of decay. It is totally lacking in either true beauty, true strength or true innocence; offering in stead of these qualities – qualities which one could quite reasonably demand from the work of an artist of Paul McCartney’s eminence – a vapid, shallow prettiness which is ultimately more saddening than the work of even the dumbest no-hoper.” He then goes on to recount his somewhat awkward interview with Paul. It’s fascinating and well worth a read (https://archive.org/details/shotsfromhip0000murr )
Reading this again for the first time in 30 years, I can see how I was imprinted with this viewpoint, much like a duckling imprints on the first creature they see after hatching. Given that I didn’t even like ‘Band On The Run’ 9the one supposedly good record), I gave Paul’s solo catalogue a pretty wide berth. “It is clearly”, I thought, “all tepid rubbish." A few catchy singles, admittedly, and I have a hipster appreciation for Temporary Secretary and Let Me Roll It, but other than that, I’ll pass. The foundation of this opinion was Mr Shaar Murray’s well-written piece of rock critic snark, and these days I am trying to ween myself off rock critic snark. It hasn’t always done me too many favours over the years. So, this point of this very long introduction is to say that I haven’t actually listened to much of Sir Paul’s solo catalogue, and never knowingly to this album (Maybe I’m Amazed excepted).
And what a pleasant surprise it is! I didn’t expect the lofi, unpolished charm of the recording style, which aligns well with my aesthetic taste. The expensive overdubbing and mixing at professional studios really helps. I find most of the songs low-key charming. My mate Dave Lewis says of McCartney that he will walk into a recording sessions with three of the most amazing songs you ever heard, three pretty good average quality numbers, and three pieces of shit. His problem is that he can’t tell the difference. And I think that is kind of true of this record; Maybe I’m Amazed, Ooh You, That Would Be Something and Junk are my favourite songs on the album, there’s some middling quality tracks, and a few tracks that are really only demos at best. I think we can all agree that the world could live without the glorified drum solo that is Kreen-Akora. The home recording adds an appealing patina of grit, that can sometimes be missing from Paul’s output when over-polished.
I think all the Beatles thought that anything they happened to commit to tape was genius and people would buy it. It must be hard to maintain perspective when you are a Beatle. But even for the undercooked material on here, there is a simple and earthy charm here that I wasn’t expecting. I have listened to this all the way through about four times, and I really enjoy it. I am kicking myself for being too snobby to give this a go previously. I mean, I still don’t like ‘Band On The Run’, but this is right up my alley. It’s a really likable record, I have the advantage of listening to this 50 years removed from its original release, and so can separate it from the context of the Beatles acrimonious break-up. It’s a modest album, maybe too delicate, too humble to have been launched into the bitterness of the Beatles dissolution, but heard on its own terms, I like it.
I’m going put this on my want-list for next time I see a copy in a bargain bin. It’s no Abbey Rd, but I like it 3.5 stars worth. Rounding up, as penance for all of the unkind things I thought about McCartney for so long.
Leonard Cohen
4/5
Production is spare but still pretty. (Personally, I would like a little bit more grit in it, but you can't have everything). Mostly simple acoustic guitar and bass arrangements, augmented with occasional strings. Leonard's voice is not great, but he can (usually) sell the damn song.
The songs are so great; Suzanne, So Long, Marianne, Sisters of Mercy are all classics. They are so evocative. I realize that he almost never talks in generalities or abstract concepts. He tells the story through vivid and concrete images. I love that approach to lyric writing.
I've reviewed a bunch of Leonard Cohen albums for this project, and this continues my highly consistent run of 4 star ratings.
The Flaming Lips
3/5
ooh, tough one here. I have tried with this album on multiple occasions over the years. I am a big fan of their next record, Yoshimi vs. The Pink Robots, which is, in many ways, a very similar album to this. Similar lofi production aesthetic, but big orchestrations (using cheap detuned keyboards), and generally hippy vibe, lyrical material that veers between the humorous and the profound, an embrace of life while acknowledging the reality of sadness and despair.... But I really love Yoshimi, and I just don't really dig this. I think, when it comes down to it, the tunes just aren't a as good. I certainly haven't liked any of their other albums before or afterwards. Maybe when it came down to it, they only really had one great album int hem. This is an important part of their run-up to that achievement, but really not essential (for me, at least). 2.5 stars, rounding up for amiability.
Kanye West
2/5
Kanye. What to say? I believe he is a true artist, and a fearless one. He absolutely does not believe in censoring his true thoughts, but, wow that is ugly. his willingness to be unlikable extends way beyond provocative trolling, and I believe is a clear representation of his thoughts. And his success has meant that he hasn't felt the need to moderate his expression at all. true artistic freedom! And this is what that looks like; ugly sexism, rampant egotism, and anger (some of it righteous, much of it unfocussed). While I often debate whether the art can justify the artist, Kanye deliberately makes no distinction. And this album was just the beginning. Since then, he has spiraled down into MAGA-craziness, antisemitism, and bonkers behaviour. It's cost him a lot, and I fear he is nearly at the point of flushing his career completely down the toilet (although I have found think pieces extending back earlier than this album that ask the same question about 'How much further can he go?" Let me put it this way, if I read a headline tomorrow that Kayne had murdered someone, I wouldn't be surprised.) I think, for me, he has just gone too far. I admire elements of his production skills (although this record is deliberately difficult to listen to), but, frankly, he is that great of a rapper. Love his first four or five albums (not represented on this list, I notice), but this is the album where he has gone too far for me.
The Birthday Party
3/5
I was aware of Nick Cave and the Birthday Party in the early to mid 80s, but it was 'Deanna' that really clicked for me, and I started listening to his late 80s/early 90s records a lot.
The Birthday Party were a noisy and genuinely dangerous band, which I like. And this is an ugly sounding record, but you can't deny its power and weird groove. It's not a dumb record, but the preoccupation with sex and violence (largely as a metaphor for heroin use, as far as I can tell) wears a little thin. I'm sure they were a-maaaaaa-zing live, but that was a little before my time.
I am going to quote from Mr Cave himself, from his Red Hand Files blog (https://www.theredhandfiles.com/why-are-you-going-to-kings-coronation/), reflecting on his younger self:
"And as for what the young Nick Cave would have thought – well, the young Nick Cave was, in all due respect to the young Nick Cave, young, and like many young people, mostly demented, so I’m a little cautious around using him as a benchmark for what I should or should not do. He was cute though, I’ll give him that. Deranged, but cute."
I think that is a pretty good summary of this record; deranged, but cute. There is a dangerous sex appeal to the record, which is just a little bit exhausting from the viewpoint of my middle-aged self. But I think it was always supposed to be a bit funny. I don't listen to this record often, but it is still fresh and compelling after all these years. Tony Cohen did a bang-up job of getting it all on tape.
Side note: the terrible industrial punk band I played in during the early 90s were a bunch of pretentious smart arses, and we used to play a medley of Deep in the Woods (from the next Birthday Party record), along with the Teddy Bears' Picnic and the theme from Playschool. I like to think that Nick would have laughed.
Paul McCartney and Wings
2/5
I have already confessed to the influence that Charles Shaar Murray's essay on Paul McCartney (featured in his volume of compiled writings, Shots From The Hip) had on forming my (not-very-high) opinion of Paul McCartney's solo output. And he makes an exception for Band On The Run, as the best post-Beatles album from Paul, and proof that he could still write a great record, Well, I humbly disagree.
Village Voice critic Robert Christgau wrote in 1981: "I originally underrated what many consider McCartney's definitive post-Beatles statement, but not as much as its admirers overrate it. Pop masterpiece? This? Sure it's a relief after the vagaries of Wild Life and Red Rose Speedway." He ultimately awarded the album a C+ rating, indicating "a not disreputable performance, most likely a failed experiment or a pleasant piece of hackwork". That sounds more realistic to me.
I find this whole record under-written, over-produced, and desperate to be liked. They are not good things. A few songs are blessed with a pretty good tune -- you could never accuse Paul of not being capable of a pretty tune -- but really not hugely memorable. And I never really liked the title track.
The story I find most revealing about this record is the account of Fela Kuti confronting Paul in the studio, accusing him of ripping off African music. Paul plays him the tapes, and convinces him that there is no local influence. And ain't that the truth; there is none of the energy, inventiveness, funk or power of a Fela Kuti record on this disc.
I agree that many fan, hoping against hope for a return to former glories, grabbed onto this not-incompetent record like a drowning man clutching at flotsam. Desperately trying to kid themselves that this was actually good, it has been massively over-praised. I am writing this just a few days after the 50th anniversary re-release of the 'under dubbed' version, with orchestras etc. all stripped off. I can't think of a record I am less interested in hearing.
2.5 stars, rounding down for hype.
Marvin Gaye
5/5
I would listen to Marvin Gaye, here at the height of his powers, sing the telephone book. This deliberately cohesive suite of smooth, but politically right-on, soul was massively influential. Berry Gordy hated it until it sold a zillion copies and spawned three hit singles.
And it a fantastic listen. I am tempted to sing the praises of this album at length, but, really, you should just go listen to it. This is one of the few absolute, no arguments, must-hear albums on the list.
The Magnetic Fields
3/5
Jesus, Stephin Merritt, learn to edit. There are, I'm sure, a few gems in this trove of songs, but sifting them out of the nearly three hours of mid-paced, poorly recorded demos is challenging. And I am not a fan of Mr Merritt's voice. It was always a relief when sone of the collaborators took over the lead vocals. And for all the supposed 'variety', this album sounds very much the same all the way through.
That said, there are some clever wordplay and pretty tunes here.
And I appreciate the conceit of the project; Merritt has said "69 Love Songs is not remotely an album about love. It's an album about love songs, which are very far away from anything to do with love." And I get that.
I wonder if this album is bit like the catalogues of Leonard Cohen or Tom Waits; the songs sometimes really come to life when sung by someone else.
But I just can't shake the feeling that this is a collection of demos for a really great album. If the 69 songs here were carefully whittled down to the strongest 15 or 20, and properly recorded (possibly with a less arch singers), this could have been an all-time classic. The Book of Love and Papa Was A Rodeo are really, really great pieces of songwriting.
I really think people prefer the _idea_ of this record to the experience of listening to it all the way through. Some good songs, woefully under-baked. The sheer quantity here ensures that the whole is somehow less than the sum of its (many, many) parts. And with terrible cover art.
I am so torn on rating this. Some of it is really good, but the whole thing exhausts me. And it sounds like rubbish. Five stars? No stars? I mean, I kinda appreciate that this exists, and I'd like to pick out my favourite songs to put on playlists, but the idea of listening to the whole thing again fills me with dread, like a forced march through the Russian winter. Let's call it three stars, because it is clever and well written and full of good ideas, even if the execution is shite.
Miles Davis
5/5
Bitches Brew. This is classic album that changed the face of music. Miles took the rock and funk influences (courtesy of Betty Davis) and turned it into a new thing that nobody else could have imagined. I find this album hypnotic, but hard to love. It's a pretty challenging listen, but easy to respect. It's a borderline for five stars, but, given that I prefer On The Corner, this is nearly, but not quite, perfect. Call it 4.8, maybe.
Lenny Kravitz
3/5
So, this album was on regular rotation in my share house c. 1991. It was funky and fun, with a 60s throwback vibe and production that was uncommon at the time which makes it a fun listen. The lyrics are twee and often beyond cliched; Lenny goes hard on his highly controversial "anti-hate, pro-love" message.
While Lenny's singing is good at hitting a dramatic peak (sometimes emoting a bit more than the material really warrants), the music often does not get there. I always felt his songs needed to hit a dramatic highpoint or demonstrate more dynamic range. Sometimes he achieved this with collaborators (such as Slash's solo in Always On The Run) or kitchen sink production or by simply avoiding the issue (70s funk emphasizes the groove, and so big dramatic moments are less required).
All that said, I enjoyed revisiting this record, and really like his vocal style. It's a fun pastiche.
Echo And The Bunnymen
3/5
Oof, are Echo and the Bunnymen possibly the most overrated band of all time? Certainly, if you listen to how they describe themselves ('the greatest album of all time!"), and they could never possibly live up to their own hype.
Obviously, 1001 albums love them, as there are three (THREE!) of their albums on this list, of which this is probably the best.
Orchestral arrangements that walk the tightrope, staying just on the right side of bombastic. The lyrics are not nearly as clever as Ian McCullough thinks they are ('Thorn of Crowns', amirite?), which makes them The Doors of the 1980s. And they have dated about as well (i.e., they have a shrinking fanbase that are convinced that they are all that and a bag of chips, but the rest of the world shrugs).
That said, Killing Moon is a real cracker of a song, distinctive, spooky, soaring, and side two of the original vinyl is generally pretty damn good.
But not as good as they think they are.
Jimi Hendrix
5/5
Peter Prichard, co-owner of Scratches Records, shared his love of Jimi Hendrix with me when I was an impressionable teenager. When I was a penniless student, he let me tape a bunch of his Hendrix LPs, that I listened to obsessively (favourite record of that bunch: Jimi Plays Monterey - especially the way they tear through Killing Floor). And then when I started collecting records in the late 80s, there were lots of relatively inexpensive Hendrix vinyl around, so I bought a ton. All the studio albums and the posthumous collections, and compilations and live albums, and even some of the out-takes and pre-fame recordings on dodgy quasi-legitimate imprints. Loved them and listened to them a lot in my youth. These days, I don't dive quite as deep. I tend to stick to the studio recordings, a compilation of the best posthumous studio tracks, and a select few live records (Monterey, Band of Gypsys).
The studio albums (and he only released three during his lifetime) are all special in their own way, especially because we know that they are albums basically as he wanted. Are You Experienced is a blast of raw energy, Electric Ladyland is the polished magnum opus, and Axis: Bold of Love sits somewhere in between.
Peter was also a big fan of Axis, which rubbed off on me. The songwriting and playing is a bit more refined than Experienced, but more relaxed and playful than the ambitious perfectionism of Ladyland. Jimi has really found his own voice, but the pressures of fame and success still haven't overwhelmed him. If you look at footage of Jimi in the last year or two of his life, he just looks exhausted. But that weariness hasn't hit him at this stage.
Peter had this theory that the master tapes of most of these songs didn't fade out, and there was another minute or two of Jimi stretching out at the end of each song, and one day the tapes might be released. Peter thought they might appear after Chas Chandler died, but to date, nothing on that front. Given that Jimi lost the master tape of side 1 in a cab (followed by frantic re-mixing), maybe the master tapes are also lost.
Is this the most under-rated of Jimi's studio albums? Perhaps. It is less pyrotechnic than Experienced and less intricately arranged than Ladyland. But it has Little Wing and Spanish Castle Magic and If 6 Was 9 and the title track, all of which are classic songs. The rest of the record is slighter, but still fun. I've listened to the albums hundreds of times (although not all the way through in a few years). It was a joy to listen to it fresh, and I still hear new things. Five stars.
Brian Eno
4/5
There is a running joke in the film Dogs in Space (1986) that one of the flatmates always loudly plays this album when he has a sexual partner in his room. The sound of 'Sky Saw' sets off a pavlovian response in the rest of the residents of the share house whenever they hear it. Listening closely to this, I'm not sure that I would choose this as the soundtrack for sexy time, though.
When I was about 14, I borrowed from the local library a compilation cassette of Eno's 73-77 song-oriented albums. I did not get it at the time, but since have learned to love the tangential approach to song-writing and production. truth be told, I prefer his more-rock albums (like Before and After Science. That is a banger), but I can appreciate what he is doing here. He is finding his way towards the Ambient recordings, and so the sounds here are often less intrusive, softer, more spacious. There are more instrumentals, less structure, more openness. And that is deliberate.
I can hear the influence of the way this album was recorded over so much music today. The ability to record on computers has made it possible for almost anyone to bend and manipulate sounds easily, in a way that hadn't really occurred much before (at least, not without access to the world's best recording studios). The kinds of sounds on this record are all over music today, which maybe makes this sound a little fresh and unusual than it did in the day. But it is still a pretty great listen.
Fun fact: New Zealand is the only country in the world where this album charted. Nice one, Kiwis.
Mudhoney
4/5
On my first attempt at university, I was not a good student. Tuesdays, in particular, I would go to my 11am English lit lecture with my mate Grant, and then we would trundle off to Manning Bar when it opened at noon, because Tuesday was band day. Every lunchtime there would be a free band, usually some local alternative band. But hard to argue with free, right? One week in March of 1990, we ambled up to the bar, where they were lugging in very large, but incredibly beaten up, amplifiers.
"Who's playing?" I enquired of Ian the Activities Officer.
"Mudhoney" he replied.
"Cool", I thought. The chance to see an overseas band was a special treat, and I knew the name, even if I wasn't familiar with their music.
At 1pm, they shambled out and ripped through a cacophonous and powerful set, largely based on Superfuzz Bigmuff and their self-titled record. They were a revelation. They were loud and fast and angsty and funny and drunk as hell (at lunchtime!).
This was music as I wanted it to be. Proper dangerous punk rock that didn't take itself too seriously. As I recall, lots of people thought it was a terrible racket and left, but it sure made a mark on me.
As soon as the set finished, I hiked up to Scratches Records at Newtown and bought a copy of Superfuzz Bigmuff, which is one of my all-time favourite records.
I went to see them a few times that tour, and on their next tour, which was in December of the same year if I remember correctly. I saw them at the Lansdowne Hotel, the Phoenician Club, the Paddington RSL, and then a few years later at the Big Day Out. I love, love, love, their stuff.
I had been hanging around on the Sydney alternative live scene for a couple of years, so this made a lot of sense to me. Australian alternative had a lot of the elements of grunge (that noisy, punky garage rock thing, leavened with a piss-take attitude), but this was the first American band that I had seen doing what became known as grunge, which was about to take off.
Fudge is generally regarded as their best album, and it is pretty damn great. Personally, I would recommend Superfuzz (the CD versions with the extra singles on it for a real taste) but this a terrific album. I love the fuzzy, terrible recording quality, the sloppy playing, the punk energy, the humour, the sense of being out of control. It helped codify my musical taste (and also heavily influenced the terrible band I was in for most of the 90s).
Mudhoney were my band. I bought their records, I wore the t-shirts, I saw them live as often as I could. I ended up working at Scratches not long after that, so I had a front row seat for the explosion of grunge in 1991. Oh to be 20 years-old again, working in a little record shop and seeing bands three or four nights a week at a time when there was something so exciting happening in music. While the explosion of underground music into the mainstream was exciting at the time, in the long term it didn't really turn out well for many people (including independent alternative record stores). But that's a story for another day...
My infatuation with Mudhoney did influence me in one way that I regret. When Nirvana's Nevermind exploded, I was pretty lukewarm on it. everyone I knew who worked in alternative record stores got thoroughly sick of how overplayed it was. I mean, good record, but it's not Mudhoney now is it? And so I didn't buy tickets to see Nirvana when they played the Phoenician. I really regret that.
But I don't regret ever listening to Mudhoney. They are still my band. I really love this record, but is it really a must hear? It is for me, but maybe not for everyone. Four stars
Bob Dylan
3/5
I found this to be a really listenable Dylan album. The Daniel Lanois production is clearly divisive amongst critics, but I like it. I like the weird spaciousness. It is heavily processed (Lanois never met a reverb he didn't like) and yet keeps an analog feel.
I like the grit in Dylan's voice. Some critics find some of the lyrics/songwriting a bit simplistic, although most of their ire seems directed at To Make You Feel My Love, which is well on the way to becoming a modern standard. Heaven forbid that Dylan should write (and sing) a song that everybody likes!
There is a reason this is Dylan's highest selling album ever. And coming nearly 40 years into his career, good on him.
The Stone Roses
4/5
The Stone Roses album was played a lot in the share houses I lived in around 1990-91, so I have a soft spot for it. But really, their reputation as bringing dance to indie, funky originators of Madchester mostly comes down to a handful of singles, especially Fool's Gold and (to a lesser degree) One Love, neither of which are on the album proper.
Robert Christgau is not far off the money when he described this album as like the Byrds, but not as good. It really is a 60s psychedelic folk rock throwback.
But the tunes are generally pretty good and the band is fantastic; a world class rhythm section and terrific guitar player in John Squire. they are at their best when they are stretching out instrumentally (eg the code on I Am The Resurrection). They do that 'play the track backwards' thing that gives me the shits, though.
Pity about Ian Brown's singing. It's just rubbish, and let's not mention the lyrics. It is mixed pleasantly low on the album, so he tends to fade into the reverberant wallpaper at bit, which is for the best, really.
I never understood the hype around this band. Was it the live show? Was it the drugs? Was it the way they basically flamed out in a blaze of legal disputes, band strife and thwarted ambitions? But the Brits really loved them. I don't understand why this ends up so high on their 'greatest albums of all time' list. I mean, it's a fun listen especially if you compile it with their non-album singles. I regularly play Fool's Gold when I am DJing. It's a super-funky track with a great groove, and it's so long that I can sneak away to go the loo, and head back to the decks via the bar.
A pretty good album, which I do spin from time to time. 3.5 stars, rounding up.
Machito
3/5
This music has become a cultural short-hand for comic, bachelor pad era zaniness. It's become a caricature of itself, which is shame. It is best in class for what it is.
Listening with fresh ears, it is energetic, forceful, and powerfully arranged. The rhythm section is loud and frenetic (which is good), the horns are loud and tight (which is good) and the soloing free and wild (which is good). The tunes are strong, and the energy doesn't flag. Fave tracks: Frenzy, Wild Jungle, Oyeme.
Good record, three stars.
John Lee Hooker
2/5
(sigh) This is a great example about what gives me the screaming shits about this 1001 albums project. This was John Lee Hooker's biggest selling album by far, won him a Grammy, and paid for him to live the rest of his life in comfort. It is really well recorded versions of some of classic material (even if a little heavy on the 80s digital synths, recorded to a click track, soooo much reverb, and somewhat over-polished by Roy Rogers) and with very impressive guest stars (Santana, Bonnie Raitt, Roy Rogers, Robert Cray, Canned Heat, George Thorogood, Charlie Musselwhite, Los Lobos).
But is this REALLY a John Lee Hooker album? Have you really heard and understood John Lee Hooker if this is the only album of his you have heard? Most tracks sound more like the guest stars than John Lee Hooker. Most of the guests do a pretty good version of the blues, but it is a little strange to me that nearly all of the collaborators on this album are white. And I'm not convinced that Hooker is playing guitar on all tracks.
It feels a little bit like wheeling Hooker out to provide a veneer of authenticity to a major label album of 'blues' for a mainstream (read as 'white') audience, and Hooker himself really is just window dressing --'Essence of Real Authentic Blues (trademark)'.
I don't begrudge Hooker his belated recognition or long-delayed pay-day, but this is not the album you should hear from one of the titans of electric blues. This is blues for people who don't really know anything about blues. This is the blues for middle-aged financial advisers. This is blues for dentists with a barely-ridden Harley Davidson in their garage. It's blues for soccer moms to dance to. This what white people think the blues is.
Listening to this again reminds me of why I sold my copy of this album.
I know John Lee Hooker had a patchy history with record labels, but surely there is a better choice to represent this musical giant.
The Good, The Bad & The Queen
2/5
Everything Damon Albarn touches sounds like a side-project. Musically, this is better than some projects he has led, but I still hate his voice, he can't write a memorable vocal melody to save himself, and his preoccupation with the "state of England" bores me.
This is wildly inessential, though it avoids being hateful.
The Clash
4/5
I remember being 18 and sitting in the back of a Volkswagen beetle, a bit drunk and possibly a bit high, driving at night through the back roads of the NSW southern highlands with some new friends that I did not actually know very well. I had very little idea of where I actually was or even where we were going.
“What’s this?” I asked of the music blasting out of the tape player.,
“The Clash” came the reply.
“OK” I thought and settled back in to listen. I think it was London Calling (“Piece of piss, next one’s a triple”), which is still my favourite Clash album.
That said, I was never fanatical about The Clash.
There are many people that I respect and admire who definitely bought into the cult of The Clash (The Best Live Band in The World! The Last Gang in Town! The Only Band That Matters! Rebels With A Cause), but I never did. I tried, believe me. I wanted to fall in love with Joe Strummer, last true rock star, real champion of the people, prophet of the oppressed, speaker of truth to power, and his gang of genuine punk rockers I felt somewhat uncool and déclassé for not being hip to their jive. I certainly felt it during that car ride.
And then I read Marcus Gray’s Last Gang in Town: The Story and Myth of the Clash, which was eye-opening. It embraced the complexity of The Clash. They were all those things that people lauded them for, but also not. Joe Strummer was a champion of the real people, but also a bandwagon-jumper, elite public-school boy and the son of diplomat. The band was equally motivated by shagging models and doing coke in the back of the limo as they were in tearing down capitalism (maaaaan!). I found it easier to understand why I had always been a little suspicious of their role as saviours of rock and socialist champions (unwarranted? unwanted even?). They were a chaotic and ambitious band, with limited and slippery grasp on the political realities they were trying to express. But it was reasonably heartfelt, most of the time, but just the well-intentioned and poorly considered proclamations of mere musicians. In the words of Scroobius Pip: “The Clash? Just a band”.
But on this record, there is a genuine anger. Strummer might not have grown up in the tower blocks of South London, but he channels it brilliantly. He may have been jumping onto the punk bandwagon, but he did so quickly and powerfully that he helped establish the blueprint for English punk rock. The lyrics are striking and incisive, generally avoided polemic, there are some cracking tunes, and the whole thing rocks hard. There were more inventive albums to follow, but this is the one where they aren’t distracted by every idea that flits by. It’s focused and intense and energizing to listen to. Janie Jones, I’m So Bored with the USA, White Riot, Career Opportunities and the cover of Police & Thieves are all highlights, but there aren‘t many dead spots on the record. They were a tight live band and could smash it out in the studio.
I think Strummer matured as he aged, and regretted losing sight of the vision that they laid out on this first album. I was genuinely moved by the way Marcus Gray reports him as looking back on the Clash’s career and saying that ‘we blew it’.
I was going to give this three stars, but have managed to convince myself that this is four star record.
Aerosmith
4/5
I was 16 when the Run DMC cover of Walk This Way came out, and I thought it was the hot shit. It was one of the first 12" singles I bought with my own money, and I played it until it turned gray. I have subsequently become familiar with the original version; my DJ partner, Grandpa Smurf, spins the original pretty regularly, and it's a real floor filler.
This is the third Aerosmith album I have reviewed for this project, and I confess I was expecting to be disappointed. Rocks was a stodgy and uninspiring mess, and Pump was a lumpen turd of late 80s corporate rock bloat. I'd never really understood the appeal and influence of Aerosmith. Slash from Guns 'n Roses would often cite Aerosmith as a key influence, but I certainly couldn't hear it in Rocks, although Guns 'n Roses went on to take 80s corporate rock bloat to even greater heights than Pump with Use Your Illusion.
So, while I knew there was at least one good single, my expectations for this record were not high. But when I put it on, when the title track came roaring out of the speakers and pinned my ears right back. This is a whole different thing to the relatively lethargic and rote Rocks. "Let's hope they can keep this up", I thought. Next few tracks were pretty good, then Walk This Way comes blasting out, also a terrific track. Sweet Emotion and Round and Round are strong rock tracks in their ways, and even the filler tracks are pretty exciting. Their cover of Big Ten Inch Record is fun (although the Bullmoose Jackson version is still preferable). I could live without the schmaltzy orchestrations on the final track, but at least the overproduction is confined to the one sappy ballad.
I think I finally hear what a template this was for the first Guns 'n Roses album. It has that same frantic energy. It sounds a bit wild, a bit dangerous. A really fine hard rock album. The rest of their discography (a few singles excepted) I can live without, but this is the real deal. Colour me pleasantly surprised.
The Rolling Stones
3/5
The beginning of the Stones really sounding like the Stones. Recording is still a little rough, although Brian Jones' use of whatever instruments were around lifts the sound into something fresher than most of their contemporaries.
Going home is waaaaay too long, just a noodly blues jam. It shows the beginning of their dynamic playing style and playing off each other, but I'm not sure we needed 11 minutes of a under baked idea. I think I prefer either their earlier less polished and more bluesy records, or their later material where they are more confident in their own thing.
And the misogyny is staggering. Women are either berated and belittled, subjugated, or raised onto pedestals (setting them up for failure?) I'm really not sure I could listen to this frequently.
Roxy Music
5/5
I love this first phase of Roxy Music (with and without Eno). Art rock that actually rocks. Everything is just a bit weird and sideways, without being completely off the wall.
I have checked my collection, and I don't own a copy of this record, which is strange because I am really familiar with the record (especially side 1). I don't remember where I came across it; did a friend recommend it to me? Did a flatmate play it incessantly? Was it a favorite of an ex-girlfriend? Was it playing at some pivotal life moment? Not that I can think of, but I _know_ this record somehow. It's a mystery...
This album fits right into the pocket for me. It's amusingly weird without losing sight of the need to actually rock and have a few tunes you can sing along with. The band is pretty powerful, and they can rock along in an unpredictable way without getting too clever-clogs. It's a got enough Eno in it to be surprising, without having completely disappeared up its own backside. It's a smart record you can dance to, and it's hard to ask for more than that.
For some reason, side 2 felt like I hadn't heard it so much, and I enjoyed the krautrock-lite stretching out of Bogus Man.
This is going on my "to buy" list. I don't understand why I don't already own this record...
Booker T. & The MG's
3/5
"Hey guys, remember that single you threw together recently? Well, it sold a bajillion copies. And now we need an album."
"um, ok. When do you need it?"
"Tomorrow afternoon, latest."
Don't get me wrong, Booker T. and the MGs were a crack band, and they recorded some amazing singles over their career, and I quite like their McElmore Ave album (a track for track cover of Abbey Rd). But this album is a quick cash-in on the popularity of the Green Onions single. Most of the material is weak, and they haven't quite dialed in on their sound. For my money, their following album Soul Dressing is much more listenable, and certainly they released lots of very strong singles. And they backed many, many classics cuts as a backing band. And we shouldn't underestimate their influence as a multi-race band from the South in the 60s.
I suspect Dimery wanted to acknowledge the band and their significant influence, and so popped this album on the list (partly because he won't acknowledge compilations, which are often the best representation of singles bands). But seriously, did he listen to this record? Not their best work (title track aside; that is an absolute banger).
The Police
3/5
My cousin John was about two years older than me. In the early 80s he went on a trip to Bali and brought back a bunch of bootleg compilations cassettes, including one by the Police. My distinct memory is that the track listing included 'Massage in a Bottle'. The singles from this album were heavily represented. We played that tape a lot.
I did check in with my son, Hal, before writing this review. He is a drummer and big Stewart Copeland fan. "What do you think of Reggatta de Blanc?" I enquired. His view was that it was the beginning of the end. His opinion is that Sting, ever mindful of commercial success, starting reigning in Copeland's playing, in a way he described as "tasteful". He did not mean that in a good way. He enjoys the punk energy of Outlandos D'Amour and Copeland's less restrained playing.
I went back to have a listen and see what he meant. Outlandos is a more punk-tinged (although were they ever really punk?), while Regatta is a bit more reggae influenced (but were they ever really reggae?). In its better moments (Walking on the Moon, Bed's Too Big), Copeland still indulges himself. There is a bit more filler on Reggatta, although the singles are really strong. That Sting fella can write a tune.
It's a good album, recorded quickly and effectively, before the cocaine, egos and infighting started to impact their ability to play together as a unit.
Over the years, I have managed to pick up most of the Police's catalogue from bargain bins, and I don't mind their stuff, but I really think of them as a 'radio band'; I enjoy their songs when they come on the radio but would rarely choose to put one of their records on the turntable.
The Go-Go's
4/5
I guess I bought into the mainstream view that this album was two great singles and filler. But I don't recall that I ever sat down and listened to the whole thing through. So today I did, three times in a row. First time through I thought "this is pretty good", second time "this is really good", third time "I'm loving this."
It's energetic pop, played with verve and enthusiasm, with good melodies and harmonies, and you can certainly dance to it (which is always a big tick in my book). Lots of hooks, upbeat and a fun attitude. The singles are really, really great. When I DJ parties, Our Lips Are Sealed is a pretty great way to get women out on the dance floor. And once they are out on the floor, they tend to keep dancing. Women dancing are the life and soul of any party, and they love this track.
It's got that mixture of pop, girl group, surf, and a little bit punk inspired that became the template for lots of bands over the next decade (especially female fronted bands). An obvious example from my home town (Sydney) are the Skolars, but I'm sure I could name a bunch more local acts if I tried.
The Go Go's secret weapon on this record is Kathy Valentine, whose bass playing really anchors the songs. And she wrote Can't Stop the World, which is a pretty great song.
Look, I'm generally a bit tired of Dimery's male-centric list. It is refreshing to hear a bunch of women tearing it up, so I'm giving this 3.5 stars, rounding up.
T. Rex
4/5
I own Electric Warrior and a Best of T.Rex LP, and I thought that would fulfill all of my T.Rex needs. And, truly, a best of T.Rex compilation is all that is really necessary to listen to in life, because Marc Bolan released a string of A-grade pop singles in the early 70s. I was really expecting this to be a textbook "two hit singles and filler" album.
But I was surprised. I have listened to this album straight through, like, 8 times in the last few days. Don't get me wrong; the lyrics are meaningless drivel. He uses the same stream-of-consciousness, cut-up lyrics writing as Bowie, but he clearly hasn't read as many books. The words are dumb as a box of hammers, but the record sounds like a million bucks and has this strange charm to it.
Bolan wasn't much of a guitar player, but as a result he keeps his riffs simple and catchy (if clumsily cribbed from various Chicago blues records).
The tunes are full of hooks, heightened by the amazing backing vocals by Flo and Eddie. Tony Visconti makes sure everything sounds full and compelling, with tasteful orchestral accentuation. The whole thing has a slinky swagger that carries it all along in a fun way. (To hear how much the performances here carry the day, compare Buick Mackane to the stodgy cover by Gun 'n Roses.) Bolan's androgynous presentation can border on camp, but many of the greatest rock frontmen played in that space (Bowie, Freddie Mercury, Little Richard, even Axl Rose to an extent, and it is fun and fascinating).
T.Rex hasn't really stayed in the public consciousness. Their songs turn up as needle-drops in films and TV to signal "fun 70s single, with some groove and swagger", but I don't hear a lot of their songs in other context. I feel like I need to start dropping some T.Rex into my DJ sets.
There are bunch of cracking tunes on this album in addition to the two hit singles, even if they don't stick in the memory too long. Listening to this album is the equivalent to eating a Big Mac; it's fun and tasty and not particularly nutritious, but every now and then you just want one. Nothing wrong with that.
Four stars for being the perfect Big Mac meal.
The Smiths
3/5
I was a teenager while the Smiths were an active band, and their singles were inevitably played of Triple J radio, the local public alternative station. So I was aware of the Smiths while they were happening. I remember someone asking me (age 16) if I was a fan, probably because I seemed like the kind of person who would be (read as: miserable sod). But I wasn’t really a fan. I had friends who were, but the music just didn’t grab me.
Morrissey’s odes to a fabulous loneliness just didn’t appeal. I might have been a miserable teenager, but I aspired not to be. And, while I have picked up a few Smiths LPs over the years, I rarely play them (How Soon Is Now excepted).
I’m going to quote from Tom Ewing’s piece in Pitchfork (https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/12385-the-sound-of-the-smiths/):
“There are two big problems with performing misery, though. First, it's easy for it to set into self-parody. By the time the group split, singles like 'Girlfriend in a Coma' were setting these alarm bells off-- frothy, fun, but nowhere near as striking as the band's best work. Secondly, it really helps if you have the star power and natural charisma of Morrissey: Bands with less of a frontman could find themselves in a trap, glamorizing a loneliness they could have fought.
Your reaction to the Morrissey cult of personality is still likely to determine your reaction to the band as a whole-- grotesquely unfair on guitarist Johnny Marr though that is. It's thanks to him that everything the Smiths did is worth hearing, even when his lyricist is having an off day. His range and ambition as a composer widened through the band's life, and his contributions remained consistently stellar.”
Truth be told, as time has gone on, I have less and less tolerance for Morrissey. He’s a an arrogant, unlikable, judgmental, racist prick. I can admire the songs, but I completely understand why a lot of people find it far more palatable to listen to Rick Astley’s (reputedly excellent) Smiths tribute shows, because Rick is 1) a terrific singer and 2) a genuinely decent human being.
But I admire the work of the band, especially Johnny Marr. He has said that this album is the band’s best work, and I tend to agree. Some of the production choices have dated poorly (drum machines and cheap synthesizers), but the arrangements are stellar. I particularly enjoy last 'Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me'. I’d really enjoy a version where the drum machines were stripped out, real orchestrations replaced the synths and the whole thing was re-mixed a bit more sympathetically.
And there are some cracking songs, if you can stand Morrissey for a few minutes. It’s witty and clever, with some surprising imagery, and an occasional good tune (when Morrissey breaks out of his three-note melody thing).
And then there is ‘Paint a Vulgar Picture’, which is completely prescient of the Smiths post-breakup career; constantly re-packaged and re-sold. Hanging a lampshade on it doesn’t make it any less exploitative. And, despite your lyrics, Steven, your hateful public statements will taint you in my eyes.
Adam & The Ants
2/5
One great single and filler. Don't get me wrong, it's a pretty great sound, the two drummer Burundi rhythms thing, plus some pretty tasty guitar playing from Marco Pirroni, with the chants and stuff. When firing on all cylinders, it is a catchy, energizing pop that leaps out of the radio speakers or TV screen. This was even better on TV! You can see Adam in his full costume and makeup, strutting around like he owns the place.
But most tracks on the album are not of that standard, and it all begins to pall after a few songs. You can tell by the cover art that the whole image was crafted to play well on MTV.
Don't get me wrong, I own a copy of this record, likely purchased from a $1 bin in the 90s. But I only ever play the singles.
It's all flash and bang, with not a lot of substance behind it. 2.5 stars, rounding down.
Kings of Leon
2/5
According to wikipedia, this rose to prominence on the basis of two singles, and placement in videogames and a Ford Focus ad. I can see that, at various times, there have been three Kings of Leon albums in different editions of Dimery's tome. And they have all been subsequently removed from later editions. No surprises there. I am so bored that I am going to re-run my review from Aha Shake Heartbreak:
Yeesh, saviours of rock and roll? The Southern Strokes? Last proper band in town? I think not.
Was rock so impoverished in 2004 that this passed for excitement? I swear I have heard bands playing this schtick as well or better to 30 people at a small bar in Marrickville. And his singing has a weird affectation that really grates on my nerves.
Wildly inessential listening. 1.5 stars begrudgingly rounded up for not being completely rancid.
Supergrass
2/5
This album is perfectly fine. A bit rock and roll, decent tunes, but an all-time must-hear classic? I don't think so. It reminds me of a slightly less rockin' You Am I.
It was OK while I was listening to it, but I can't remember a single tune. And it is really long. Much longer than it needs to be. 2.5 stars for being totally average, rounding down for overstaying its welcome.
Crosby, Stills & Nash
3/5
I can see why this is a classic. Amazing harmonies, some stellar songwriting (if sometimes dated - I'm looking at you, Marrakesh Express), and really tasteful production from Stills that never overpowers the vocals. If you were a singer-songwriter, this would be the bible.
But I'm only giving it 3 stars because it's not really my thing, and I find it a little hard to stomach Crosby and Stills as people, you know? Their personalities just sour it for me. I know it's a classic and highly influential, and really well done, but I can't fight the nagging fear that it was responsible for polishing a lot of the rough edges of rock and roll and making is respectable, which is an intrinsically bad thing in my book. I mean, I'm listening to it now, and I can hear how "good" it is, but jesus, it just makes me want to chug a bottle of bourbon, punch David Crosby in the face, tear off my shirt and run howling down the street in protest. I would much rather listen to Iggy Pop or Lux Interior or Little Richard over this. _They_ knew how to rock and roll.
Gram Parsons
5/5
I was not a fan of country music at all. But I used to read a lot of those expensive UK-import music mags. Around the year 2000 it seemed like every magazine I picked up over a six month period had an article about how amazing and influential Gram parsons was. Article after article. So, when I stumbled across a budget CD release of GP and Grevious Angel on a single disc, I thought "hell, I should give this a shot." I took it home and threw it on the player, and out came... country music. "Blergh," I thought "country music!" and nearly turned it off. But I didn't. In fact, I played to it on repeat for a couple of weeks, and then one day the penny dropped. I could hear past the aesthetic trappings of the genre and hear the actual songs.
And the songs are really great, particularly on this album. I was surprised to read that he was under-prepared with material for the sessions, so it was a bit of a grab-bag of a few new songs (hastily compiled), covers and older tracks that from Parsons' previous bands. He was not in a good way drug and alcohol wise, and in fact died before this could be released. That said, he is in better voice than on GP where you can hear the DTs. He's a soulful singer, which overcomes his technical shortcomings. And he is superbly supported by Emmylou Harris, whose harmony singing is beyond sublime on both albums.
It's a crack band too, based around Elvis's TCB band, with appearances by Bernie Leadon, Byron Berline and Linda Ronstadt. I gather Gram was so distracted that he basically let the band arrange themselves, which was a good call.
I find it hard to split between this album and its predecessor, GP, as inevitably listened to them both together, being on a single CD. They are masterpieces, although they reflect the flaws of their author (and substantial flaws they were). But those imperfections make it a more human expression and easier to love. I have since learned to appreciate and sometimes even love country music, and these albums were my gateway into that whole genre. For that, I am ever grateful.
Neu!
4/5
I do love me a bit of krautrock; the motorik beats, the hypnotic riffing, the creative use of noise and space, the wild sounds....
I am familiar with the first two Neu albums (both of which I love), but had never listened to Neu 75. I wish I had.
I like the two sides structure, with the more ambient, chilled material on side 1. Some of the melodies are really beautiful.
The rockier, more aggressive side 2 also works well for me. I think it is drawing a long bow to call it 'punk', but I can see how this would have been influential on punk. Johnny Rotten cites it as an influence.
I like the splitting of material across the sides. I can see myself choosing to play one side or the other based on mood. More people should organize their records that way.
Four stars, going on the want-list. (Update as at 2024: copy purchased)
Lightning Bolt
3/5
Well, that was a whole bunch of noisy fun! Aggressive and funny and energetic and noisy (did I say 'noisy' yet?) and pretty rock and roll, right up my alley. I think I would really dig this live. It sounds like a bunch of quasi-experimental noise bands I have seen over the years in tiny venues.
It has elements of Sonic Youth, Mr Bungle, Battles, Tony Buck, Peril, Party Dozen, elements of 70s prog and 90s industrial (notably, yelling through a megaphone at the back of the mix, plus distortion on EVERYTHING). The drumming is intense and the instruments (mixture of bass, with.... other stuff) have a strange chaotic logic to them. There is enough sense of a riff to keep it from being just random sound.
It's most like Party Dozen (an Australian drums/saxophone duo that I really dig; check this out: https://youtu.be/r9w2HXqwIhU?si=z8hdX3oCCIca5lRY).
Lightning Bolt is a pretty good example of this type of thing, but it hardly unique and it is hardly influential. Personally, I enjoyed it because it reminds me of a bunch of records I already own that my wife won't let me play when she is at home.
But is it an essential album that you must hear before you die? Hell no! WTF was Dimery thinking when he added this to the book? This is a niche record for niche tastes. Seriously.
4/5
My favourite Dylan albums are Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited. basic, I know, but they are the ones I really like. So, it was great to hear these performances of some of my favourite Dylan songs. And of course I know the legend of this show. it is probably one of the most significant performances of all time. The cry of "Judas" is the most culturally significant heckle of all time, and Dylan's reaction confirms his commitment to his rock and roll direction, and where his whole career goes from there.
But truth be told, I have never listened to the actual recording of the show. I enjoyed the song choices, which heavily favour his most recent two albums, and the recording quality is mostly exceptional, especially for the time. Ballad of a Thin Man seems like an odd exception, with a cavernous and strangely mixed sound.
The acoustic first half is compelling and Dylan is in particularly good voice here. God knows how he remembers all the lyrics to Desolation Row....
But it is the second half, the rock and roll portion, that is literally and figuratively electric. The band (The Band!) are fantastic, as evidenced by the Basement Tapes and their whole subsequent career. I'm generally not a huge fan of Robbie Robertson, but his playing here is spot on. I think to how many bands, have taken their lead about how to present a show from this template... Bob really was writing the book, even as he stepped away from it. he never really sounded this good ever again.
Really interesting point, and you will need to check your listening source, I listened to the official release of this album on spotify, and the "judas" exchange is all edited out. It goes straight from the end of "Ballad of a Thin Man" fading into "Like a Rolling Stone", without the famous interjection or Bob's replies. What a weird choice; that is one of the most important cultural moments of the 20th Century, and caught on tape, and they haven't included it in this release. That is really strange. I had to go to other sources to find the moment.
Push comes to shove, I still prefer the studio versions of these songs, but this is a powerful recording of Bob at the height of his performance powers, a height he never touched again. Unappreciated at the time, but majestic in retrospect.
The Dave Brubeck Quartet
4/5
This is one of the most popular and accessible jazz albums of all time. The tunes are catchy, even if the odd time signatures sometimes make it hard to tap your feet. It doesn't completely pander to a mainstream audience, but it is hardly the most challenging jazz record ever made.
It's likeability, success, cultural longevity and ubiquity earns it a place on this list, even if it does give the uncomfortable impression that jazz is largely played by white guys. It is an easy jazz album to listen to, even for people who don't really like jazz.
Killing Joke
4/5
I loved being introduced to this. This is an ur-text for much of my favorite music, especially the industrial stuff I love. A mixture of metal, dub, krautrock and post-punk, the claustrophobic, apocalyptic sound is muscular and driving.
It is a really heavy rhythm section that can still groove, and the whole band knows how to lock it into the pocket and ride it out. Jaz Coleman is a compelling and charismatic singer, even if the songs are pretty dark.
I own a bunch of records a lot like this (including some other Killing Joke albums, and some Killing Joke side projects, such as Murder Inc, an album I played obsessively when it came out in the early 90s). But this is as good or better than the rest of them. Where has this been all my life? I enjoyed this so much, and it goes onto my must-get list.
Syd Barrett
4/5
This is a bit of a round-about story, so bear with me... Karl Wallinger of the Waterboys and World Party fame died a few weeks back, and I have been thinking about him a lot recently. My flatmates and I were big World Party fans, and in very early 1992 (I think) we managed to see a secret gig they played on a Monday night at the Three Weeds Hotel in Sydney, Australia. They were doing a press tour with no official shows, but played this unannounced show. The gig was very small, to a small audience in a pretty small pub. I distinctly remember Karl saying that, flying into Sydney, he noticed the luggage tags all marked "SYD", which had reminded him of Syd Barrett, and they then played a cover of a Syd Barret song (Gigolo Aunt, I think, or maybe Effervescing Elephant). I was a Syd Barret fan at the time, and it was magical.
When I was a teenager, I really dug Syd Barrett and listened to both his solo LPs quite a bit. I had the American re-issue with both albums in a 2LP pack, so I think of the albums together as a single piece of work. I enjoyed the whimsical psychedelic pop songs and the ramshackle playing. Truth be told, I think I generally preferred the Barret LP. There are a few strong songs here; Octopus, Terrapin, Golden Hair, and especially Dark Globe, which I find quite sad and moving. But there is a quite a bit of unfocussed and disorienting material that probably reflects poor Syd's sense of mental organisation at the time.
I stopped listening to Syd a long time back, but I enjoyed the nostalgia of listening to this charming album again, particularly to be reminded of the sad beauty of Dark Globe.
I worry that people fetishize Syd's mental health issues in the same way that they did with subsequent and similar outsider musicians, like Wesley Willis or Vic Chestnutt or Roky Erickson or even Brian Wilson. It was sad (maybe) that Syd didn't go on to sell a bajillion albums with his former bandmates, but I am sadder still that nobody found a way to support Syd's musical creativity in a sustainable fashion, although I understand he maintained a fulfilling visual artistic practice for the rest of his life.
Listening objectively, I enjoy the charm and original expression of these albums and the ramshackle aesthetic, which was highly unusual for a time when studio time was so expensive. This became very influential, even if not widely heard. But if you know, you know.
Yes
2/5
Anderson, Walkman, Buttholes and How! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCNVIsd0eKQ)
I am not a fan of prog, not a fan. This album is regarded as being a precursor to the full-blown prog of their subsequent records. Lord preserve us! This still sounds like a rock band (when they are actually playing as a band), with foreshadowing of the over-arranged clever-clogs, full blown progressive of the 70s that was right around the corner, especially in the "individual" pieces (fragments really) scattered across the record. There are really only four proper songs on the record.
As with all prog albums, moments of rock and roll appear, only to be lost in a swamp of tedium.
There is some occasional proper rock guitar from Steve Howe, Chris Squire's bass playing is consistently muscular, Bill Bruford is always a star (especially when he remembers to keep the beat moving along) and Rick Wakeman's playing can be helpful when he keeps it under control. While Wakeman to be often funny and charming in interview, the pretentious and widdly-widdly synthesizer overkill is not to my taste. When they play as a focused unit, it's good, but too much of the time, it feels like less than the sum of its all-too-disparate parts.
I did suffer to listen all the way through, but it's all talk and no bloody trousers. And the fast bit in Heart of the Sunrise sounds suspiciously like the fast bit from King Crimson's 21st Century Schizoid Man. As many of the contemporaneous reviews stated; it's just showing off. Prog: it's the emperors new music.
Dr. Dre
1/5
Oof, gangsta rap.
This album sounds great. The vibes are funky, the bass is bouncy and the fluid synth lines are excellent. I always liked the way Dre updated the P-funk feel.
But I just can't get past the lyrics. It's so violent, so misogynistic, so homophobic, it just makes me feel sick to play it. I just can't.
Joan Armatrading
2/5
Oh, this is not for me.
Love and Affection is a good song, but the rest of this record just makes no impression on me.
It pains me to rate this album so low, because black and female artists are woefully under-represented on this list, let alone black female artists, but I not in a mood to give this a pass.
Pixies
5/5
Peter from Scratches Records in Newtown put me onto Doolittle when it came out. I loved it immediately, and quickly chased down Surfer Rosa and the Breeders' Pod (a fantastic record by Kim Deal that really should be on this list). I have listened to Surfer Rosa so many times that every song is imprinted on me. This is an album that I could listen to every day and hear something new in it. It has all the things I like; noise and aggression, energy and space, melody, energy, anger and melancholy. They really wrote the book on the loud/quiet/loud thing. Gigantic is my favorite Pixies song ever -- played it at my wedding.
This album was massively influential on what 'alternative' rock sounded like for the next decade. Nirvana, PJ Harvey, and Smashing Pumpkins all talk about how much this influenced what they did, and Nirvana and PJ Harvey subsequently recorded with Steve Albini to utilize his raw, live approach. This is the first album he recorded for a band other than friends or acquaintances, and it really establishes his professional credentials. He said some unkind things about the Pixies in the years after, but has since apologised and recanted. He has said he wished they had only had a week to record, instead of ten days, as they would have experimented less. I think he is a little embarrassed by the inclusion of studio chat between tracks, but it is hard as a listener to separate those weird moments from the overall experience of the record.
On its surface, this is a very straightforward rock record; nothing too flashy, very straightforward live-in-the-room sound from a standard four-piece guitar band. But if you start paying attention, you get to hear how weird the thing is. The lyrics are pretty out there, and Black Francis is a pretty out-there singer. It's like someone explained to him what a rock singer does without him ever having actually heard rock music, and he then did what he was told; scream and yelp and holler. Similarly, Joey Santiago's lead playing is just sort of all wrong. That guitar solo at the end of Bone Machine is basically just one chord followed by random scrubbing of the fretboard. But it sounds so great.
Notably, this album contains what is probably the Pixies' best-known song 'Where is my Mind?". this song has become a common needle drop in films and television, ads, and even as a wakeup song for the Mars Rover. It is probably their most covered song. never a single, and certainly never a hit, but it is a song that is becoming more well known and pervasive as time goes on, and might even be regarded as a 'classic' song. Who would have suspected when this album came out over 35 years ago? (Read Brain Coney's article for a thoughtful survey of the song's enduring legacy: https://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/42783/1/pixies-where-is-my-mind-fight-club-covers-classic-song-retrospective )
The whole thing is noisy and wild, but with a lot of space and melody in in. A real mix of pop tunes played in a really aggressive punk style.
Peter and I are still friends, and we saw the Pixies together at the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall in the 2014. It was professional and tight and loud, but not as raucous as I would have thought they were in their initial hey-day. Kim Deal was notable in her absence, and there just wasn't the life in it that I was expecting. Not that I begrudge them the right to cash in on their legacy, and they certainly weren't terrible, but it didn't have the spark that this album has. Not a terribly sympathetic venue, perhaps. Might have been better to see them somewhere like the Hordern Pavillion. Or get in the way-back machine to 1989 when they were at the height of their powers.
The Who
3/5
Well, it's a pretty great debut album, especially for its era. Certainly better than the Stones' debut, and arguably stronger than the Beatles. Mind you, it suffers some of the same weaknesses; quick and dirty recording, an over-reliance on slavish covers of songs by Black American artists.
Mind you, the band is extraordinarily tight and powerful, smashing through their live set. Nicky Hopkins is reliably great on piano, doing his best Mose Allison impression. The singles really pop out, and we can see how distinctive Townshend's songwriting would become (especially The Kids Are Alright, which highlight his gift for harmony).
It's a strong example of sixties mod, but I'm not sure it would be on the list if The Who hadn't moved on to bigger and better things.
David Bowie
4/5
I really dig this plastic soul era Bowie. Young Americans and Fame are two of his best ever songs and the two Bowie songs most likely to get a spin when I'm DJing. It's not his best album or even my favourite, but the band is hot and funky and soulful. There is a cocaine sheen over everything, but I really like 70s soul and so this album fits right into a sweet spot for me.
Is it pastiche, or homage, or actual (blue-eyed) soul? Hard to tell, but I can listen to this all the way through very happily any time. The cover of All Across the Universe is the least essential track on the record.
Jimi Hendrix
5/5
Peter Prichard, co-owner of Scratches Records, shared his love of Jimi Hendrix with me when I was an impressionable teenager. When I was a penniless student, he let me tape a bunch of his Hendrix LPs, that I listened to obsessively (favourite record of that bunch: Jimi Plays Monterey - especially the way they tear through Killing Floor). And then when I started collecting records in the late 80s, there were lots of relatively inexpensive Hendrix vinyl around, so I bought a ton. All the studio albums and the posthumous collections, and compilations and live albums, and even some of the out-takes and pre-fame recordings on dodgy quasi-legitimate imprints. Loved them and listened to them a lot in my youth. These days, I don't dive quite as deep. I tend to stick to the studio recordings, a compilation of the best posthumous studio tracks, and a select few live records (Monterey, Band of Gypsys).
The studio albums (and he only released three during his lifetime) are all special in their own way, especially because we know that they are albums basically as he wanted. Electric Ladyland is the polished magnum opus. The intricate arrangements and studio perfectionism reach a zenith here. Nobody had really ever arranged guitars like this before; new sounds appear and drop in to play for a few bars, and then retreat, weaving into a psychedelic tapestry. Double albums are usually, in my opinion, padded out and not worth the time. But I love all of this. It is a complete statement of everything that Jimi could do at the time, with a clutch of incredibly strong tracks, including Voodoo Chile (Slight Return), Crosstown Traffic, Come On, Gypsy Eyes, Burning of the Midnight Lamp, 1983. Even the covers are strong, especially Watchtower, which is often hailed as the greatest cover of all time. I even like the tracks that stretch out more, like Voodoo Chile (the slow blues version), Rainy Day Dream Away, or Still Raining Still Dreaming. I can listen to this the whole way through. The only weak moments are the brief soundscapes And the Gods Made Love or Moon Turn the Tides) and the Noel Redding composed and sung track Little Miss Strange (which is OK, but out of place).
But then there’s Voodoo Chile (Slight Return). This is the Mount Everest of rock guitar. Between the slow blues version and the Slight Return, we have a whole history of the blues, rising from Mississippi delta roots all the way into a sci-fi afro-futurism. It’s powerful and foreboding and mysterious and just amazing guitar playing. This final track on his final completed studio album is Jimi at the absolute peak of his powers.
Steve Winwood
2/5
Steve Winwood has played and sung on some really great records over the year, as a front man of the Spencer Davis Group, Traffic or Blind Faith, or as a featured player, such as his terrific playing on Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland album. And I really rate his playing.
But the things I really love about him are not quite as evident on this album. The keyboard playing is mostly (then cutting edge) synthesizers, and the soul seems largely absent from his vocals.
I know this was a self-produced, home recorded effort, that was his last shot at a career before he gave up to drive cabs. And I don't begrudge Steve his success, after spending his whole life on the road.
But.... this album set out the tone and sound of a whole decade of over-polished, synth-heavy, recorded-to-the-click albums that followed. Given how it was recorded, it is remarkable how polished it sounds, but the polishing smooths off the feel, the soul, the swing of it. It is middle of the road, easy listening pablum, which (opening hit single aside) I find really tedious.
He credits this album for saving his career, but really, did he do much of note following this? This album helped establish the sound of adult-oriented 'rock' for the 80s, and I'm not convinced that was a good thing.
Dust off the B3, Steve, and crank out some soul covers for us. I'd much prefer that.
Neil Young
3/5
I had assumed that this album would be as annoying as the many (MANY) copycat albums that came like a flurry of pale carbon copies its wake, but I can actually see why this record is as beloved and influential as it is. Some great tunes (Only Love Can Beak Your Heart is my favourite, but most of my fondness is based on the St Etienne cover of the early 90s), great playing and singing and some surprisingly muscular playing (including electric guitar)_ when required. I understand why this is the bible for people who are into the singer-songwriter thing, especially if you want the added hipster cred of saying "well, actually, After the Goldrush is a better album than Harvest" (which it isn't).
It's OK, but not really my thing.
Siouxsie And The Banshees
4/5
This album is surprisingly confident from a band that, not long before, reportedly didn't know how to play at all. Not just confident, but a groundbreaking album that established the blueprint and sound of post-punk. Maybe not to everyone's taste, but important and influential and great.
The band is tight and powerful, and the songs are atmospheric and distinctive. Even the cover of Helter Skelter sounds like a Siouxsie song.
But the real star here is Siouxsie herself; she is a powerful presence, with a million-watt charisma that carries the album.
Truth be told, the Siouxsie albums I play most are the singles compilations, which are awesome. It is a shame that the singles Hong Kong Garden and The Staircase (Mystery) are not on the original vinyl version of the album (but on the CD/spotify versions). The inclusion of the singles lifts this to a four star album.
James Taylor
3/5
He's got a great voice, and great guitar style and you can hear how much work went into polishing the songs. But it's just so.... nice. I can admire it, but not nearly enough grit for my taste. A reluctant 3.
Incredible Bongo Band
4/5
This is the only example on this 1001 list (as far as I can tell) of a particular genre of record that you constantly come across int he wild, but is very seldom given any critical appraisal; the studio cash-in record.
Studio professionals corralled together to crank a bunch of usually instrumental covers of some popular hits, and maybe some hastily written original charts that sound vaguely similar (but allow the publishing royalties to be collected by someone close to the project). Some name musicians had quite a lot of success using this formula (James Last is a good example), but often it is an arbitrary band name (as here) or even completely anonymous. A day or two in the studio can knock out a quick album that might sell a few thousand copies. As here (or in Australian EMS recordings of this type), studio down time was used to reduce costs.
Well, this is an example from within that genre that exceeded all expectations. The fact that it has really great band (big ups to Jim Gordon on drums) and was superbly recorded int e MGM Studios means that it sounds like a million dollars. It has a great beat and lots of percussion breaks, which led to it being one of the ur-texts of hip hop. This has given this album a second life and a cultural influence that far exceeds the original ambitions for this record. The sound of this record has cast a massive shadow of music in the decades since its release.
It's a pretty funky listen, assuming you like bongos. Standout tracks; Apache, Dueling Bongos, In A Gadda Da Vida.
The Who
4/5
I really admire Pete Townshend's musical ambitions. It is hard to think of a band that was willing to stretch out into genuinely new ideas as quickly as The Who (this was only their third album!), largely driven by their well-read, intelligent and creative leader, Townshend.
Does it all work? No. But there is a mixture of interesting ideas (the advertisements) and really strong songs here. Petra Hayden's acapella cover of Armenia City in Sky shows how strong the song's bones are (especially the way Townshend build harmonies). And 'I Can See For Miles' is a wonderful single.
I don't feel like it completely clicks, but an amazing attempt to do something actually new and different. And listenable.
Stan Getz
4/5
I really dig this record. I find a lot of soft jazz just wallpaper, but this really grabbed me. It is soft and gentle, but the samba rhythms, the beautiful whispery vocals (especially with Astrid Gilberto appears), the band's undeniably chemistry, and Getz's understated soloing really lift this into something special. Desafinado, Corcovado and Girl from Ipanema are, rightly, classics, and stand out tracks on a really fine record. Not an album to outstay its welcome, it comfortably sits into its gentle grooves, and is very welcome back on my turntable any time.
Side note: Milton Banana, drummer on the album, has the best name ever. God bless you, Mr Banana, wherever you may be.
DJ Shadow
3/5
I initially came across DJ Shadow on various compilations, especially cover CDs from British music monthlies like Mojo, and some remixes. And I read about this album long before I ever heard it.
This is the ur-text for instrumental hip hop, re-inventing the album patchworked out of samples. Less frenetic than its forebears (Three Ft High and Rising, Paul's Boutique, Nation of Millions, etc), it showed that trawling through the crates could yield atmospheric and open soundtracks. It established the blueprint for Dilla and the Avalanches.
Moody, cinematic, and with a distinct trip-hop vibe, the material, is ultimately, a bit forgettable. But a pretty chill vibe.
I do love the cover. I've spent many an hour digging crates in stores just like that. It felt like I had been seen.
Neil Young
1/5
Dimery has a major crush on Neil Young, as do many critics of his vintage. Neil Young is probably the most represented artist on this list, by the time you tally up his solo albums and CSNY and Buffalo Springfield and every other time he accidentally ran tape while he was sneezing or tuning up his guitar or whatever and it was pressed on vinyl to rapturous critical acclaim from his adoring acolytes.
But what is this album but the sound of a wildly successful counter-cultural boomer waking up with a hangover, and realizing that his revolution failed and the old lady left and it's all bullshit, man, so let's get stoned because the whole world is fucked, you know?
And the record sounds like shit. There, I said it. Don't get me wrong, I like a shitty sounding record if it gets the heart pumping, but this is just lazy and dull.
I know there is a raging throng of Neil Young fans who are still upset that this wasn't released on CD for ages, because it's his best album, maaaaaan! But, secretly in your heart of hearts, you know it isn't. It's just lazy whining. 1 star, Neil, you can do better.
Sinead O'Connor
5/5
I listened to Sinead O'Conner's first two albums a lot when I worked at Scratches Records. I liked those records at the time. She was tough and tuneful and vulnerable and emotional and honest and brave. And she copped a lot of shit for it, and mostly, I suspect, because she was a woman. She was, in my opinion, a true artist with important things to say. She wasn't always right, but she often was, and presciently so. She was willing to use her platform to speak truth to power. And she had her own voice, both literally and figuratively. I always thought I preferred Lion and the Cobra, but listening to this album again, it is a very powerful album. There are some great tunes, and she sings them with a real honesty that is rare in popular music. I find it musically fresh and compelling, and it still sounds great more than 30 years on. She chose great collaborators (including the late Karl Wallinger, RIP), but it sounds distinctly like Sinead.
I think she states her thesis herself best in the Emperor's New Clothes:
"Whatever it may bring
I will live by my own policies
I will sleep with a clear conscience
I will sleep in peace
Maybe it sounds mean
But I really don't think so
You asked for the truth and I
Told you"
I listened to this album a bunch of times when Sinead passed away, and watching the documentary about her. She lived an emotionally complex fife, and I feel privileged that she shared some of that complexity with us as an audience, despite what that cost her. I feel like she said things that hadn't been said before and in a fresh way, and in a way that millions of people could relate to. And that is the mark of a true artist.
Duran Duran
2/5
This album is the epitome of 80s pop rock. I was a teenager while Duran Duran were big, and this never really appealed. I liked things that were a little more... edgy. I feel you can live a long and happy life without this.
Listening to it, I need to give some props. The band is tight and the rhythm section knows how to find the pocket. It doesn't rely too much on studio sheen (although it was remixed a bunch of times to try and make it more appealing to the US market). The tunes are memorable, and you can dance to it. The cover design is perfectly matched to the highly polished, aspirational, cocaine-and-champagne, greed is good, 80s vibe.
I always wonder, though, is there something wrong with the way they recorded Simon Le Bon's vocals? It feels like they used the wrong mike, or he stood too far away, or something. The vocals just sound a bit off, you know?
A good example of what they did, and their success was very influential on music videos and the rise of danceable pop rock in the 80s (Bowie's Let Dance and anything by INXS spring immediately to mind). But I can live without it. It's OK if I hear it on the radio, but I have never felt the need to own a Duran Duran record. I get the occasional request when DJing, but I never felt the need to actually give in and buy their records. But it's not hateful. 2.5 stars
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
4/5
One day in August 1994 I received a breathless phone call from my friend Jodie in Canberra. She had just been to see Beck play at the ANU Bar, and insisted that I had to go see the show when it swung through Sydney a few days later. "Beck" she said "is surprisingly good, but you _have_ to see the support band." And that support band was the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.
So, I followed her advice and trotted down to the Metro Theatre that Saturday night to catch the show. And Beck _was_ surprisingly good. he had a much more muscular band than I was expecting based on my listening to the Mellow Gold album, and they rocked pretty hard.
But the Blues Explosion were a revelation. They tore the place up! It was rock and roll in a way that I had rarely seen; part blues shouter, part gospel preacher, part Elvis, part James Brown, but with a garage rock sound that blasted the place down. The songs were barely songs; they were loose improvisational grooves that provided a platform for Spencer to preach.
I knew the name of his previous band, Pussy Galore, but was unfamiliar with their music. According to wikipedia, Jon Spencer had a breakthrough when touring with the Jesus Lizard in late 92, and his performance was raised to whole new level, and woo-hoo was that apparent!
You can see his approach well in this clip (https://youtu.be/zeW-mOXdkvU?si=8FvexCqU-uM11w-1), which was a live to air Australian Saturday morning TV show with an audience of mostly kids. Who else watches yoof television at 10am on a Saturday? God knows what the audience made of it all. The studio audience seems stunned.
All JSBX albums are essentially the same. They don't really have songs, just great performances. The playing is loose and the recording is shittily lofi (although not to the degree of bands like the Gories, who were ploughing a similar field), and full of spit and vinegar and proper rock n' roll grit. It is a terrific performance that makes you feel alive. It's a groovy mix of cheap whiskey and the Holy Ghost, in a slim cut suit and greased back hair.
They were really at their best live, and you don't really need more than one record. Personally, I prefer Orange (which came out just after that live show I saw), but there's not much in it. Truth be told, the record I play most is the Experimental Remixes EP, which I sometimes drop into my DJ sets.
This is great reminder of what rock and roll should be; loud and obnoxious and groovy and sexy and kinda out of control.
Marilyn Manson
1/5
When Marilyn Manson was first big (around the time of this record), I had a friend whose teenage daughter was rally into the band. My friend, somewhat concerned, asked if Marilyn Manson really was as bad as the press were making out. "No," I replied "it's shock value. It's really just the Alice Cooper schtick, updated for the 90s." And, on that level, they did a pretty good job. Brian Warner was smart enough to identify issues that would really trigger parents and other squares, and seem like a proper rock and roll rebellion for alienated youth market. If you want to see how uncomfortable it made the mainstream, watch their performance of "Beautiful People" at the 1997 MTV Awards. The audience is NOT digging it; this was genuinely the complaint of the outsider.
And they had a powerful look and a stomping sound (largely courtesy of various members of Nine Inch Nails and Dave Ogilvey from Skinny Puppy) and a charismatic frontman and a bunch of free media based on controversy. I'm sure they ran a pretty compelling live show. But it's teenage alienation all packaged up to sell. Your parents will hate it, but they still want to sell you the CDs and tickets and t-shirts. Marilyn Manson are not as genuinely dangerous or outside the mainstream as, say, Skinny Puppy or any one of the myriad of industrial rock bands that came before this. But this album was massively influential, not necessarily musically, but in terms of fashion, the look, and the playing the media for column inches.
Personally, I think the following album "Mechanical Animals" was a much more interesting record than this, both musically and thematically, but "Antichrist Superstar" was the record that made the big cultural impact.
Now, here's the problem. As the Beastie Boys point out in their excellent retrospective documentary, if you play a part long enough (even in satire), you become that person. And I'm pretty sure that's what happened to Marilyn Manson. Too many drugs, too much bad sex, too much violent rebellion and debauchery, and now it seems that the insightful and intelligent Brian Warner has devolved into full-time power-freak rapist and fascist Marilyn Manson. He even says in his own autobiography "Antichrist Superstar was about using your power, not your misery, and watching that power destroy you and everyone else around you." Is he still play-acting on this record? Can't quite tell. The horrible truth is that Brian followed his thematic interests down a very dark hole, that led to some disgusting and appalling behavior, particularly towards women. This is not just an artistic statement about destruction, but a statement of intent, which he followed up. And he got away with it for a very long time. I was wrong. Marilyn Manson is not Alcie Cooper. He isn't play acting shock and rebellion. He _is_ that thing, and I can't listen to this any more. And I _like_ industrial metal.
There is an ongoing debate I have about when the moral deficiencies of the artist means we can't enjoy the art any more. Marilyn Manson crosses the line for me, because the art is all about his terrible behavior. it is celebration and mission statement of his cruelty and destructive behavior. He was hiding in plain sight. Maybe he hadn't fully crossed over right at this point, but this was him telling us all what he was going to do. And I can't be complicit in it.
Jeru The Damaja
3/5
It is unusual that I have never heard of the artist or album for a must-hear record. Better than average early 90s NY rap. It does not fall into most of the usual traps of gansta rap (which I cannot abide). I enjoyed the singles, and the production is crunchy and discordant in a way that really appeals to me. And it isn't one of those massively over-stuffed and over-long 90s albums, coming in at a succinct 39 mins. "Da bichez", however, I could live without.
Sisters Of Mercy
4/5
While not being a huge fan of goth music (and never identifying as a goth), I was certainly goth-adjacent. The shitty industrial band I played in during the 90s certainly played to goth audiences a fair bit. When I was a young man, I would occasionally spend the evening at Sanctuary, the pre-eminent goth night club in Sydney int he late 80s/early 90s. I enjoyed their playlist, which included some of the expected goth classics, but also played a fair amount of alternative and industrial music (which was more to my taste). It was not that different from my own record collection, but played really loud with a dancefloor and flashing lights in a pub. What's not to like?
The singles from this album always popped out when played in that context. They are meant to dance too, they sound awesome when played at high volume, and they're pretty dramatic. It's operatic goth rock at its peak. I'm not 100% sure it's meant to be taken entirely seriously. It didn't surprise me when I read that Jim Steinman had a hand in the production; that over-the-top melodrama is really his stock in trade, and (like Meatloaf), I really think this is intended to be fun to listen to.
I find this album fun and catchy and you can dance to it. The gothic posturing is a bit silly, but it adds to the drama and fun.
Little Richard
5/5
1950s artists (especially black artists) are not always well served by this 1001 albums project, as they often focused on singles, and the albums did not always represent them at their best.
But this, THIS is the shit. Six of Little Richard's ground breaking singles (including a clutch of all-time classics in Tutti Frutti, Ready Teddy, Slippin' and Slidin', Long Tall Sally, and Rip It Up) plus some pretty good filler tracks. His vocal styling wrote the rulebook for rock and roll singers forever. You can hear everyone copying from Little Richard; the Beatles did a particularly good impression; the screams, the falsetto, the vocal fry, the phrasing... Little Richard really taught the world to sing rock and roll.
Even sixty years on, these songs still rock. You can throw them in a DJ set, and people will dance. Little Richard is the duck's nuts.
Malcolm McLaren
2/5
Hmm, this is a tricky one. Was this a prescient postmodern collage of world music, hip-hop, and sampling? Well, yes. Was it also a case of egregious cultural appropriation and exploitation of musicians by a talentless grifter? Absolutely also true.
Malcolm McLaren had eclectic taste and the ability to spot interesting cultural movements at an early stage, which, here, gave him a first-mover advantage. Malcolm McLaren did not invent hip hop or world music or postmodernism, but he was the first to package them and bring them to market. This was particularly influential in exposing Great Britain to hip hop culture.
He was also smart enough to identify collaborators (musical and visual) to realize and execute his wild ADHD-inflected ideas; Trevor Horn, Anne Dudley and the Art of Noise crew, Thomas Dolby, Keith Haring, Viviene Westwood, the Mahotella Queens, the Boyoyo Boys, and a host of other uncredited musicians and collaborators who did the actual work. In a few cases, their work was just stolen and included pretty much intact (sometimes with some additional vocal stylings from the tone-deaf and arrhythmic Malcolm). Malcom has good taste, but he wasn't shy about claiming credit for everything. It was Keith Haring who suggested that “perhaps it wouldn’t be a Malcolm McLaren project if it didn’t have a distinctly queasy underside”.
So, what's it like to actually listen to? Well, there is some fun world music on there, but you would be better off tracking down real examples that didn't include Malcolm's annoying interjections. And the hip hop is not great, although influential and widely sampled subsequently. The singles were fun at the time, but I don't feel like they have a lot of legs. They certainly were novel at the time, but plenty of better songs have been released in that time. It is a weird and influential mix of styles and approaches, and introduced lots of ideas into the mainstream where they hadn't been heard before, but would all of these things have happened without him? Yeah, I'm pretty sure they would. And, secretly, this isn't that great to listen to.
Simple Minds
3/5
I was trying to work out what to say about this, when I read Robert Christgau's review, which I will quote in full:
"With more effort than hedonism should ever require, I make out three or maybe four full-fledged melodies on this self-important, mysteriously prestigious essay in romantic escape. Though the textures are richer than in ordinary Anglodisco, they arouse nary a spiritual frisson in your faithful synesthetician. Auteur Jim Kerr is Bowie sans stance, Ferry sans pop, Morrison sans rock and roll. He says simple, I say empty and we both go home."
Cruel but fair. It's a schmick production, spacious and polished, but ultimately, I am not moved. 2.5 stars.
Joy Division
3/5
Really, there isn't much difference between Unknown Pleasures and Closer, so I am going basically re-run my review of Closer. Heretical opinion time: Joy Division were just a band (apologies to Scroobius Pip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWrMGXwhFLk&t=6s), and a barely competent band at that. But the way they channel the Velvet Underground through a Krautrock filter helped define what post-punk could be, and the tragic tale of Ian Curtis is now canonical rock and roll lore.
Much credit to Martin Hannett for the production that presents the shortcomings of the band (noisy, minimal, basic, intense, ham-fisted) as features, creating an austere and claustrophobic setting for their weird charisma.
As any self-respecting alternative music fan would, I own a bunch of Joy Division records. But I never, ever listen to them. Truth be told, I just find them too bleak. I admire the achievement, the atmosphere, the influence. But I can't shake the feeling that they are over-rated, that the actual records are over-shadowed by the legend of Ian Curtis and the band, which are, now 40 years later, inextricably linked by too many magazine articles, books, movies, and a million t-shirts.
It's hard to listen to the record without the freight of all the baggage of the legend. If I squint hard and try to listen afresh, it's a not a bad album, focused and powerful, and unremittingly dour. Ian Curtis has a tendency to sing out of tune, which is annoying.
Full disclosure, though: I might not listen to the records much, but I do wear the t-shirt. It's one of the great cover images of all time.
Bob Dylan
2/5
Heretical opinion: I don't really like this album. Probably his last truly great album, and beloved by many and it has some classic songs on it, but I find this musically stodgy.
I can see how this would make just about any list of Top 5 Divorce Albums Of All Time, I don't really dig divorce albums. They are often full of maudlin navel gazing, and I am always worried about the one-sidedness of the way the story is told, typically being told from the point of view of a man with a soapbox and a bullhorn. I always wonder what _her_ side of the story might be... And this this album is the archetypal version of that, with a side dish of "well, it isn't really autobiographical anyway" credible deniability, which makes it even harder for the ex to complain about having her privacy invaded, because he just says "well, it isn't even really about you, babe (wink)".
So there you go. I don't really like Blood On The Tracks.
John Cale
2/5
The Jukebox Rebel review of this album says "His predilection for the avant-garde is truly abandoned on this springtime ’73 offering, as he explores his inner Randy Newman. Artsy and poetic, the set is graceful from beginning to end and never grates, despite some real MOR vibes from tracks such as “Macbeth” and “Andalucia”." I am not sure that _any_ of those comments, intended as praise, are actually good things.
John Cale is an intelligent artist who has done many (MANY!) challenging, interesting and influential things across the space of his long and varied career, and I own a lot of records where he has had some input as a performer or producer. And this is a sophisticated and beautiful album, (even if his voice isn't _quite_ up to what he wants from it. But it bores me, especially coming from such an eclectic and adventurous artist.
I'd never really listened to this album before, although I know of it by reputation. And I was distinctly underwhelmed, maybe because I was expecting more. It's not bad per se, but I just wanted more. The title track is catchy, and I quite enjoyed.
2.5 stars, rounding down for "disappointing album from a great artist".
Public Enemy
5/5
When I was a teenager, I used to ravenously consume the Sydney Morning Herald pink pages every Monday, picking out the interesting movies that were screening that week that I could tape. It also had the record reviews, mostly by Lynden Barber before he threw his hands in the air and shifted to movie reviews instead of music. Poor Lynden had clearly heard and reviewed a bazillion records by 1986, and he had tired ears. It took something really different to catch his attention. Through his reviews I discovered Kraftwerk, Cabaret Voltaire and a bunch of quite left-of-centre records. He liked an obscure record. Weird that Holger Hiller's Ein Bundel Faulnis in der Grube would get a mention in a major metropolitan broadsheet. Later, when I was working in a record store, Lynden's tendency to review very hard to get records was the bane of my life; you often couldn't get records he raved about for love or money, which the punters found hard to believe.
But, in 1987, he raved - RAVED! - about the first Public Enemy album, and on the strength of that review I bought a copy, and it blew my mind. The follow-up, It Takes a Nation of Millions, was even better - a masterpiece. And Fear of a Black Planet was equal. I bought the first four PE albums as they came out and played them obsessively. As a white, middle-class Australian kid, the political realities they spoke about were largely new to me. Public Enemy were not always perfect in their expression (there are the occasional homophobic, sexist or anti-semitic utterance on record or in the press), but they were generally authoritative and eloquent about the emotional reality of living in a racist society.
And they records sound amazing. I had never really heard a collage of influences like this. Along with Three Feet High and Rising and Paul's Boutique, this is the peak of free sampling, and they wove a completely new artform out of the scraps of what they sampled. It was aggressive, abrasive, funky, clever, energizing, angry, funny and powerful.
This is not a perfect record, but it is both massively important and amazing to listen to. It still sounds fresh, exciting and relevant.
Bob Dylan
5/5
My favorite Dylan album (equal with Highway 61 Revisited). I love the full band rock and roll and blues sound, although some the acoustic number so n side 2 are equally amazing. The whole thing was recorded in three days! There is an exciting electricity to the performances and the songs are rightfully praised as some of the best songs ever written. Hard to over-praise this genuine classic. Over fifty years later, it is still a great listen, with new things to discover.
Alexander 'Skip' Spence
4/5
I generally have a level of skepticism around late 60s ‘lost masterpieces’. There is usually a good reason that these cult classics, beloved by white boy rock snobs and used as a form of musical gate-keeping: ‘oh, well, you wouldn’t have heard of it’.
And I really uncomfortable with the fetishisation of mental health issues, as with similar outsider musicians like Wesley Willis or Vic Chestnutt or Roky Erickson or Syd Barret or even Brian Wilson. And mental health is key aspect of the legend of Skip Spence, who reportedly wrote this album during a six-month institutional stay. He then disappeared into decades of homelessness, mental health crises and drug addiction. He only recorded one more song after this album. It makes for a good story, but poor Skip had to live a pretty unhappy life to provide us with that ‘good story’. In some ways, it is a similar story to Syd Barrett, but without the financial cushion that Pink Floyd’s subsequent success provided.
So, there are some red flags before we even start listening. While some songs drift off into psychedelic nonsense similar to Syd’s solo records), this is, overall, a stronger album than either of Syd’s solo records. The deluxe version contains quite a few additional tracks of lesser quality and focus, which shows that there has been some judicious editing here. Noting that Skip played everything and that these were intended as demos, the album is surprisingly strong and sounds spacious and relaxed. Skip’s guitar playing is generally tastefully restrained. I like his voice and his mumbly style was emulated by many an alternative band, with mixed results (I’m looking at you, Michael Stipe). I enjoyed many of the songs, including Little Hands, Cripple Creek, Diana, War in Peace and Book of Moses. I really like Grey/Afro, because it has a weird understated almost krautrock style, which appeals to me, but your mileage may vary. There is a 90s tribute album called ‘More Oar’, which has famous people covering the record, including Robert Plant, Mudhoney, and Tom Waits. These versions show the strength of the songs.
I was disinclined to like this record, based on its critical reputation, but I have listened to it three or four times through, and have really enjoyed it. It is actually (quelle surprise) a good album. It is a pity that Skip couldn’t get the personal support he needed to maintain his creativity. I am going to rate it the same as I did Syd Barret's solo record, for which I hold much nostalgic affection, because it is, in fairness, a better record.
A Tribe Called Quest
4/5
How did I not discover this record decades ago? I obviously know all the singles (which are terrific), but I have never listened to this album.
I was beginning to despair that I didn't actually like hip hop. The rise of gangsta rap in the early 90s really turned me off. It is too violent, too misogynistic, too homophobic. I find it unpleasant to listen to. And most mainstream rap is heavily indebted to gangsta (I'm looking at you, Eminem and Jay-Z). I have found the preponderance of that on this 1001 albums list hard to take.
But I love De La Soul's Three Feet High and Rising. It has been a favourite record ever since it was released, which is why I am baffled that I never gave A Tribe Called Quest much attention. I have read a lot of rapturous reviews of their records and even watched Michael Rapaort's hagiographic documentary Beats, rhymes and Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest. And I never followed through to hear what their records were like.
And boy, do I feel foolish now. I really like this record, for all the reasons that everyone always goes on about. It's smart and funny and funky and thoughtful and relaxed and sophisticated and silly. This list of samples on the album would form the basis of a pretty good record collection (Beatles, Lou Reed, Hendrix, Stevie Wonder, Funkadelic, Earth, Wind & Fire, Roy Ayers, Rotary Connection!, Cannonball Adderly), and they are imaginatively deployed here in a way that soon became impossible due to legal wrangling over sampling.
I can't believe that I never really listened to this before. It's the sort of record that I was listening to and would have liked when it was released, and yet, and yet.... Well, it's going straight onto my want list now.
Elis Regina
2/5
This feels like Dimery wanted to include some more music from Brazil, so he looked up a list of "famous Brazilian singers", and picked one, and chose their only album on a major label. But the links on the website seem to go to a 90s compilation, and it was hard to track down the right record because she released six different albums under the title 'Elis'.
But I did not find this album particularly compelling or even enjoyable. She has a great voice, full of character, but the backing tracks were over-produced and charmless. In searching for the correct album, I stumbled through some of her earlier material, which was more simply and warmly recorded, which gave a much more sympathetic staging for her vocals, and was more enjoyable to my ears. But it was pretty generic 60s/70s Brazilian pop, and I'm still not why this is on a "Must Hear" list. I didn't feel like I gained much from listening to this record.
Ray Charles
5/5
I am having a really shitty week at work. Lots of stress and crazy deadlines. I'm tired and cranky, and this has been reflected in this week's review.
But then there is this. This album (and its sequel, Vol. 2) are dead-set, must-own, classic records, and so enjoyable to listen to.
Ray had a great ear for great songs, without fear or favour towards any genre. And then he sings the hell out of them, with absolutely terrific big band arrangements, strings and backing choir. everyone is at the peak of their powers. And despite Ray clearly aiming at a cross-over market (i.e. white people), he doesn't tone down the soul in his voice or playing. Don't get me wrong, I am also a big fan of his grittier RnB records, but I could listen to this all day. I've streamed it three times today already. I'm going to pull out my vinyl copies later and spin them too.
Every home should have a copy of both volumes of this wonderful, wonderful album.
Dire Straits
1/5
I lived through the 'Brothers in Arms' era in Australia, where it was even more inexplicably popular than the rest of the world. It went 17 times platinum here, was number one on the ARIA charts for 34 weeks, and they played a run of 20 nights at the Sydney Entertainment Centre to finish off their year-long world tour. I estimate that about 5% of the total Australian population bought a copy of this album, and nearly as many (900,000) tickets were sold to see this tour. 'Brothers in Arms' was played so much that I know the album by heart, even though I have never owned a copy. And I never need to hear that album again in my life, thank you very much. But, for the purposes of this project, I did play it though today. I didn't like it then, and still I don't like it now, possibly even more so.
Let's discuss why. While Mark Knopfler's mumbly vocals and tasteful guitar playing provide a modicum of character to this album, it is otherwise airbrushed, buffed and polished with everything that a high budget 1980s production entailed; click tracks, digital recording, synthesizers, and session musicians (including scrubbing the rhythm section tracks and replacing them with 'more professional' players). Steve Albini passed away yesterday, and I am reminded of a thing he said to the effect of 'anyone with enough time and money can make a record that sounds OK to a commercial standard. But it won't sound like a proper rock band," and that is so true here. This is a Frankenstein monster of parts bolted together to sound great on a CD player. And man, didn't everyone who bought a CD player in the mid 80s immediately buy a copy of Brother in Arms, and then evangelize to everyone within earshot about "how great it sounds". But it is an album with no fucking soul. And it has not aged well.
In a scathing review for NME, Mat Snow criticised Knopfler's "mawkish self-pity, his lugubriously mannered appropriation of rockin' Americana, his thumpingly crass attempts at wit". He also accused the album of the "tritest would-be melodies in history, the last word in tranquilising chord changes, the most cloying lonesome playing and ultimate in transparently fake troubador sentiment ever to ooze out of a million-dollar recording studio". Well, I heartily concur, Mr Snow.
The song that particularly gets my goat is the supposed 'satire' of rock musicians, Money for Nothing, that is the worst kind of hypocritical self-aggrandizing humble-brag commercial cash-in, sell-out, ubiquitous, stodgy faux-rock ever, which actually reveals Knopfler's contempt for his own audience. With fucking Sting on it. There's a reason that MTV loved it (beyond the pandering name drop); it is fake rebellion, designed to sell advertising.
The more I listen to this album and read about it and stew on it, the more I realise how much I hate this album and all the MOR, commercialized, anodyne, 80s pseudo-rock it stands for. Now, I'm going to loudly play something engineered by Steve Albini to clear my ears out...
The Modern Lovers
4/5
Yesterday, I had to review Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits. Spoiler alert: it is an overly-polished, commercialized, bland-rock unit-shifter. It has almost no rock and roll in it. I feel mildly exploited by the music industry just for listening to it, and I desperately need a palate cleanser...
And here it is! The Modern Lovers! There are a bunch of Jonathan Richmond songs that I love (the singles from this album, plus Egyptian Reggae, I'm a Little Airplane, a few others), but I have always had a hard time working out the variations on albums and weird release chronologies associated with an artist trying to get stuff released on a series of marginal independent labels. So, I've never sat down and listened to an album all the way through.
An ordinary band of a bunch of ordinary guys with ordinary concerns trying to be the Velvet Underground or the Doors, and, in their DIY shortcomings, showing us a whole new thing. God knows why record companies even considered releasing an album by this band. But I love the unpretentious, low budget charm of this record, and the sense that anyone could do it. Bless John Cale for producing them without stuffing it up. It is the epitome of low technique rock and roll.
Roadrunner, Pablo Picasso and She Cracked are actually all classic songs, especially Roadrunner, which is one of the great odes to listening to the radio. The song that really grabbed me listening today, however, is Modern World. I love the line "Put down your cigarette and drop out of BU/high school", followed by Jonathan Richmond's laconic "alright", which is one of the most rock and roll utterances ever.
Really enjoyed this. Would buy.
Paul Simon
3/5
This is a really great sounding record, with catchy songs and some really great playing. I remember how fresh it sounded on the radio when it was released. Most of that is attributable to the collection of relatively unknown musicians who played on this, from South Africa, New Orleans, LA, etc. But, as I read about the album the more and more I get the ‘ick’ factor about it. While Paul Simon wrote some good lyrics and melodies for this record, he was really great at taking all the credit for the contributions of many others. I mean ALL the credit. Sure, there are some shared song-writing credits, but Simon decided who ‘deserved’ them. And some of his collaborators have publicly disagreed with his calls, which he brushes off, as he does with all of the controversial aspects of this record. Reading about the process, where Simon recorded session with bands doing their thing, which he then took back to America to edit and top-line, I think he claims too much of the credit.
When it comes down to it, Paul Simon doesn’t think that rules apply to him. He decides who gets a song-writing credit (without consultation). He knew there was a cultural boycott on South Africa, but decided that didn’t apply to him. He spoke with Harry Belafonte to get some moral justification, but when he expressed reservations, Simon waved those away. He is moral arbiter on so many issues, and brushes off any criticism. He is a more talented version of Malcolm McLaren; a ‘curator’ of other people’s talents, keeping all the credit and cash for himself. It’s cultural appropriation, a type of musical colonialism. And, as time goes on, that just feels ickier and ickier.
But am I happy to have been exposed to the music of Los Lobos, Rockin’ Dopise, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and all of the wonderful players on this record (especially the amazing bass player Bakithi Kumalo), who really bring the thing to life? Absolutely. Was it good to give those players a platform? Well, yes. But you can also do it like Peter Gabriel, who set up a studio and record label so that his collaborators could also release their own music under their own names.
This album has some great songs on it and you really should hear it, but it’s hard for me to rate. It’s certainly a better introduction to world music than Malcolm McLaren’s similar magpie bricolage Duck Rock, so I’m going 4 stars overall, plus one for the great musicians, minus two for Paul Simon being a dick.
Beck
3/5
Odelay Part 2. Fun, but inessential. E-Pro and Girl are catchy tunes.
You know, this kinda reminds me of the later albums of the Black Keys, after they hooked up with Modest Mouse. Suddenly, they are doing all kinds of radio-friendly production, and despite the surface trappings of a plucky lo-fi alternative record, with that Gritty Authenticity(tm) and Bonus Quirk, this is actually a highly refined studio confection, work-shopped, buffed and refined as much as any Britney Spears record, and probably with a not dissimilar budget. Even the appearance of Jack White, Money Mark and Petra Hayden don't really add much interest. Did you see how many engineer and studio assistant credits are on this record? It has a credit for a Sound Designer, for god's sake. It makes me nostalgic for the days of Mellow Gold, where Beck was throwing stuff together in a friend's house with a cheap sampler and some hand-me-down instruments...
It's not a bad record, but it doesn't really have anything super interesting to say. I guess you could dance to it, if you wanted, and there a few hummable tunes. 2.5 stars. I note that this album has been expunged from the most recent edition of 1001 Albums.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
4/5
I had a girlfriend in about 1990 who owned only a handful of records, including Blood & Chocolate, so she played it a lot. It was a recent-ish album, even if not his most recent release. (Her other records included Changes Bowie, the first Jesus Jones record, Jesus & Mary Chain's Barbed Wire Kisses, Hair Broadway cast recording, and Them Dirty Blues, which was a box set of raunchy blues songs from the 1920s and 30s). It was also a favourite at a share house I moved into about that time, so I listened to this record quite a lot.
I love Elvis Costello when he is just rockin' out. The band were barely talking to each other, but were a well-honed live unit. They got into the studio and recorded quickly, loudly, and with verve. The album is concerned with sexual obsession and betrayal, which reflects the band's vibe. The reality comes across. Muscular, immediate, honest and loud. Are they classic tunes? Maybe not. I don't really think anyone believes this is EC's best record. But they are like old familiar friends to me, and I really enjoyed revisiting this record. Love it.
The Jesus And Mary Chain
4/5
This album was really influential for me. I started listening to Triple J about the time this came out, and so thought this was kind of normal. Later, I discovered it was not. The J&MC really picked up on the noise factor from the Velvet Underground (along with other influences, like the Beach Boys, girl groups, Suicide, Einsturzende Neubauten, and Phil Spector) to create a "high IQ, low technique" (to quote Lou Reed's NYT obit) pop musique.
It is hard to think of worse sounding guitars ever appearing on record (with the exception of a few of the more extreme VU tracks) before this, but there are some fair melodies under the noise, feedback and reverb.
I still wonder how the Reid Brothers came up with this sound. It is in the lineage of the Velvet Underground, the Stooges, and the Ramones (all of whom I got into after hearing the J&MC), but how did these two guys from Scotland with little or no musical training or background manage to craft into songs that sound this extreme? It is still a wonderous and coherent vision.
I do note the presence of Flood and Alan Moulder as recording engineers. They both became very influential engineers, mixers and producers over the coming decades, and are (I feel) responsible for bringing a noisier, edgier production style into the mainstream. It makes sense that J&MC recorded with then relatively unknown engineers who were open to the possibility of noise. I wonder how much they added to or encouraged the sound of this record.
This album is not easy listening, but I like that. I like that a lot. Anyone who has ever heard me play guitar in public knows how much I like this record.
Mudhoney
5/5
On my first attempt at Sydney University, I was not a good student. Tuesdays, in particular, I would go to my 11am English literature lecture with my mate Grant, and then we would trundle off to Manning Bar when it opened at noon, because Tuesday was band day. Every lunchtime there would be a band playing, usually some local alternative band. But hard to argue with free, right? One week in March of 1990, we ambled up to the bar, where they were lugging in very large, but incredibly beaten up, amplifiers.
"Who's playing?" I enquired of Ian, the Activities Officer.
"Mudhoney" he replied.
"Cool", I thought. The chance to see an overseas band was a special treat, and I knew the name, even if I wasn't familiar with their music.
At 1pm, they shambled out and ripped through a cacophonous and powerful set, largely based on Superfuzz Bigmuff and their self-titled record. They were a revelation. They were loud and fast and angsty and funny and drunk as hell (at lunchtime!). This was music as I wanted it to be. Proper dangerous punk rock that didn't take itself _too_ seriously. As I recall, lots of people thought it was a terrible racket and left, but it sure made a mark on me. It is one of the greatest gigs I have ever seen.
As soon as the set finished, I hiked up to Scratches Records at Newtown and bought a copy of Superfuzz Bigmuff, which is one of my all-time favourite records. I have bought at least four copies over the last 30 years: my original black vinyl, which I wore out (literally wore it out, I played it so much), followed by an orange AuGoGo pressing to replace it, then a CD copy with the extra early singles (which I also already had on vinyl, but it's handy to have on a single CD, you know?), then the deluxe CD edition with the demos and live disc. My wife looks askance at me when I mention I own four copies of the same album, but it is all worth it, I tell you, worth it!
I went to see them a few times that tour, and on their next Australian tour, which was in December of the same year if I remember correctly. I saw them at the Lansdowne Hotel, the Phoenician Club, the Paddington RSL, and then a few years later at the Big Day Out. I love, love, love, their stuff. I had been hanging around on the Sydney alternative live scene for a couple of years, so this made a lot of sense to me. Australian alternative had a lot of the elements of grunge (that noisy, punky garage rock thing, leavened with a piss-take attitude), but this was the first American band that I had seen doing what became known as grunge, which was about to take off.
I love the fuzzy, terrible recording quality, the sloppy playing, the punk energy, the heady combination of angst and humour, the sense of being out of control. Mudhoney were my band. I bought their records, I wore the t-shirts, I saw them live as often as I could. It helped codify my musical taste and also heavily influenced the terrible band I was in for most of the 90s.
I ended up working at Scratches Records not long after that, so I had a front row seat for the explosion of grunge in 1991. Oh, to be 20 years old again, working in a little record shop and seeing bands three or four nights a week at a time when there was so much exciting music happening. While the explosion of underground music into the mainstream was exciting at the time, in the long term, it didn't really turn out well for many people (including independent alternative record stores like Scratches). But that's a story for another day...
My infatuation with Mudhoney did influence me in one way that I regret. When Nirvana's Nevermind exploded, I was pretty lukewarm on it. Everyone I knew who worked in alternative record stores got thoroughly sick of how overplayed it was. I distinctly recall being at a barbecue on Boxing Day with a bunch of alternative music store and band scene people, when my mate Tim tried to put Nevermind on the stereo. There were cries of "no, no, no, anything but this" from the record store contingent. I mean, good record, but you can't listen to it all day every day, and it's not Mudhoney now is it? And so, with a combination of being tired of Nevermind and generally being broke, I didn't buy tickets to the first Big Day Out or to see Nirvana when they played the Phoenician. I really regret that now.
But I don't regret ever listening to Mudhoney. They are still my band. I really love this record. It is an all-time, top ten classic, desert island disc record for me, but maybe not for everyone. Five stars
Pentangle
2/5
As a rule of thumb, I don't have time for English folk rock. I find it tends to be overly mannered, uptight and a bit bloodless. Several albums on this list that have challenged my prejudices on English folkies (Fairport Convention, Richard & Linda Thompson, John Martyn), which gave me some optimism that Pentangle too would be more to my taste.
But sadly, my hopes are dashed. I admire the technique of the various legendary players here, but I just find this lacking in soul. There just isn't any real life in it to my hearing. The only time my ears pricked up was during 'Sally Go Round The Roses', but only to wish it was the far superior 1963 version by the Jaynetts.
Bored.
Cocteau Twins
5/5
Cocteau Twins are a really singular band; they had a sound that is instantly recognizable, beautiful, atmospheric and unique. They are the stereotypical 4AD band; weird, outsiders, strange but beautiful, sparse and ethereal. They really set the tone for 4AD in the 80s.
Robin Guthrie is like the Edge, except even more so. His guitar playing technique is rudimentary, but his ability to create soundscapes with innovative use of effects is amazing. He takes it even further than the Edge into a whole new space, that was massively influential on shoegaze and the way that guitars have often been recorded ever since.
But the Cocteau Twins are nothing without Liz Fraser. Her vocals are startlingly original; tangential melodies, intricately woven harmony parts, barely even in English. God knows what she is saying, but it is like a canvas onto which the listener can project their own emotions. Extraordinary.
Prince and Jeff Buckley were both massive fans.
I find it a bit hard to pick between Cocteau Twins records (and I own a bunch, but not his one; it was very hard to get on vinyl). They are such a distinctive oeuvre unto themselves, that they are just their own thing. But they were certainly never better than this record. Maybe the best Cocteau Twins album is the one you are listening to right now.
Jeff Buckley
5/5
In late 94 I had just fallen head over heels in love with a girl, Sascha. After about six weeks of dating, she’d flown off the England to spend Christmas with her mother for a month or so, and I was pining. I was pining bad. And during that time, Triple J started playing this album a lot, and it really grabbed me straight away. It was unlike the ironic tone and rock-ist approach of nearly everything else on the radio, which was peak grunge era. And I was primed and receptive for the melodramatic, high romanticism of his songwriting. The recording and production was clean and playing sophisticated, with a unique songwriting style and that voice. You didn’t hear a lot of falsetto or acrobatics like that at the time, although it was much imitated in the following decades.
I started listening to the album obsessively, and when Sascha returned to Australia, we listened to it together. We saw Jeff Buckley’s first Australian show at the Metro Theatre that August. We saw his following tour in 1996 at the Enmore Theatre, too. He was amazing live, especially that first tour. He was mesmerizing live, and could absolutely deliver on the record.
Australia was probably Jeff Buckley’s biggest market. Grace went 8x platinum here, and something like 25% of all copies sold of this record were sold in Australia. You can attribute that success to a lot of radio play on the Triple J network, the public broadcaster’s ‘yoof’ network, that had recently gone national. They flogged this record, and Australians really took to it, myself included. I think this is one of my all-time favourite albums, and one which I have probably played more that nearly anything, and I know every note by heart. It helps that I associate it with the early stages of the most important relationship of my life. Sascha and I eventually married, and we’re still together 30 years later. We don’t play this record as much any more, but both get nostalgic when we hear it.
I understand some people find Jeff Buckley a bit self-indulgent and eclectic to the point of inconsistency. I’m prepared to tolerate that, because he caught me at a moment when I was open to what he had to sell; a weird composite of classic rock, folk, blues, torch song, and god-knows-what. This is a unique and pretty much perfect album in my opinion whose reputation is bolstered by Buckley’s tragic and untimely death. I don’t have much time for any of the posthumous releases. None of the hodge-podge of rejected recordings, demos, live tracks and bric-a-brac that has been released since touches the vision of this album.
Side note: I am becoming weary and wary of records where the legend seems to be an important part of appreciation of the record (qv. Syd Barret, Skip Spence, Jeff Buckley, etc.). It seems like we, the audience, are getting some emotional charge out of the story, which is really the suffering of some poor human being. Poor Jeff didn’t want to die, just to establish his legend and prompt a thousand think-pieces on what he might have gone on to create. Death was not a great career move; it’s a tragedy for Jeff and his family. I’m sure he’d much rather be alive than providing a vicarious emotional thrill for record collectors.
The Undertones
2/5
'Teenage Kicks' is a pretty good single (although maybe not as great as John Peel rated it). But I, in all my years of voraciously consuming all manner of independent and alternative music, have never heard a note or read a word of this album.
In the opening songs, Feargal Sharkey sings ""It's never too late to enjoy dumb entertainment", which is an understandable and promising mission statement. I enjoy a fun record of upbeat pop songs as much as anyone. It's just a shame this album isn't that, try as it might. It is almost completely lacking in entertainment value. The songs are banal and forgettable. The production is flat and lacklustre. I suspect that the Undertones were a pretty good live band, but they seem freaked out to be int he studio, and are desperately trying to play 'well', and the attempts to buff off the rough edges has resulted in a polite and anodyne recording with little character or energy, and not a lot of joy. Plus, there is the fact that Feargall Sharkey has one of the most annoying voices in music. Tolerable for maybe 2-3 minutes of a single, an album's worth of his incessant warbling makes me want to scrape out my ears with a rusty fork.
Plus, this record has possibly the worst cover art I have ever seen (and that includes 'Alien Lanes' by Guided by Voices). What were they thinking?
I am bored and disappointed by this album, and not at all entertained. It fails on its own terms. It's not hateful, but just a boring waste of effort.
The only good reason to review this record is to repeat a story I once heard about Feargal Sharkey's 1980s solo career. His record company was trying (with some success) to break him in the USA, and feared that Americans wouldn't know how to pronounce his name. So, they put little pictures to guide pronunciation; a fur coat, a seagull, a shark and a padlock and key. Fur-gull-shark-key. Apparently, however, wags at the record company started to refer to him as "Coatbird Fishlock". And so, forevermore, he shall be Coatbird Fishlock to me.
The Yardbirds
2/5
Jeff Beck plays up a storm, but this album is a transition between the blues purism of Clapton-era Yardbirds and psychedelia. And doesn't really do either particularly well. Keith Relf's voice doesn't inspire, the production is often thin, and the songs are underwritten. I previously reviewed this album about two years ago, which means I listened to it a few times through then. And, listening today, not a single song on this album rang a bell with me; no memory at all.
I know people talk about Jeff Beck's innovative approach to the guitar. But he was just starting on that journey on this record, and there is not a lot memorable or notable that he plays here, certainly compared with some of his later recordings.
While clearly beloved by blues lawyers, this album doesn't have much to offer the average listener. An album I can easily live without.
Rufus Wainwright
3/5
I have previously reviewed 'Want Two', the sequel to this album, and quite liked it. And I can admire Rufus Wainwrights (over-? melo-?) dramatic voice, the wonderful orchestrations, but today I am just not in the mood for his louche charms. 2.5 stars.
Ella Fitzgerald
5/5
Oh Ella, my favourite jazz singer of all time. I would listen to her sing the phone book. This is not the phone book, but a major volume of the great American songbook. A massive project to record a huge number of the Gershwin's greatest output, with beautiful orchestrations that create a lush bed for Ella's incomparable voice. I mean, just listen to "The Man I Love"; it is just so beautiful.
Truth be told, I slightly prefer her 1950 Gershwin album (I picked up a reissue copy on vinyl just last week); her voice is a little brighter and the orchestrations a little less cheesy. But this really is a major compendium of some of the greatest popular songs of the 20th century, wonderfully arranged and performed.
Absolutely classic, every home should have one.
Belle & Sebastian
3/5
B&S are a gap in my knowledge. They came along during the period that I did not listen to new music, and I think I generally agreed (based on my ignorance of their work) with Jack Black's opinion in High Fidelity that they were "old sad bastard music". Maybe because I, too, am now an old sad bastard, I understand the appeal of this record. It's jaunty and pleasant and unassuming. They can craft an intricate and catchy melody, and there are some quite tasty chord changes in there too. Lyrics are often fun, full of little stories. I particularly like Dylan in the Movies and Judy and the Dream of Horses.
I like the quick and dirty recording style, with ambitions towards a lush aesthetic (on a budget). It is clearly in the tradition that grows from the more whimsical end of the Velvet Underground's oeuvre, which appeals to me. It starts to wash over me a bit after a whole album, but enjoyed it more than I expected.
Haircut 100
3/5
Edwyn Collins reckons that Haircut 100 completely ripped off Orange Juice. Critics love Orange Juice and don't have a lot of time for Haircut 100. Personally, I tend to confuse them with Flock of Seagulls (who were more like Haircut 1,000,000) and am almost completely oblivious to their oeuvre, 'Love Plus One' excepted.
Haircut 100 sound exactly what I feel like Orange Juice _should_ sound like based on the ravings of said critics (I'm looking at you, Simon Reynolds). At the end of the day, it's just harmless white boy funk. 'Love Plus One' is OK pop, but most of the rest of the album is a more forgettable version of the same. 2.5 stars
I quite like 'Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl)', which discogs tells me I can purchase from as little as 20p. Sold! A bargain at twice the price!
The Style Council
2/5
I spent most of the 90s playing guitar (badly) in a (borderline unlistenable) industrial band. 'Virtual' Mark Selway programmed the drum machines and generally made a helluva racket. He really dug noise; he introduced me Merzbow and the Boredoms and Oran Ambarchi and Coil and a whole bunch of pretty out-there artists. When Mark passed away about a decade ago, I inherited his vinyl collection, which contained nearly the complete catalogue of the Style Council; albums, eps, singles, the lot. I was quite surprised. I had not picked him as a fan. I respected his taste, so I did attempt to listen to it.
But I just can't. I just never liked Paul Weller. Don't like the Jam, don't like the Style Council, don't like his solo 'Modfather' work. Lots of people I respect really dig the Jam, and god knows I have tried many, many times over the past 40 years to understand it. But I just don't.
As Stephen Erlewine wrote in Pitchfork of the Style Council: "Often, the band came across like they had raided their big brother’s closet, trying on suits that didn’t quite fit their frame. Their funk can be stiff, the jazz drifts toward cocktail hour, and they dive into dance without quite knowing whether they can pull off the new sounds." A really egregious example is 'A Gospel', which is the most ham-handed and laughable attempt at rap I have heard since Morris Minor and the Majors' 'Stutter Rap', which at least knew it was a joke.
Maybe my problem is that I actually _like_ jazz and soul and r'n'b and funk, and this is just pastiche. It's an ersatz black music by white people for an undiscerning audience. I don't find this convincing or enjoyable. By the end of sitting through the whole album, I am grinding my teeth with frustration. It's not actually _bad_ or hateful, but why am I listening to this instead of a _good_ jazz or soul or r'n'b or funk or rap record? It's another example of the tendency of 1001 albums list to overlook black artists in favour of mainstream white artists peddling inferior copies geared towards mainstream (read: white) audiences.
I eventually took Mark's Style Council collection to Scratches Records in Newtown on consignment. They all sold quickly and for pretty good money. I'm glad they have gone to homes that appreciate them, because I sure don't. 2 stars.
Terence Trent D'Arby
4/5
This is an album that has been somewhat overlooked by history. I remember that it was huge at the time, with a bunch of very successful singles. It's a weird mix of very 80s production (the synths! the drum machines! the gated snares! the digital reverb!), but with his classic soul voice. Clearly heavily influenced by James Brown (whose dance style he emulates), Prince, and Smokey Robinson, his vocals sounds most like Sam Cooke towards the end of Live at the Harlem Square Club, where the demands of a show have added a papery rasp to his voice. I love that sound, and D'Arby deploys it well. He can write a tune, too, and there a brace of really strong singles on this record (Wishing Well, Dance Little Sister, Sign Your Name, If You Let Me Stay).
D'Arby is a true soul singer, in a way that was not popular in the late 80s. He has classic and individual tone and phrasing, with a tendency towards histrionics that he usually keeps just on the tasteful side of the line.
Rapidly achieved mega-success and fame was not kind to D'Arby, who was clearly inspired by Prince's career. He took over his own production, moving into far more ambitious territory with his subsequent albums, much to the chagrin of his record company and increasing disinterest of the record buying public. His second and subsequent albums are a little more... idiosyncratic. Occasionally interesting, but often simply puzzling. I bought a copy of his second album from a $1 bin a while back, which is a total bargain. He also copied Prince's habit of declaring himself a genius, which I don't think went down that well with anyone. It happens to a lot of people who get famous quickly, so I won't hold that against him. His brief stint as lead singer of INXS was an interesting exercise; he managed to make INXS sound like Terence Trent D'Arby, which I personally enjoyed, but was a bit tough for a legacy band.
Around 2000, with no major record deal, and burnt out by fame, he changed his name to Sananda Maitreya, and continued to tour and record independently on his own terms (again, lifting from the Prince career playbook). As he said in a 2017 interview on albumism.com:
"I got what intensity of spotlight I needed. History repeatedly shows what happens to those who crave more than they need. My profile, such as it now exists, has allowed me to completely create a whole new world. The law is the law, and we always pay for taking more than we need. And let’s be clear, fame is a pain in the ass, majorly. I am respected now for the work and not for the fame."
I respect that he had the fortitude to walk away from an industry and lifestyle that was incredibly destructive to him as an artist. There are a few precedents (Bill Withers, and Prince, to a degree). The independent career model hasn't been as lucrative for him as it was for Prince, but he seems to be still touring with a pretty hot band and his voice still is in pretty great form. He even turned up as vocalist on an Avalanches single a couple of years ago.
He is not talked about much in record snob circles (too black? too confident? not compliant enough?), but I think that says more about the prejudices and tastes of record snobs. I mean, imagine if he had tragically died after his first record like Jeff Buckley; would this potentially be a cult classic too?
I fear that I have sometimes shied away from playing his records because they are not 'cred' enough, but I really enjoyed re-listening to this album, and fully intend to slip 'Dance Little Sister' into my next DJ set. I'm sorry, Sananda, I shortchanged you. You keep doing you. One of the great soul albums of the 80s (and there are precious few of those). Voice is great, even if the production is showing its age. 3.5 stars, rounding up.
Beastie Boys
5/5
A brief history of my ongoing relationship with the Beastie Boys.
I was right in the zone for Licensed To Ill to act as a gateway drug to hip hop. I was a 16 year old suburban white boy in Australia when it burst onto the radio. Licensed to Ill was fronted by white boys and sufficiently rock and roll to be palatable to musically conservative Australia radio and record companies, making this one of the first easily available hit rap album in this part of the world. Within a year, I was devouring pretty much whatever I could lay my hands on (which was not a lot).
Paul's Boutique just flopped on release. Triple J played a few tracks, but it was just too strange and funky for the same kind of mainstream appeal. I picked it up on vinyl not long after release from a cut-out bin at Central Station Records, with the 4ft long double gatefold fold out sleeve. And I played it to death.
And then in 92, Check Your Head came out. I was living in a grungy share house in Redfern and working in a grungy second-hand record store and playing in a barely competent band, so that album really spoke to where I was at in life. The Beastie Boys were playing their own instruments (which was a big innovation) and increasingly indulging in their hipster alternative posturing. And they are a lot of fun. I saw them touring Check Your Head at Selinas at the Coogee Bay Hotel in 1992, when they were playing their instruments, and they were awesome.
When Ill Communication came out, we embraced it lovingly, because it didn't feel like a major departure from the Check Your Head approach, but maybe a bit better, leaning more into being a band. More instrumentals, maybe less hip hop and bit more funky lounge music. Not a radical change (like the previous few albums had been), but still damn great, and we played it a lot.
And it had 'Sabotage' on it. 'Sabotage' is one of my all-time favourite songs, heightened by the awesomely bad video clip. No budget, cheesy, but funny and clearly a ton of fun to make, it summed the whole Beastie Boys aesthetic in four minutes. I could watch that video every day of the week. I also love their live appearances on Letterman and at the VMAs, dressed in those terrible suits, playing up a storm.
As time goes by, I sometimes wonder whether the Beastie Boys were _really_ hip hop, or whether they were an alternative rock band who happened to rap. 'Sabotage' seals it for me; it's their masterpiece, their signature song, but it's clearly not a hip hop song. Of Ill Communication and Check Your Head, I prefer Check Your Head because of how fresh it was when it was released and how much I associate it is with that special time in my life. But I was talking to Hal, my 19 year old son, who has a different perspective. Pound for pound, Ill Communication is their better album. Check Your Head was a transition from wanting to be a real hip hop group (as they had been on Paul's Boutique) to becoming who they truly are. And they nailed it on Ill Communication. It's funky, it's funny, it's smart and stupid at the same time, it's energetic and laid back when it needs to be, and it knows how to get its groove on. And it has 'Sabotage'. What more could you want? Five stars.
Green Day
3/5
American Idiot; for American idiots by America idiots. jeez, this stuff just writes itself...
I am a little bit prejudiced against this record on a number of counts. But mostly because of Bloody Matthew (not his real name). In 2004, I recently been promoted to a team leader position, and my most difficult team member was Bloody Matthew, so called because his behavior so frequently prompted people to say that. "Bloody Matthew!". He was a major pain in the arse, exacerbated by the fact that he believed he should have been made team leader. He was a considerable thorn in my side and made life unpleasant for me and other people in the office. Example behaviour; the office manager had OCD, so Matthew would go to the stationery cupboard and mess things up, so that the officer manager would have a fit and spend the rest of the day making sure all the boxes of paper clips were lined up properly. Just being deliberately provocative.
One day, Bloody Matthew came into work very excited that there was a new Green Day album coming out. He loved this record; he couldn't believe their 'artistic growth'; it's a concept album! it's political! it's got rockin' tunes aplenty! Just the fact that this was Bloody Matthew's favourite record is an immediate strike against it.
This record is a prime example of Steve Albini's dictum that anyone with enough time and budget can make a record that sounds "good". I watched the making of documentary (which contained almost zero insights, except that Billie Joe is secretly obsessed with Broadway musicals, and refuses to tune his own guitar, and the and was signed by the same A&R guy who signed the Goo Goo Dolls), and the sheer number of guitar overdubs is astounding. The expensive studio and equipment and the budget meant that this record was always going to sound huge. And there are precedents for punk rock albums that are well produced, like Never Mind the Bollocks or Nevermind, but those are still the subject of controversy about whether they are 'real punk rock'. They can craft a fair tune and crank out an energetic performance, but I wonder if I would like it better if they had banged the record out in a week at Electrical Recordings. So that's two strikes.
And then there is the pretension of the album concept, a punk rock opera. I defer to Robert Christgau: " The emotional travails of two clueless punks--one passive, one aggressive, both projections of the auteur--stand in for the sociopolitical content that the vague references to Bush, Schwarzenegger, and war (not any special war, just war) are thought to indicate. There's no economics, no race, hardly any compassion. Joe name-checks America as if his hometown of Berkeley was in the middle of it, then name-checks Jesus as if he's never met anyone who's attended church. And to lend his maunderings rock grandeur, he ties them together with devices that sunk under their own weight back when the Who invented them." Strike three, dudes.
It doesn't surprise me that this ended up on Broadway (winner of two technical Tonys!) I think punk rock was a cheap and accessible musical genre for Billie Joe to get started in, but, in his heart of hearts, he really wants to write musical; theatre numbers (in the same way that Billy Joel used rock and roll as a commercial delivery mechanism for his musical theatre aspirations). Not that there is anything wrong with musical theatre, but 'fess up, fellers. Just be open about it.
I recently watched a documentary about the Descendents, who really invented the genre of tuneful, apolitical, technically competent punk rock. While I don't necessarily dislike any one of those aspects in themselves, this did become a rabbit hole that bands followed in the 90s into a melodic punk rock style that had the audio trappings of punk rock (fast pace, distorted guitars, lots of down strokes), but also the naked ambition to sell a million records. And I really don't like it. It's the same obnoxious alpha jock blokes in the punk rock outfit, which dilutes the cultural meaning of punk; the willingness to examine social norms from the outsider position. And Green Day were always part of that commercial movement, as far as I could see. This album is where their peak ambition gave them the courage to stop pretending, and hire an expensive studio, buy some vintage guitars, and get a stylist in. Pass the lucre, boys! We're cashing in!
Summary: I admire the chutzpah of wanting to sell a bajllion punk rock albums. And they did what they needed to; they wrote a bunch of catchy tunes, spent a fortune recording them to sound awesome, added enough content to seem like a meaningful artistic statement (without being too challenging). But it is the corporate polish just turns me off. I don't believe their Rebellion (tm). It's commodified teenage protest, with almost nothing to say. Sound and fury signifying very little... good tunes, but a tiring listen overall. 2.5 stars.
Korn
2/5
This was an exhausting 70 minutes listen; why so long, boys? And why so much whining?
This album is perfectly described in the lyrics of Ben Folds' Rockin' the Suburbs:
"Let me tell y'all what it's like
Being male, middle-class, and white
It's a bitch, if you don't believe
Listen up to my new CD, sha-mon
I got shit runnin' through my brain
So intense, that I can't explain
All alone in my white-boy pain
Shake your booty while the band complains
...
I'm rockin' the suburbs, I take the checks, and face the facts
That some producer with computers fixes all my shitty tracks
...
You better look out because, I'm gonna say "Fuck""
Preach, Brother Ben, amen.
5/5
As any child who grew up in the 1970s, the Beatles were part of the cultural backdrop. Their songs were everywhere; the radio, bad covers on TV variety shows, school song books, everywhere. When I was in late primary school, one of my friends used to bring in a portable tape player, and we would spend lunchtimes listening to the red and blue compilations on cassette over and over again.
I was around 16 at the 20th anniversary of Sgt Pepper's release when I started listening to rock music in earnest. I didn't own a lot of records, but bought a copy of Sgt peppers on the back of the media attention (probably from a discount bin at the Ashfield Kmart). This was the album that Rolling Stone crowned the greatest rock album of all time. And yeah, it is pretty good. I listened to it a lot, and it was the first Beatles album that I became intimately familiar with. I read a lot about it, and I swallowed all of the received wisdom; first concept album, established rock as a credible art form, first album with lyrics printed on the sleeve, innovative sue of studio, high point of their work as a unified band, etc etc. All true(ish) and I don't intend to relitigate any of that.
As time went on, I have read more and more about the Beatles and their place in musical history, and become familiar with more of their catalogue. Sgt Peppers probably doesn't even crack my Top Five Favourite Beatles Albums List (as measured by propensity to put them on the turntable) any more.
They were so culturally ubiquitous by this stage that anything they did became, by default, the blueprint for "how things should be done", even if one of those things were 'break the musical rules'. Some have even made the argument that their studio mastery created an authenticity backlash, that bands had to prove that they could 'do it live'. But you can't deny the huge shadow this album casts over everything that has followed. I'm not sure the Beatles themselves could even deal with its outsized reputation. At the end of the day, to quote Scroobius Pip, "the Beatles? just a band".
It's hard, really hard, to hear this record on its own terms. When I think about it, I hadn't listened to the record all the way through in over a decade until today. I cued it up and pressed play, expecting it to be a bit tired, a bit overplayed. Maybe it helps that I have rested my ears for a long time, but it all came flooding back. This is a really great listen, and it still sounds pretty fresh. There is an energy of ideas and it's not over-polished. It is barely a concept album (that idea really only lasts for two songs and the cover art), which is a good thing, because I generally find concept albums annoying and over-complicated. There are some cracking tunes, a million ideas, some tasty playing and singing, and it all ends with "A Day In The Life".
Scott Plagenhoef in Pitchfork insightfully commented "Sgt. Pepper’s, possibly as a corrective to the hushed tones with which it’s been received for decades, has slipped in estimation behind a few of the band’s other records, but it’s easy to hear how it achieved that reputation in the first place." And I think that's where I had landed. I was going to give it four stars, because it's not my favourite Beatles album, but who am I kidding? It's Sgt Fucking Peppers. In what world is this not a five star album?
David Crosby
2/5
There are some very talented people on this record, and they can all sing and play and it is well recorded, but there are basically no songs on this record. Actually 'Cowboy Movie' is alright, I don't mind that.
This is the sound of a hugely talented star wallowing in depression, grief and a mountain of heroin.
At least it doesn't have Stephen Stills on it, thank Christ for small mercies.
It's an over-rated cult album, only acceptable for soundtracking a pretentious dinner party or debilitating opiate addiction.
The Cult
4/5
I love this record! It's a dumb as a box of hammers, but sometimes you just need that. It's like Jim Morrison fronting ACDC.
I was introduced to this album by Ben and Chris. I was friends with Ben's brother, but (frankly) his parties were a bit dull, and so I would gravitate to Ben's room where he and Chris would be playing their guitars along to records, which was more my speed. They introduced me to a bunch of things, including this (then recently released) record, which I fell in love with. Ben and Chris have played together in a series of bands over the past 35 years, and I still regularly go to see them play.
I used to feel guilty about liking it because it is really dumb, and I felt dumber listening to it, but it does feel great in the way that only dumb rock can. And it doesn't pretend to be anything than it is; everything great about classic rock with absolutely nothing extra.
Moments I love:
- any time Ian Astbury yells "huh, woman!" or "yeah-uh!"
- tambourine! You can tell it's the chorus because there's tambourine
- homage or plagiarism? who cares? Let's rock!
- the hilariously bad lyrics, especially Peace Dog
- tempo changes! Double time! Half time!
- the bit in Love Removal Machine where the band drops out and Ian goes " baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, I fell from the sky". And the bit in Peace Dog where the band drops out and Ian goes "baby, baby, bay, baby, baby!"
- actually, any time the band cuts out for a few beats to allow a guitar line to hang or a vocal to pop out. They do it nearly every song, but it sounds great every time.
- trash can endings on songs
As Ira Robbins wrote in Trouser Press: "As sensually gratifying as it is cornball retro-moronic, Electric can lay claim to one of history's worst versions of 'Born to Be Wild.'" Agreed. One star off for that. Otherwise, mwah (chef's kiss), perfection.
Spiritualized
3/5
I love me a drone. I am a huge fan of Spiritualized. I was obsessed with the "Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating In Space" album when it first came out, and I would still rank it amongst my favourite albums of all time.
This album is an important step from the 60s-influenced psychedelic infused drone rock of Spacemen 3 to the more orchestral, gospel tinged, psychedelic drone rock. But, frankly, it is a transitional record, and I think this is really a proof of concept , rather than a fully realized version of Jason Pierce's vision.
Much drone rock is a bit more 'rock' but nature (cf. Wooden Shjips or Water Damage), so Spiritualized's more mellow, more lush, a bit more melancholic, more overtly emotional approach is unusual in the genre. They strengthened in their resolve over the following albums, Pure Phase, and Ladies and Gentlemen..., to great effect.
I am pretty impressed that they managed to record a record that sounds this big and great for only 3800 quid; there are plenty of records that cost 100 times as much that don't sound this good. The songs aren't that well developed, but it sounds pretty damn good.
I enjoyed listening to this record, because it is repetitive and noisy and repetitive (which is how I like my music). I really like what Spiritualized do, but this isn't their best work. Three stars. I wish I could give it more, but I just can't justify it.
Fela Kuti
5/5
Oh, this band is so funky... I did some searching to see what other reviews were out there, and some that I came across described the consistent rhythm, the pidgen lyrics, and rough recording style as "difficult" (Sound Collective, I'm looking at you). I love this record exactly because of all those aspects; they are features, not bugs.
The mixture of African polyrhythm, jazz and funk is infectious and compelling. The political content of this album is powerful (so much so that it prompted violent retribution from the Nigerian armed forces). Fela is the real deal, no compromises, and funky as hell while he is doing it. Fela recognised the power of funk (especially James Brown) and its African roots, and translated it back into an African context. The Lost Notes podcast has a really great episode on how Fela evolved his 'highlife jazz' into Afrobeat during an ill-fated tour of the USA (https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/lost-notes/fela-kuti-los-angeles-afrobeat).
This record is surprising, powerful, political, and, above all, you can dance to it.
The Darkness
2/5
Parody? Homage? Joke? Celebration? It's really hard to tell exactly where The Darkness are coming from. They present an ambitious and highly competent fusion of 70s classic rock (most heavily leaning on AC/DC and Queen), but they clearly have a degree of tongue in cheek that blurs the line between being a celebration of what is great about the genre (cf. The Cult's Electric album) and a ridiculous tribute act, mugging and winking at the audience. They certainly started out as a good, fun time, but I think they discovered that it is easy to cross the line to become the thing that you were satirizing (cf. Licensed to Ill-era Beastie Boys). They became the mega budget, million selling, coke snorting, rehab-visiting, pompous (and highly ambitious) rock stars that they had lovingly mocked.
I do like that they are so keen to entertain, which many so-called serious bands seem to forget to do. I have been chided by a performer in a small venue for not listening correctly, which immediately raises the question of "for whose benefit is this performance? The audience or the performer?" It can be fine needle to thread. I recently saw Nick Cave live, and watched him expertly manage the way that the audience interacted with her performance, gently moderating behaviour (such as singing along) to help create an event that was both consistent with artistic ambition and the audience's desire to participate. But he is a master at that. I do love that The Darkness seem very concerned with the audience having a good time. But with that as a singular goal, they do risk not really delivering a listening experience that couldn't be achieved better with an old Led Zep record (or Queen or AC/DC or Aerosmith or Grand Funk Railroad or any other classic rock album from 1974). And some features of 1970s classic rock were probably best not replicated, especially after Spinal tap has already taken the piss completely (sexism, misplaced musical ambition, over-production, etc).
I think I fall on this being a totally inessential album, given that it is essentially pastiche of a bunch of records from decades before, without much more to add. And the joking presentation undercuts its power as first rate rock. That being said, I would much rather listen to this than most of the heavier rock around at the time (like numetal, hock spit) or even the 90s output of bands they are aping (like Aerosmith, shudder). So, not great but not the worst either.
Bruce Springsteen
2/5
A lot of people, whose opinions I respect, love Bruce Springsteen in general and this album in particular. It really resonates for them, but it doesn't for me. I understand that it is meaningful and moving etc, but it leaves me a little 'meh'.
I think it is, for me, a bit overworked, production wise. Springsteen is successful in his emulation of Phil Spector, but you can hear how hard they worked at it (and they did work hard). Maybe I need more grit and spontaneity for it to ring true as convincing rock and roll?
I need a bit more. I listened through, but, honestly, it washes over me every time and I am unmoved. The saxophone solo at the end of Jungleland is highly regarded by many, but it is just so cheesy!
I get that people need cheese. People want music that wears its heart on its sleeve, full of big emotions that they can relate to. There are plenty of records like that that I truly love. But the key to unlocking that love is that you to make a personal connection to the music, and I don't have that with Springsteen. It doesn't have a place in my personal history, despite Born the USA being massive when I was a teenager.
I've never been an unemployed steel worker in a dead-end town, ground down by the American dream, looking for a way out of my hometown in a fast car and my girl by my side, the romance of escape, etc etc.
And neither has Bruce. As he himself admits, "I'm Mr Born To Run. I currently live ten minutes from my home town." (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1xDzgob1JI) He is singing his _father's_ life, and does so powerfully. Watching his Broadway show on Netflix suggests that he is highly aware of the irony of who he is and what he does, and approaches those contradictions thoughtfully and sensitively. And his fan base certainly feel the honesty in his performance. But _I_ feel like I am buying into some form of rock snob working-class roleplay when I listen to Springsteen. _I_ feel inauthentic when I listen to it. I don't know why I don't connect with it, I just don't. That's probably more on me than him.
That said, you can always trust a man with a Telecaster.
This is the sound of a hot rock and roll band playing at the height of their powers. It's a bit rough, a bit loosey-goosey, the timings are a bit wonky, but jeez, this is a band with an unbelievable chemistry. There is a lot of grit in their playing, and Rod Stewart was never better. Are these the best songs ever? Not really, but it is enormously fun. It doesn't take itself too seriously.
'Miss Judy's Farm' is the best example of what is great about this record; the tempo shifts around constantly, but the band are on it. I'm sure there was a more 'more perfect' take, but this one has tremendous feel. In the words of Tom Waits "If there's one thing you can't lose, it's that feel. Harder to get rid of than tattoos." You can hear how Ron Wood ended up int he Stones. Not the world's flashiest guitar player, but feel for days. And, truth be told, I think this band is even better than the Stones for chemistry.
Next time I see this album in a 5 for $20 bin, I totally gonna buy it. I almost hope the vinyl is a bit beaten up. I think some surface noise would enhance the experience.
Count Basie & His Orchestra
3/5
Bruce Elder on allmusic.com writes of this album that "it took Basie's core audience and a lot of other people by surprise, as a bold, forward-looking statement within the context of a big-band recording." I remember when Bruce used write record reviews for the Sydney Morning Herald, so there you go.
Quality became ubiquity, and has diminished the surprise and boldness of this album. This album may have been a bold, new statement in 1958, but it has become so much of the cultural landscape that I often felt like I was listening to a Top Cat cartoon. It's not Count Basie's fault that he so successfully defined what to do with a big band that it became one of the dominant orchestral sounds of the 20th century.
It's an energetic up-tempo listen, with some flashy soloing and a huge sound. My 19 year old son, Hal, has developed a love of jazz, and especially big bands of the 60s and early 70s. I can hear the influence of this album in the records he collects and plays. He _loves_ big horn section, and this rally is gold standard in that style.
Hookworms
2/5
Oh my god, this anonymous, anodyne and featureless band is the absolute definition of inessential listening. Somehow less than the sum of its influences (krautrock, early 2000s indie, mild psychedelia, dance, New Order), it seems custom designed to play well in an afternoon slot on the mid-sized summer festival circuit. But there is surely nothing memorable here. 2.5 stars being so aggressively "mid", rounded down.
The Undertones
3/5
This is waaaaaaay better than the Undertones' frankly terrible second album, Hypnotized, which had no place at all on a list of albums you must here.
This is somewhat better, in that the songs are catchier and generally recorded quickly enough to capture the energy and charm of the band. But, really when we come down to it, they are really just Ramones clones, down to the cover photo. So why would you listen to this instead of the Ramones? You have sit through the insufferable warbling of Feargal Sharkey. I really can't stand his voice for more than a few minutes at a time.
If I had bought the original release, I would have been ropable that Teenage Kicks wasn't on the record. That is the best song, hands down, that the Undertones ever wrote. It's a pretty good single, and I can't believe they left it (and their other single, Get Over You) off the original release of this album. Because nothing else here is that good. Good thing they rectified that on the re-release I am listening to now.
But at least it's better than Hypontized, which is a pile of dogshit. And not in a good way.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
4/5
I am not a fanatical Nick Cave fan, but it turns out I own (check notes) nearly a dozen of his albums, by the time you take solo, Bad Seeds, Birthday Party, Boys Next Door and soundtracks into account. But not this record, probably because it came out in the mid 90s when I wasn't buying as many new releases, and it wasn't really around on vinyl anyway. I really liked his late 80s, early 90s work; it's raucous and smart and sexy and dangerous and noisy. I like a bit more piss and vinegar in my Nick Cave records, and this album leans heavily into the quieter, more melancholic, ballad material. So, reading reviews of this more 'mature', introspective and sensitive material and hearing a few tracks on the radio suggested that this was not really in my wheelhouse at the time, so I think I let this album slip past me at the time.
Indicative of this new approach, I note that Blixa Bargeld appears on only a few tracks on this album (and a lot of the out-takes). Clearly his sturm-und-drang, noisy influence was being sidelined on this record. Blixa scares the shit out of me, but he does bring a real rock and roll edge to whatever he does.
Now, I think both Nick and I have mellowed with time, and this is much more to my taste these days. Just recently, I went to see Nick perform solo (accompanied only by Colin Greenwood, from Radiohead, on bass) at the State Theatre during his extended residency in Sydney. It had been about 15 years since I last saw Nick Cave (solo, with a stripped down band, supporting himself as Grinderman) at the Enmore Theatre, a much smaller venue that he had filled for one night only. These days, he sold out a string of ten or more large shows in Sydney over the space of a few weeks. At the Enmore, he was rocking out, but these days, he was just playing piano and singing, leaning towards the softer end of his now extensive catalogue. He can still hold an audience in the palm of his hand with genuine emotion and humour. He is a wonder on stage. The highlight of the night was 'Into Your Arms', where he firmly (but kindly) guided the audience into softly singing the chorus. It was a beautiful moment.
This album is, I think, an early indicator of his more mature works. I honestly believe that he has become a poet laureate of grief, sadly through some terrible experiences in his own life. I find the way he speaks about grief, love, loss and humanity both in his music and his blog (https://www.theredhandfiles.com/) touching and eloquent, and I appreciate it more and more. This is the first album where he leans into his emotions, with less character and artifice, although the themes are loss of love, arising from failed relationships where he clearly behaved pretty badly. I think I prefer his more recent material, overall, but this is an important turning point in his career.
But it does have 'Into Your Arms' on it. There is an argument that this is Nick Cave's best song (and possibly his most loved). There's a reason he sang this at Michael Hutchence's funeral, there's a reason that a theatre full of people will quietly sing along like a whispered hymn, like a prayer. This song just resonates with people, it operates on a magically human level. It is a song for the ages. Any album that delivers a song like this really must be heard,
Public Enemy
5/5
When I was a teenager, I used to ravenously consume the Sydney Morning Herald pink pages every Monday, which had the record reviews, mostly by Lynden Barber before he threw his hands in the air and shifted to movie reviews instead of music. Poor Lynden had clearly heard and reviewed a bazillion records by 1986, and he had jaded ears. He liked records that were genuinely new and different that he hadn't heard before. In 1987, he raved - RAVED! - about the first Public Enemy album, and on the strength of that review I bought a copy, and it blew my mind.
The follow-up, It Takes a Nation of Millions, was even better - a masterpiece. The first PE album certainly felt like something fresh and different when it came out, but this second record is where PE really flexed into the iconic outfit that they became. faster, harsher sounding, more political than anyone had been before, this is the Public Enemy that really blew the doors off. For a privileged white boy from Australia, they certainly had some challenging lyrical concepts, which made me think about race and racism in a way that hadn't occurred to me previously, presented with the voice of authority by Chuck D. The music was aggressive and powerful in a way that I hadn't heard before. The density of sound and noise caught my attention and wouldn't let go. The use of samples to create abrasive noise, collaged into a tightly woven musique concrete was just mind-boggling to me. I listened to this record on my walkman a million times. And, to my ears, it still sounds exciting and powerful.
Fugazi
3/5
My mate Tim and I used to go see all ages punk shows a lot when we were teenagers in the late 80s, most often at the Burland Community Centre in Newtown. Mostly local bands like the Hard-Ons, Massappeal, the Hellmen, etc, but occasional overseas acts like the Butthole Surfers.
But I know that I saw Fugazi play the Wentworth Building at Sydney Uni in late 1991. I can see from setlist.fm that they played the Burland two days later. I am really surprised that I didn't go see them there, because I had an enormous affection for the Burland. Maybe I went to the Sydney Uni gig because I got a student discount and the beer was cheap. But I have no strong memories of the show at all. It just seemed like a pretty generic punk show...
My problem with Fugazi, like Minor Threat before them, is that I like a little bit more melody in my punk rock. If the Ramones can do it, there is absolutely no reason you can't too, Ian Mackaye. I know I have tried to listen to Fugazi before, and the songs just aren't that memorable to me (exception; Waiting Room, which isn't on this record). But I have played this album through a bunch of times over the past couple of days, and it is growing on me. Here are the things I like about Repeater:
- they are the epitome of what Steve Albini describes as the height of great music. It is the sound of great band playing in a room. They are tight and powerful, and a bit noisy, and the recording is a pretty clear and immediate document of what they do. It rocks.
- Speaking of tight, check out that rhythm section! Super tight!
- They understand dynamics, which is unusual within the genre. It gives their songs a bit more drama than a lot of punk, and it is not as exhausting as non-stop fast and loud (which can be fun in its own way, especially in a live context, but can be tiring to listen to at home).
- The lyrics are smart. You can listen to it without feeling stupid. Shame about the singing (which is often just shouting, covering for the complete lack of vocal melody).
- The instrumentals are actually worth listening to.
The two songs that stick in my mind best are Two Beats Off and Shut the Door. I feel like I now understand and like (if not quite love) this record. I would be tempted to see them live if they played at a re-opened Burland. (Fat chance; it was gentrified into apartments over a decade ago).
The Rolling Stones
5/5
Last Stones album with Brian Jones (who had become almost useless by this stage), and the beginning of their imperial period. The mix of blues, country and rock was really what made the Stones of this period what they were at their best. Some great songs (and, of course, Sympathy for the Devil). Generally, the recording has enough grit in it to catch my attention, the arrangements are becoming more ambitious (choir on Salt of the Earth, exotic percussion all around), without sounding too much like they are just trying hard to be the Beatles. There was better yet to come, but this really is a classic album, and the first of the Stones' records I really love.
Slayer
3/5
It's best in class at what it does (super fast speed metal), tightly arranged and brutally riffed, with whiplash guitar leads, inventive drumming and screamed vocals. I love that there is absolutely no fat on this record; it's 29 minutes long because that is all it needs to be. Metallica; take some notes.
But it really relies on you liking this stuff. I don't mind a bit of metal from time to time, and certainly used to go see all-ages thrash metal shows when I was a teenager, but I find this relentlessly aggressive, anti-melodic and humourless record tiring and not particularly engaging. I can appreciate it as a classic album within the genre, but it just doesn't float my boat.
At least it is short.
The Streets
4/5
Always liked “You’re Fit But You Know It”. Mike Skinner is a really unusual voice in hip hop, literally and figuratively. His Sarf London accent, his weird flow, his every day thematic concerns, his basic production, all help present a genuine picture of a very ordinary human.
Mainstream hip hop lost me in the 90s, as gangsta rap took over the mainstream, and the obsession with violence and misogyny pervaded seemingly everything. There was this perception that “realness” equated to reminiscences of drug dealing, gun violence, and b*tches. This album shows that realness can be much more mundane. While I am not a working class lad from London, I find this much easier to relate to. Skinner’s expression is very straightforward, but his eye for real details is really evocative. Phone batteries running out, not enough balance to withdraw money from the ATM, waiting for friends at the pub, ringing your mum, arguments with your girlfriend, regrets about arguments with your girlfriend, drinking, late night visit to the chip shop. I am not, as a rule, a fan of concept albums, because they are often very extravagant and inscrutable plots (blind pinball players, aliens, paranoid rock stars, etc), but this feels really every day without being dull. Skinner has found the drama in real life and expresses it really well. It’s moving and funny and vivid and human.
It doesn’t sound like typical hip hop. While still based around samples and (generally free) loops, with pretty standard forms, the rhythms are lurching and definitely not funky. That goes for his flow as well; it’s often stilted and rigid, but it sounds authentic, often like genuine speech. The samples are not from the usual suspects, tending towards the classical or basic royalty free samples. Eric B, he sure ain’t. But it is always in service of the songs.
“You’re Fit…” is a great single, and I sometimes spin it when DJing, but I think it is even better in the context of the whole album. This is a really cohesive, relatable, and entertaining piece. 3.5 stars, rounding up.
Ryan Adams
2/5
Well, Ryan Adams, eh? yet another example of the age-old conundrum: can we enjoy the Art regardless of the behavior of the Artist?
Judy Mills, owner of Mills Record Company record store in Kansas City, was quoted in a article in Pitchfork (https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/what-does-a-canceled-ryan-adams-album-mean-for-record-stores/): “As I was a pulling a Ryan Adams box set off the floor, I also pulled his artist card from the racks, and I thought to myself: What do I do with the other artists out here, filling my sales floor, who are alleged to be sexual molesters, offenders, rapists, misogynists, and plain ol’ assholes? It’s easy to stop stocking those artists going forward, but what about now that I own them?”
With Adams and R. Kelly in the news, Mills says it’s easy to choose not to stock them, new or used. “But then John Lennon, Jimmy Page, and Phil Spector, because they’re not in the news, it’s OK to carry them?” she wonders. “Not gonna stock the Beatles? Led Zep?”
Very complicated. And for me, it comes down to ick factor. Does what I know create a feeling of ickiness in me that prevents me from listening to the music? And sorry, Mr Adams, you have crossed that line. Your Mr Sensitive Artist persona feels like wolf-in-sheep's-clothing camouflage that you use to manipulate and exploit young women. And that has a deleterious effect on the music industry, discouraging women from creating art that we might all enjoy, and society as a whole by discouraging women from, you know, enjoying their daily lives. It's just shitty behavior, dude, and you don't really seem that aware or apologetic.
But what, I hear you ask, is the album actually like? Well, it's pretty solid. He's got a great voice and a crack band (notably featuring David Rawlings and Gillian Welch), and he can craft a pretty great country tune. It was a very pleasant surprise to hear Emmylou Harris turn up of 'Oh My Sweet Carolina". She always makes everything better, but it did make me wonder why I was listening to this instead of one of her records (or even a Gram Parsons LP). My favourite song is 'Bartering Lines'.
But I think I'm going to have to rate this one pretty low, based on 1) Ryan Adams seems like an arsehole, and 2) there are plenty of other examples of this type of thing that I can happily listen to instead (for example, let's listen to Phoebe Bridgers record, that would be cool!).
"Oh no!" I hear you say "Cancel culture run amok!" Well, settle down, there buddy, or as Ryan himself would say "Easy, tiger". The accusations against Ryan delayed the release of a record or two, but have you seen how many albums he has released since then? At least six, or more depending on what you count. And the first show back on his apology tour was a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall. He is living proof that a Me Too scandal may tap the brakes for a little bit, but, barring incarceration, it's hardly career threatening.
I just can't listen to this record without my mind being flooded with distracting thoughts of Ryan Adams manipulating and exploiting women. Which kind of kills the vibe, you know? He's not Marilyn Manson level evil, but still pretty creepy, so he gets two stars at best.
Super Furry Animals
3/5
A second album from Super Furry Animals? God help us.
In the early 90s I worked at Scratches Records, as small Australian alternative record store. We used to important copies of the NME, which were about 3 months old by the time they arrived. I would read them carefully to find out what was happening in the UK scene before I put the paper out for sale. It was an interesting perspective on the UK indie scene. Bands would come and go, in the matter of months, hyped on the basis of a handful of gigs and maybe one single, only then to be torn down shortly thereafter. Many bands mentioned were just never available in Australia. It could take a year or more for some more obscure releases to make their way to local release, if ever. I recall reading about Super Furry Animals for a while before I could hear any of their actual records, and being massively underwhelmed when I finally heard their output. With the benefit of some distance, they really were just another Britpop band.
The wikipedia entry for the album says: Although the album was conceived as a reaction to Britpop which the band felt represented a "conservative backwards movement in music" they soon realised that they were in an "old 70's studio making [a] 70's rock album". In a 2008 interview, gruff Rhys said: "We'd signed a deal and we were sort of blagging a bit ... We'd heard about Rockfield Studios and we wanted to record there because they had jacuzzis and you got three meals a day, all the wrong reasons for going to a studio."
I am unconvinced of this record being a reaction to Britpop, and more a symptom of severe Britpop-itis. The "blagging it" attitude, with more concern with hot tubs than producing a great record, is endemic to the movement, I feel. The album is upbeat and fun and mildly psychedelic and reasonably energetic with some good tunes, but it wears its influences on its sleeve, and is better than none of them (also a feature of Britpop). This record is, thank goodness, a lot better than 'Rings Around The World', which is one of the worst pieces of pretentious twaddle I have ever heard.
So, not the best, and not the worst. Just mid.
The Who
4/5
It's hard to think of many bands (other than the Beatles) who underwent such ambitious growth in such a short period of time. Their first album (just over five years previous) was a relatively unremarkable mod-pop album, and here they are practically inventing 70s stadium rock, having moved through concept albums and rock operas to... this gargantuan beast of a record. Thank god they kept it to a lean single album.
I am not generally a fan of concept albums or rock operas; they are pompous, pretentious, overly complicated and nonsensical. I think the "failure" of Townshend's Lifehouse concept helps them here. Not that the record doesn't lean towards pompous and pretentious, but by jettisoning attempts to link a narrative thread, they could concentrate on making the album sound good. And teaming up with Glyn Johns (responsible for a slew of great sounding records in the late 60s and 70s) really helps.
The playing is sophisticated without becoming overly complex, muscular and powerful. And there are probably more really iconic tunes here than on any other record the Who ever released; Baba O'Riley, Going Mobile, Behind Blue Eyes and Won't Get Fooled Again are all dad-rock classics, and the rest of the material is of a high standard. Pound for pound, this is the best they ever played, the best they were ever recorded, with the best tunes they ever had. And they manage to reign in the worst tendencies towards over-playing (I'm looking at you, Moon, and you too, Ox).
Do I love The Who? More admire than love, and, truth be told, if I was going to spin one of their records, it would most likely be Live at Leeds. But this is a dead set classic record, deserving to be on the list. It probably deserves a five, but I just can't quite get there. Perhaps 4.5, rounding down because I'm ornery.
I do, however, really love the cover photo. Mwah, chef's kiss.
The Rolling Stones
3/5
It's not bad for a bunch of skinny English kids playing at the blues. They have a lot of energy, and the drummer can swing like a gate. But I rankle a bit at this kind of statement (taken from a Jukebox Rebel review of this record): "authentic Blues culture had well and truly been delivered to British youth". Authentic Blues culture? Really?
The PBS series Dancing in the Street: a Rock and Roll History (1995) made the astute point that the British Invasion copied what black artists had been doing for years, presented by white boys in a way that was appealing to white audiences, and inadvertently decimated the careers of many black artists. That doesn't mean that the Rolling Stones didn't truly love and respect those artists, and they often gave a boost to said artists by taking them on tour or singing their praises.
But seriously, this is black music reconstituted for white audiences. While the Stones would go on to produce some great original music within the blues and country genres, this album in particular is simply a jukebox of their own tastefully curated record collections, energetically played. It is inessential, really, except as a best-in-class example of English white boys regurgitating black music to massive commercial success.
This is not a Blues album; it's a British Invasion album. Fun, but inessential.
Raekwon
2/5
Oh joy. Another Wu-Tang solo album.
Apparently, this record is Patient Zero for the appearance of Cristal in hip hop. Well, there's a claim to fame.
I don't mind the lofi, cinematic production style, but the ceaseless glorification of the hustler lifestyle just wears on me. I don't need another album about the day-to-day life of a street level drug dealer, with the violence and misogyny that goes with that. I understand that this was very influential on Biggie and Jay-Z and a 1000 lesser rappers over the subsequent decades, but that is not a good thing in my opinion. While this was what a lot of hip hop was in the 90s and 2000s, there is so much more that hip hop could be.
I'm just a bit over listening to records that sound just like this.
Nirvana
5/5
I was working at Scratches Records in 1991. It was a grungy little store in Newtown that sold new and secondhand records, with a heavy alternative leaning. I was 21 years old, and had just moved of home, dropped out of university, and hanging around the alternative music scene a lot, back when the alternative scene was not just an arbitrary genre label, but a generally alternative industry with separate bands, record labels, stores and media. Every week, I took home just enough cash to pay the rent and buy a few beers, and the rest of my pay went on vinyl. It was a heady time to be working in a record store. And Nevermind changed everything.
Suddenly, every store, even the most boring mainstream mega-stores, wanted to stock the hip new alternative bands. While it led to a short period of better music on the radio, major label contracts for bands that you never expected (Butthole Surfers, who would have thought?) and an uptick in sales of flannel shirts, ultimately, the capitalist machine chewed up, watered down, and spat out the masticated and lifeless husk of what had previously been a vibrant and interesting alternative scene, yet another victim of the incessant appetite of a consumerist society for fresh meat and new fashion.
While I have to admit that Nevermind was a pretty damn good record, it was wildly over-played, and everyone I knew who worked in a record store at the time was heartily sick of listening to it. It was literally everywhere, all the time. I remember being at a Boxing Day barbeque at the end of 1991 and someone went to pop Nevermind on the ghetto blaster, to howls of protest from all the record store clerks in the room (and there were a few). Great record, but overplayed. Don't get me wrong; I bought a copy (at wholesale; $14.51. Original vinyl pressings now to sell for a pretty fair chunk of change).
But I skipped seeing Nirvana when they toured Australia in early 92. I was pretty skint, and was a bit sick of them and all the hype, and preferred Mudhoney anyway. I really regret that decision. My flatmate, Andy, went to see them at the Phoenician Club, and said they were awesome. I was especially sick with jealousy and regret when In Utero came out, and there on the inner sleeve of the vinyl version (not the CD, just the vinyl) was a photo of the crowd at that very show, and there, pressed against the barrier, was Andy! I was spewing!
I preferred In Utero to Nevermind as a listening experience. I don't think objectively it's a better album; there are quite a few filler tracks here. But the decision to try to deliberately piss off a chunk of their mainstream audience with an aggressively noisy record was right up my alley. I was familiar with the Albini production oeuvre, so the squalls of noise and feedback and screaming was par for the course. I really like the sound of a great band just hammering it out in the room. Albini really captured them trying to blow up their career. But Cobain still couldn't help himself from writing some really great tunes, especially Heart Shaped Box and All Apologies. I found the whole approach exciting and funny, and this was on pretty regular rotation until Kurt died, when I found it all a bit too real, and I hadn't played it the whole way through again until today.
These days, I find the lyrics overly anxious, angry and depressing. All the self-loathing just makes 53-year old me feel tired and sad for Kurt, a young man who clearly didn't have a handle on life. I wish the kid could have found some happiness.
So probably not (objectively) as good or important as Nevermind, but still five stars.
Calexico
2/5
Tasteful dinner music for white hipsters obsessed with notions of authenticity, but who find Los Lobos (let alone actual Mexican music) too spicy for their beige tastes. This is well played and arranged with exquisite production (reminiscent of the work of Daniel Lanois in its sheen and spaciousness), but the songs are not really there. It never works up much energy. I had high hopes for a song titled Attack El Robot! Attack!, but it sounds like a watered down Tom Waits track that ended up on the cutting room floor. These guys have collaborated with everyone from that southern California / Texas semi-country scene, but really this album sounds like a calling card for session musos on the make. It never gets above "ho hum" for me.
Scott Walker
2/5
Nick Cave sure loved this record, but I don't.
Rush
2/5
Prog, ugh. While I appreciate Pete Townshend's intellectual ambitions to push the rock and roll form into new areas (like rock opera), unfortunately the door he opened led to concept albums like this; aliens, authoritarian priests, galactic battles and a lone guitar player leading a rebellion, all inspired by Ayn Rand (god help me). Why on earth do we need to sit through this nonsensical, libertarian claptrap?
On a musical level, I feel like this is a somewhat stilted copy of The Who, Led Zep and whatever other stadium rockers were around. The guitar playing has little to make it noteworthy, Geddy Lee's vocals as annoying (which I think even the most diehard Rush fan will concede) and (here comes my heretical opinion) I just don't rate Peart's drumming. I mean, he drums a lot, but that isn't the same thing as drumming well.
The only thing about Rush that prevents them from being hateful (merely pointless and dull) is that they don't change musical ideas every two bars (like Yes), so at least you can get into the groove and rock out a bit.
Everything But The Girl
4/5
I am currently on a much needed holiday in a small beachside town in northern New South Wales. I am lying on the couch in the winter afternoon sun with a book, but truth be told I am closer to napping than reading. And I'm listening to Walking Wounded by EBTG on repeat. It's the perfect record for this moment; sophisticated pop music for adults. Smooth, clever, warm and inviting. The electronic production bed is the ideal foundation for Tracey Thorn's vocals, which is the real star of this record. I've always loved her voice, notably on her guest appearances on Massive Attack's Protection album. EBTG clearly learnt from that and the success of the remix of 'Missing' and realised that this trip-hop/dance backing was a perfect frame for her lyrics and voice. There are actual songs here, that reveal their pleasures shyly over repeated listens. Too good.
John Martyn
4/5
This is possibly the most laid-back album I have ever heard. Smooth, jazzy, mellow without being mere wallpaper. The mixture of jazz, folk, blues and a little bit of rock is wonderful. I knew the title track already from a chill out compilation cd that came attached to the cover of those expensive UK music mags (Q or Mojo or Uncut) that I used to buy in the late 90s and early 2000s. They were a pretty great way to be introduced to new music, especially when the disc was thematically curated (chill out! The roots of hip hop! Songs that inspired REM!). So I first heard the song Solid Air squeezed between Nick Drake (makes sense) and Groove Armada (but more of a stretch).
Listening to this whole album I am surprised at how much each song has its own identity. I listened to this three times through in a trot. This goes onto my want list. Was it massively influential? Possibly not, but a great, great record
Bob Dylan
4/5
Blonde on Blonde; what can you say about this album that hasn't been said before?
It is really great, but secretly, I don't enjoy it all that much. There are some all time classic songs and performances on here, but I still find it a bit like homework. As a record collector, of course I have a copy on my shelves, but it is not the Dylan album I reach for. And I find it a bit long. truth be told, I think it could have been trimmed to an outstanding single album (much like Highway 61 Revisited or Bringing It All Back Home). But Dylan's gonna Dylan, and you can't stop him..
Brian Eno
5/5
When I was a teenager, it was hard to expand your musical horizons. I couldn't afford many records, and in any case, my shopping was largely restricted to the Kmart or the Hercules Street Record Bar in Ashfield and mail order from the World Record Club. I hadn't discovered the world of alternative record shops, record fairs or second hand yet. So, while I would read about whatever I could, the best ways to try and hear more music was constant radio listening (especially late night Triple J), taping albums from friends or borrowing cassettes from the local library at Campsie.
When I was 14 or 15, I borrowed 'More Frank Than Blank', a compilation drawn from Eno's 73-77 song-oriented albums. I had some awareness of his name, but didn't know his music. I confess, I did not get it at the time, but in the 40- years since I have learned to love his tangential approach to song-writing and production.
Truth be told, I prefer these, his early more-rock albums (see also Before and After Science. That is a banger). There is a murderer's row of interesting musicians playing on this album, all doing really interesting things. And the (sometimes tenuous) connection to rock gives it a framework I can understand and enjoy. There is still a desire to write (and sing) actual songs, even if they are weird and chaotic and unnerving, which is pretty rock and roll. He was too curious to make many more records like this himself, but he left the doors of possibility open, and many followed through after him.
I still listen to this pretty regularly. When I spin albums on vinyl, I usually spin a single side, and this album gets a spin on the deck from time to time, usually side 1. It was fun to listen to the whole thing through today. I also have a really long spotify playlist (>24 hours) that my son Hal and I curated together for long car drives, and it has a few tracks from this album; Needles in the Camel's Eye and Baby's On Fire. I'm pretty sure I added them, but now Hal likes them too. That's top class parenting, there.
Drive-By Truckers
3/5
Well, "southern rock" and "rock opera" are both red flags for me, so I went into this with some trepidation. Neither are my thing. But this album lacked the macho posturing and barely concealed racism that tends to blight the former and the ridiculous plotting and clever clogs pretention that ruins the latter. It is straight forward rock. I really dig the ragged and unpolished production. They can craft a tune, they can play rock, and there is enough grit in it to feel real and heart-felt.
Points against: it is still a bit bloated, a sin that affects all double albums. There are songs that could definitely been trimmed, and it can geta bit repetitious. I wish they had the intestinal fortitude to whittle it down to the strongest material (maybe at the cost of the narrative cohesion), and it would have made a really strong single album. And the cover art is frankly ugly. And did we really need another ode to the burdens of the road? It's well crafted, but I have heard most of this before (although my favourite song was Road Case, a fresh take on touring life).
Pere Ubu
2/5
Back when I were young, in the mid 80s, it was hard to track down truly left-of-centre music. Here in Australia, it meant listening to Triple J late at night on the off chance they played something really out-there and then haunting stores like Red Eye Records to see if you could find vinyl, hopefully without getting gouged for expensive imports. (I once made the naive mistake of buying a pricey imported Canadian edition of a Severed Heads album, not realizing that they were, in fact, a Sydney band and there were much more reasonably priced local pressings to be had). That is how, for instance, I discovered The Residents, who I think could be considered in the same sphere as Pere Ubu. Their 13th Anniversary Show Live in Japan album was briefly available as a cheap local pressing on AIM, so I snapped it up and spun it obsessively for at least a year. I loved it, partly because it was so hard to find these things. It was exciting to be challenged by music in that kind of way.
I can imagine that I might have had a similar relationship with Pere Ubu if I had access to this record when I was 15. I have certainly read a lot about them; Simon Reynolds is almost hagiographic in his description of the band, especially their early years, in his wonderful survey of postpunk 1978-1984 'Rip It Up and Start Again' (highly recommended). On paper, this should be right up my alley; abstract, intellectual, industrial postpunk, with weird noises and a rhythm section described as "the tank side". But Reynolds quotes Dave Thomas as saying "I was totally obsessed with the abstract", and cites the massive influence of Captain Beefheart, although studiously avoiding any blues elements at all (which, frankly, are the best bits of Beefheart).
The result is, often, an unfocussed mess, more idea than execution. There are a handful of strong songs on the record (Non-alignment Pact, Modern Dance, Street Waves) that I quite like. I would totally dig an EP of songs like that. But many of the tracks are more interesting in the concept than the actual listening experience. It doesn't help that Dave Thomas can really only sing one melody, which gets tedious as we move into the second half stretch.
So, 2.5 stars for having a few good songs (which certainly makes this better than Dub Housing, which doesn't have any). But I'm rounding down, because I'm cranky. Maybe if I'd spun this obsessively when I was a teenager, I'd love this, but these days I just don't have the time and energy.
Bee Gees
1/5
This is the most annoyingly mediocre piece of forgettable try-hard rubbish I have heard in a long time. Other than having their first US #1 single (How can you mend a broken heart?) for a group that LATER became massive and influential (with a wildly different sound), this does NOTHING to justify its inclusion on a list of must-hear albums. This just makes me question the clear thinking of the list compiler. 47 minutes of my life that I will never get back. (At least it wasn't the 53 minute version. Thank the lord for small mercies).
I am really struggling to get through this. It sounds like everyone involved in the recording was loaded to the gills on valium, mandrax, quaaludes or similar. I think it would be a better listening experience if I was similarly sedated.
Bobby Womack
4/5
Bobby Womack is a legendary talent. Personally, my tastes lean towards his grittier 60s and 70s recordings (10/10, would recommend), and I was not at all familiar with this record. 80s RnB is not typically my jam; a little too smooth, a little too polished. And this album is certainly awash with slick musicianship. The production is clean and smooth, and the playing is always tasteful. But it's Bobby's vocals that really lift this from being simply 80s pastel wallpaper. His soul mastery, steeped in gospel, with the right amount of grit and rasp, makes this album really soar. Layer on the gospel choir backing on 'Where Do We Go From Here' (which is kind of an odd song), and you have something really special. So, too my taste, not the Bobby Womack album I would have chosen, but still great to have it on the list. it was huis most successful album and, in fairness, is one of the best RnB records of the decade.
Side note: Bobby looks absolutely smokin' on the cover. That jacket, those sunglasses, totally of their era, but he carries them off with his million watt charisma.
Hole
3/5
Courtney Love is a genuine rock star. Intense, angry, articulate, unpredictable, controversial, ambitious, unfiltered, strong, damaged, impulsive, charismatic. She has copped a lot of flack over the years, some self-inflicted damage, but a lot of grief for being crime of being a woman.
This album came at an interesting time when a major label would drop significant coin on a very abrasive band from the punk tradition to record like they were Fleetwood Mac (a comparison that they would acknowledge themselves, following their cover of Gold Dust Woman on the Crow soundtrack). This has all the hallmarks of a major label blockbuster production; big name producer, 9 months of sessions in various expensive studios across multiple continents, high profile songwriting collaborations, replacing the drummer's tracks with a session guy, drama, drugs, balancing an acting career, etc etc.
If you had asked me five years earlier if Courtney Love and colleagues had a big shiny major label rock album in them, I would have scoffed. They were an angry, shouty punk band, with a controversial point of view, and I was chuffed that they had been given enough money and support to make 'Live Through This', which I regard as their artistic peak. A great sounding record, but still true to who they were and what they did best (energetic, noisy, uncompromising).
While Celebrity Skin is still, I believe, true to Courtney's vision and voice, although I think it is a bit uncomfortable and a stretch of her abilities to try and make a mainstream hard rock record. But try and succeed they did, and this was a substantial success. The singles are pretty listenable, but, to my own tastes, I prefer it when Courtney gets a chance to really cut loose. For me, Live Through This was the perfect balance between decent production and wild abandon. This record, by way of contrast, aims for the radio play (which they achieved) and mainstream sales (which they achieved). It's just not as much to my taste, but a successful effort at what they were aiming for.
As a coda, I think you can really see that this was the beginning of the end for the band. The process of recording the record effectively forced Patty Schemel out of the band, and interviews with Melissa auf der Maur and Eric Erlandson suggest that maybe this approach wasn't quite their preference. While Courtney achieved her ambition of producing a mainstream success, I don't think this satisfied her (in retrospect), and the band (in this form) never made another album. Be careful what you wish for, Courtney, you might get it.
Dinosaur Jr.
4/5
In the late 80s, when I was a teenager, Tim and I were pretty inseparable. We used to hang out a lot in our suburban bedrooms listening to music and occasionally going out to see all-ages punk and hardcore shows. Tim was a skateboarder, but I was never sufficiently coordinated or brave to learn.
Tim once told me that he suspected he was listening to too much metal and hardcore when he heard Dinosaur Jr's cover of 'Just Like Heaven' on the radio and thought it was the Cure (at least until the huge roar comes in at the end of the song). He did buy a copy of this album as a result (probably in 1988) and we played it a lot, even though it turned out that 'Just Like Heaven' wasn't on the original album release.
After we left school, I started at uni (unsuccessfully) and working at a record store. Tim, after an initial stint working IT helpdesk at the futures exchange, ended up at the studio manager of 2SER student radio at Macquarie University. We formed a band together and started seeing a lot of live shows. Neither of us was doing well on the girlfriend front, so we had a lot of time for music.
I know we saw Dinosaur Jr on their 1989 Australian tour. My memory was that was in the student bar at Macquarie Uni, but I can't see a record of them ever playing there. More likely it was at the Lansdowne Hotel (a regular haunt of ours) or the Paddington RSL. I do remember that they were loud as fuck and J Mascis didn't seem overwhelmed to be there.
Being young at the time, I don't think I realized how revolutionary this album was. It was one of the first proto-grunge records and was clearly highly influential on shoegaze, especially the way J. leaned on that wah pedal, using it as a broad filter rather than an expression effect like Jimi Hendrix. I copied that particularly trick myself int eh terrible band I played in during the 90s. And I was seeing a lot of really noisy alternative Australian bands (including a foray into the Evil Star Hotel scene of Black Eye Records bands; Lubricated Goat, Munroe's Fur, Kiss My Poodle's Donkey, Box the Jesuit, Thug, etc), so the heavy noise factor didn't seem that unusual to me. It was a pretty good record that we played a fair bit, and Tim and I thought it was kinda normal.
You're Living All Over Me wasn't one of my all time favourite records, mostly because J. Mascis' laconic deadpan drawl is kind of annoying. But there are a few really great songs on here (Little Fury Things, Sludgefest, In a Jar), and even better if you get the re-issue that has Just Like Heaven on it. Totally worth a listen.
Buena Vista Social Club
4/5
When my kids were little and money was tight, friends of the family Bob and Wendy let us borrow their house at Tura Beach near Merimbula for a holiday, which was awesome. They didn't have a large CD collection, but this album was the pick of the bunch, and I flogged it for the full week we stayed there. It's a great listen for a summer holiday, with the kids gamboling around, and just chilling.
I've read the criticisms (not really the state of Cuban music, overly nostalgic, only got attention because of Ry Cooder). it is a challenge for world music to get attention on its own merits, without the involvement of a champion to make it more 'palatable' to Western audiences, but Ry Cooder's influence here is much more muted than other examples of world music being regurgitated for mainstream Western markets (most egregious examples: Duckrock or Graceland, both on this 1001 albums list).
And it is true that most of the music and artists on this record are more representative of Cuban music in the 1940s and 1950s. It is a highly nostalgic for a time and place that we have never visited (and possibly never really existed), an anemoia. It's like the throwback fashions and old Cadillac that appear on the cover of the album. Is it any less cool because of it? I think not. The history of this record seems a little less exploitative than, say, Graceland or Duckrock. A number of Cuban musicians got a real boost onto the world stage for some late career success, and good on them.
The laid back tempo, the Latin feel, the great singing, the warm production and tasteful playing make this a really pleasant album to listen to. Sounds great, is great. Highly recommended for summer afternoons.
Erykah Badu
4/5
Jazz and soul inflected, with some strong songs, the album is laid back and meanders a bit, but this reflects the way it was made. The album is long and unfocussed for a reason; it's the vibe. Possibly one of the strongest of the soulquarian/neo-soul albums of this period, Badu's voice is at its peak. Questlove and (especially) Dilla bring their woozy rhythms to play. Some terrific players guesting, like Questlove, Pino Palladino, Dilla, Roy Ayers, Betty Wright.
Neosoul really did it for me; the mix of analogue soul approach with a hip hop sensibility was right up my alley, and this album is one of the best. Mwah - chef's kiss.
I confess that Jill Scott is actually my favourite artist of that soulquarian/neosoul scene. I saw both Jill Scott and Erykah Badu live in Sydney in 2013/14, and fell hard for Ms. Scott; she's the bomb. It doesn't diminish my love and appreciation of this terrific album.
Incubus
2/5
I read this quote from singer Brandon Boyd about recording the album "When we're making music together, it's like five men making love — in a very platonic sense." And that perfectly captures this record; it is the sound of five men standing in a circle with their pants around their knees, awkwardly tugging on each other's limp dicks and trying not to make eye contact. "Making love, but platonic" -- get real, gentlemen, if you're gonna fuck, then fuck. Enough of this half-hearted teasing.
Jeez, this is incredibly dull. It's loud, but all the energy has been washed out by the over-polished late 90s alt-metal production. The singer wouldn't know a catchy melody if it stabbed him in the ear. And the interminable scratching!
The wikipedia article is full of quotes from reviews that damn with faint praise:
"Incubus had found a beta-male approach to new-metal"
"On this effort, Incubus seems more concerned with playing with sounds and differentiating themselves from Kid Rock than they do with making enjoyable music."
"With the bland, radio friendly offering Make Yourself, it looks like Incubus is more likely to get compared to the likes of The Goo Goo Dolls and Sugar Ray."
This is the worst kind of forgettable and tuneless alt-metal, engineering by a major label to shift units. It doesn't even have the conviction of mindless aggression like most nu-metal (your Korns, your Deftones, your Bizkits Limp). Don't get me wrong, I despise all those nu-metal bands with the burning heat of a thousand suns. This is anodyne and insipid, but at least it isn't hateful. Neither hot nor cold, I spit it out of my mouth. 1.5 stars, rounding up to differentiate this from shit I really hate.
U2
3/5
Michael and Richard were mates at my high school in the mid 80s who were big on U2. We used to hang around in the music rooms at lunch time a bit. They raved constantly about U2, wouldn't talk about anything else, got VERY excited about paying far too much money for a dodgy live bootleg LP from Scratches in Newtown (I later became friends with the store owner. He confessed he did not remember the particular bootleg, but was pretty sure that it was shit).
But, for all their endless enthusiasm, I didn't get it. U2 just didn't move me. Too earnest, too preachy (but unclear exactly what they were preaching about - was Bono pushing his highly controversial "war is bad" message?), too bombastic, trying too hard.
When the Joshua Tree came out, I could see what they were trying to achieve, but I still find that they tend towards being a large relatively blank canvass for the listener to project their own ideas onto, but I'm never really sure what they are going on about, especially on these earlier records.
Sid Smith, writing for the BBC, said "Whilst there’s no denying the youthful energy and industrial quantities of testosterone on display, it’s something of a mixed rattlebag that highlights the pros and cons of the band. After a while all that breathless beseeching, fiery indignation and BIG guitar heroics grows a tad wearisome; a bit like being shouted at by someone who means well but doesn’t know when to turn the volume down." Well, I couldn't have said it better myself.
I kind of like the confidence of this little band going all out like they are the most important band in the world, years before they achieved that goal. But the widescreen ambition doesn't resonate for me. It was a couple more albums before they produced anything I really liked.
And U2's greatest weakness is particularly evident on this album; U2's rhythm section cannot swing. They can, arguably, rock when they try. But they cannot roll. 'Nuff said.
2.5 stars, rounding up.
Bruce Springsteen
4/5
This is my favorite Springsteen album by a significant margin, and the only one I ever choose to put on the turntable. Generally, I find his anthemic approach just far too bombastic. Maybe I find his overconfidence off-putting and I don't relate to his characters or stories, at least in the way they are presented.
But here, the stripped down (demo) production creates a spooky space that lets his narratives be complex and unsettling. These are like short stories, vividly and evocatively told with a clear specificity. I acknowledge that these are facets of his songwriting generally, the volume and density of his arrangements distill everything down to an anthem that swamps any subtlety. Like the way that many people think 'Born in the USA' is a work of simple and unproblematic patriotism (despite the lyrics).
While I don't enjoy the majority of his musical output, I like Springsteen himself, especially as he presents himself in his one-man Broadway show. It's funny, self-reflective, acknowledging the complexity of life. And, with the volume turned down here, this album is a rare early sign that Bruce could do that.
I like the minimal playing. You can really hear the influence of Suicide (a band I love, but who would have thought Bruce did too?), especially on State Trooper.
Writing this review, I think the aspect of Springsteen's output that I generally object to is the E Street Band. They are a confident and competent bar band who accidentally ended up playing stadiums. They have the confidence to make it work, and Springsteen's sizable fan base clearly enjoy what they do, but it's not to my taste.
Nebraska was a brave choice by Bruce to release a record that is unlike anything else he ever did. I'm really glad he did, because it speaks to me.
This is the only Springsteen album I really like.
The Velvet Underground
4/5
I love the Velvet Underground. When I was in first year uni, a girl I had a crush on (unrequited, sadly) introduced me to the first VU (banana) album. What a revelation that was! As noted in Lou Reed's obituary in the NY Times, the Velvet Underground "wrought gradual but profound impact on the high-I.Q., low-virtuosity stratum of punk, alternative and underground rock around the world." As a young man, the first two VU albums were the ones I played constantly the noise, the power, the abrasiveness, the lyrics that explored the edges of society. They were the blueprint for many forms of alternative music that I love, including punk, alternative, krautrock, noise rock, drone, no wave etc. I did a quick search through the 700or so reviews I have already written as part of this project, and explicit references to the Velvets appear in at least 30 of them.
I used to play this album a lot when I was 19, but I confess it has been decades since I played it all the way through. But it all came rushing back; this album is noisy and distorted and abrasive, but I still find it quite exciting. It is a definite retreat from beauty compared to their previous record and frankly any other record ever released at that time. 25 minutes of the album are two noise/drone songs (The Gift and Sister Ray), which means that there are really only four real songs on the album. White Light/White Heat is awesome, but really, the songwriting on this record is weaker than the Banana album or the S/T. But the drive and fury of this record is really something else! I think we can call out John Cale as MVP on this record, but the secret sauce really is Moe Tucker, who keeps everything driving forward, even when everything else is screeching chaos.
Not their best record, but what a world changing record this was.
a-ha
2/5
Great single, with a terrific video, fantastic haircuts, catchy hook, great voice, and awesome cheekbones. I really like that bit in the chorus where the drums go to half time for a few bars, then kick back it as the vocal melody really goes through the roof. One of the all-time great moments in pop.
Oh wait, there's another song? A whole album? I didn't realise.
I did listen to the whole thing all the way through. it's a pretty good synth pop production of its day, but there is not a single song on here anywhere near as good as "Take On Me". Everything else on this record is completely forgettable. And, to be frank, "Take On Me" was so ubiquitous when it first came out that I don't really ever need to hear it again.
Jimi Hendrix
5/5
Peter Prichard, co-owner of Scratches Records, shared his love of Jimi Hendrix with me when I was an impressionable teenager. When I was a penniless student, he let me tape a bunch of his Hendrix LPs, that I listened to obsessively (favourite record of that bunch: Jimi Plays Monterey - especially the way they tear through Killing Floor). The first Hendrix album I bought with my own money was a UK version of Are You Experienced?, which was a great place to start. And then when I started collecting records in earnest in the late 80s, there were lots of relatively inexpensive secondhand Hendrix vinyl around, so I bought a ton. All the studio albums, posthumous releases, live albums, pre-fame appearances on other people's records, BBC radio sessions, a whole bunch of things. These days, I mostly stick to the (later) studio releases and a handful of notable live albums (Band of Gypsys, Monterey). Truth be told, it's a been a minute since I span a lot when I was young, and became so ingrained I didn't feel the need to listen any more. I have a similar relationship with Beatles records.
So, it was a great pleasure to spin this again. I was debating whether to play the US or UK versions, but then, when I checked on spotify, it looks like the current state of the release is a 17 track combined version with all tracks from both versions, which includes the A and B sides of all the singles (which didn't feature on the original UK version). Well, ain't that a terrific listen! I was all prepared to get into a deep discussion about the merits of the two versions, but no longer necessary! This combined version is absolutely 1000% one of the greatest rock releases of all time.
Playing through, every track came back to me. I could sing all to all the words, and even many of the solos. While Jimi was clearly basing his concept on Cream (power trio format, over-zealous jazz trained drummer, busy bass player, Chicago blues inspired guitar. with a heavy psychedelic tone), he really takes it to another level. The thing that I think really makes a difference is his phrasing (both guitar and vocals); his looseness around timing and phrasing is markedly different from the far more rigid English blues players. You can hear his influence on the whole generation of players (especially English players) that come after him, including the way his playing transformed the approach of some of the guitar heroes who were already on the scene when Hendrix turned up in London (Clapton, Beck, Townshend). I was talking about this with my friend Dave the other day, and commented that Brian May (for example), who is a very tight and precise player, should by all rights be much rigid in his timing. He's a uptight British guy, right? So you would expect a bit more straightforward timing, but I think his more fluid lead playing is (partially) indebted to Hendrix. And certainly the studio arrangements are something Hendrix really pioneered.
There is not a lot of perfectionism and studio craft on this record, which were later hallmarks of Hendrix's studio output. I mean, there's some, and I find the rough-and-ready quick live recording to tape really charming. There is a real energy here. Jimi is confident and funny and a bit snarky and banging it out because he knows it's great. He only had a handful of songwriting credits before this album, which is nearly all originals. I suspect that Chas Chandler signed him largely on the basis of his guitar playing, so the songwriting and studio prowess was a bonus. Who knew the cat was so talented? There are some really cracking tunes on here, even beyond the big singles.
I often grumble and moan about Dimery's list. there are lots of records that you wonder "why are they here?". but not Are You Experienced? Eleventy million out of five.
Fleetwood Mac
3/5
Fleetwood Mac are my favourite radio band. If one of their songs comes on the radio, I will always turn it up and sing along. Love 'em. But I never choose to put their records on the turntable, with the exception of the Tusk 7”, which I love for its weirdness and the nostalgic memory of the ABC playing the video on a pretty regular basis in the 5 minute break between the Goodies and the 7pm news.
I know the reputation of this album; willfully weird, overblown, expensive and coked out. This was Lindsay Buckingham’s reaction to the incredible success of Rumours and the rise of post-punk. He wanted to forge his own thing, and this was it. It amazes me that he spent a million bucks recording an album that sounds this badly recorded. Never before, and likely never again.
Is this Fleetwood Mac’s White Album? There are some superficial similarities (double album, studio weirdness, clearly identifiable songs from different songwriters, arguably better as a single LP, but no one will agree on what tracks would be on it). There is probably a pretty good follow-up to Rumours here if you compiled the Stevie Nicks and Christine MacVie songs, with the fresher production take preventing it from being just Rumours 2.0. And the production on these songs is not that weird. This would a total radio favourite and solid 3.5 star album.
And then there is also an album of Lindsay Buckingham songs, especially The Ledge, Walk a Thin line and Tusk. They are idiosyncratically recorded (although now quite contemporary sounding). They are strong songs, but with quite an unusual approach for the time, which has been quite influential in the 2000s. I can see why the hipsters picked up on this record. I am considering playlisting just his songs for an Abbreviated Tusk, which would be an interesting listen for me, and something I would play regularly. More to my taste, and 4 stars.
But, as it stands, this is a three star album. Like it, a few standout tracks, but needs a big edit and I would never deliberately choose to put it on the turntable. Except for the title track, on 7".
Sam Cooke
5/5
I was chatting once to my mate Dave, who is musician and published critic, about how I don't really like live records, except for... at which point I started listing off a string of really great live albums that I would happily choose to put on the turntable. I had, at that point, just recently acquired a copy of this Sam Cooke record, which really was the proof point that I do, in fact, like live recordings.
Same Cooke released a string of absolutely, drop dead classic soul singles in the late 50s and early 60s, although his albums of the time are often a little under-baked (as was the fashion at the time). Artists of the period, especially black artists, are often criminally underserved by Dimery's 1001 list, with its obsession with the album format. They were singles artists, and there often is no single (non-compilation) album that really represents their strengths of influence. And really, you must listen to a good best of compilation of Sam Cooke's singles, which is a five star listen if only for "You Send Me" and "A Change is Gonna Come".
But it is also true that Sam Cooke aimed most of his recordings at a cross-over (read: white) audience. Those records tend to be a bit sweeter, a bit smoother, a few more string arrangements. This live record, however, is atypical of most of his output. It is rough and raucous, recorded at a 1am show in a predominantly black club with a gritty and soulful band (featuring King Curtis). There is quite a rasp in Sam's voice (a result of this being the third show of the night) and he is working the highly responsive crowd. I am not surprised that his record company shelved the tapes; this was not consistent with his usual sound. But I am so glad we have this artefact, released 20 years later.
This is one of the great, great soul recordings, and one of the best live soul recordings ever. I would argue that it is an even more masterful performance than James Brown At The Apollo, which was recorded two months earlier but not yet released. Sam Cooke Live at The Harlem Square Club is raw, it's sweaty, it's sexy, it's a masterclass in secular gospel. Preach, Sam, preach! Five stars, every home should have a copy.
Thelonious Monk
2/5
My middle son did his musical rebellion phase, aged 15, by getting into... jazz. I have pretty broad tastes and listen to some reasonably unpleasant sounding music, but I have to confess I just don't understand a lot of jazz. The more cerebral and challenging end of jazz is especially baffling to me. I would certainly put Monk into that category. From reading Wikipedia, it sounds like a few members of his band would feel similarly; the title track to this album was stitched together from multiple takes because it was too complex to successfully complete in a single pass.
I can understand some of the basic structures of what he is doing here; a lot of them are relatively simple blues patterns with simple, chunky riffs (Bemsha Swing is good example), but Monk seems to go out of his way to pick notes that no other human being ever would think of playing. The opening of Brilliant Corners is like that; it's like he has sat down and thought "hmm, what is the most wrong note to play here" and chose that. It has a perverse logic to it. I can't understand what he is doing, but there is a discernable, almost mathematical quality to it unlike (unlike free jazz, which just sounds like uncontrolled chaos to me).
I hate prog rock because it is just too clever clogs for my tastes, and, unfortunately, Monk is also too clever for me. It's too "in the head" and I just can't enjoy it. It is not out of the question, however, that one day the penny will drop and I will suddenly learn to love this record.
Primal Scream
4/5
Dubbed out skeletons of songs, mixed upside down and sideways. I love it, but this is deeply weird for a band of this profile. Taking the remixed template of Screamadelica, but with a more industrial and dubbed out version. Noisy, spacey, groovy. I love it. Only a few 'real' songs (eg 'Medication', 'Motorhead' cover), with some instrumentals (eg 'Trainspotting') or songs that may as well be instrumentals. Not a lot here that you would sing around a campfire with an acoustic guitar, but primal Scream were never great songwriters. But they can build an awesome vibe. This really reminds me of the On-U industrial dub records that I used to listen to in the 80s (African Head Charge, Tackhead, Keith LeBlanc, etc). Interestingly, Primal Scream released a dub version of this album (Echo Dek) remixed by Adrian Sherwood from On-U.
The Soft Boys
4/5
I approached this album with trepidation. There have been quite a few cult' artists on this list, who generally do not live up the hype of their sycophantic fanboys.
"Oh, So And So is a genius! You wouldn't have heard anything he did, but his first album is great, but it was only ever released on wax cylinder in Azerbaijan. I've got a copy, but you wouldn't have heard it. He went mad and lived in a dustbin for 30 years. He had a triumphant return at the Royal Albert Hall where turned his back to the audience and farted into a microphone for a continuous hour before pouring a bucket of eels all over himself! I've got a bootleg, and it's the greatest work of art in the 21st century! But you wouldn't have heard of him." I exaggerate for effect, but Robyn Hitchcock falls a bit into that camp, and he tends to play the part. I had some justified fear going into this record that it was going to be over-praised, under-produced and willfully obscure. Reading that the recording budget was 600 quid didn't fill me with confidence either.
But, at first listen, I was pleasantly surprised. Some solid tunes and playing, great harmony singing (although Hitchcock's voice can be idiosyncratic. He hasn't leant into the full-blown annoying bleat of some of his later output). The band can rock, and it sounds way better than it has any right to, given how cheaply it was recorded.
After a few more spins, I really started digging it. There are some really solid power pop tunes on here. The lyrics are often surprising in a weird Dylan kind of way. It isn't really of its time; I can see why it wasn't a hit at the time. But if you are recording songs like this, on the dirt cheap, self releasing, and using cover art like that, you really weren't ever expecting to sell a million copies.
The deluxe version I listened to had a bunch of bonus tracks (from the Two Halves For the Price of One album compilation thingy) which were also pretty solid, which surprises me because bonus tracks are usually mildly interesting rubbish at best.
I would totally listen to this again. But only on wax cylinder. 3.5 stars, rounding up for being a genuine surprise
Morrissey
2/5
The most rock of Morrissey's output. Glam and rockabilly echoes, with great band and production by Mick Ronson. But the songs are still Morrisey songs: three note, whinge-fests. I also find his current public persona so xenophobic and unpleasant that I really can't give him any time. Will not listen again.
Beck
4/5
I saw Beck at the Metro in Sydney in 1994. A friend had seen the tour a few days earlier in Canberra and said I _had_ to go, to see the support act; the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. So I went, and JSBX were incredible, as advertised. But I was surprised by Beck. I had been expecting a guy out of his depth, with a guitar and backing tapes to half-arse his recent hit single and some stuff that sounded like that. But he trotted out on stage with a tight and surprisingly muscular band, and they bashed out an energetic and raucous set of rock and roll. I was sold. I bought a few of his records over the years, including Odelay.
The singles are absolutely top notch. Originally , Beck had planned an acoustic folk album, which he largely discarded to work with the Dust Brothers (of Beastie Boys, Ton Loc, Young MC production fame), and their sound is all over this record. And what a great, exciting, fun sound it is. Beck Hansen is probably the least hip hop human being who ever lived, but the post modern collage approach works really well for his material. I reckon you probably could have trimmed a few songs of this album to make it a tighter 40 minutes, but pretty damn enjoyable overall, especially the singles.
Quicksilver Messenger Service
2/5
Scene: interior, wood paneled record company office, 1968. A fat, besuited record company executive chews on a cigar, feet on the mahogany desk. A minor flunky enters the room.
"The kids are going crazy for these psycho-deelia bands these days. We should get one for our label. How about the Doors?"
"Well, sir, the Doors are already signed to Elektra. And the singer is, how shall I say, not really camera ready these days."
"Ok, who else have you got that sound like the Doors?"
(Flunky checks notes) "Well, sir, I've got the Quicksilver Messenger Service."
"Sounds like a bicycle courier company. Are they any good?"
"Up to a point, sir."
"Are they cheap?"
"Well, yes, they _are_ cheap."
"Done. Sign them immediately. Now peel me some grapes."
I am angry at having to sit through this record. It has all the worst aspects of 60s psychedelic 'live' albums (interminable solos, including extended bass and drum solos, out of tune guitars, dodgy studio overdubs) but none of the energy or verve.
I was stunned to read this quote from Greil Marcus' rapturous contemporary review of this record in Rolling Stone: "They use the infamous Bo Diddley rhythm not as a crutch, not as something for the rhythm section to play with while the lead takes it; Quicksilver finds dimensions of that 'bump buddy bump bump — bump bump' beat that no one has even suggested before, as they stretch it, bend it, move around it, as a motif or a bridge, as an idea rather than as a pattern." This confirms my opinion that Greil Marcus is a pretentious dickhead with absolutely no understanding of rock and roll. The extended workouts on Who Do You Love and Mona show me that QMS also had no idea about what rock and roll really is. Their sloppy, ham-fisted, unfocussed take on the riff demonstrates everything that is wrong with this record. They don't understand that a minute and half of honest 'bump buddy bump bump -- bump bump' does more for the heart (and the hips) than all the wanky solos in the world.
I hope Bo Diddley got paid, at least.
Throbbing Gristle
2/5
Industrial music is important to me. I own and love a lot of 80s and 90s industrial records, I went to industrial night clubs, I played in a (terrible) industrial band for most of the 90s. It's not the only kind of music that I love (not even nearly), but it was pretty important to me. Throbbing Gristle were a band I read about a lot (Re/Search magazine, Simon Reynold's Rip It Up and Start Again, mentioned in hushed tones). They were (supposedly) dangerous, transgressive, iconoclastic, seminal (in all senses) "wreckers of civilization". But rarely heard. In Australia, at least, it was nearly impossible to find their records, and they never got played on the radio.
Their roots as a performance art collective, Coum Transmissions, really shows. They are trying to shock and discomfort, and doing a pretty good job on those fronts. But it works much better as an artistic concept than as an actual listening experience. And they are trying sooooo hard to be transgressive. Maybe they were too successful, and now nearly 50 years later it doesn't seem that bad. I just don't really want to sit through it, in the same way I don't really want to go to a performance art show of a degrading sexual acts. Just not into it, you know?
That said, I can hear their influence in a lot of records I own, most notably Severed Heads, an Australian band I was obsessed with, who started out making 'unlistenable' records before evolving into electronic dance music, a similar trajectory to TG. I wonder if Tom Ellard from Sev Heads had actually heard much or any TG, and was reverse engineering what he thought they must be like based on what he read about them.
As an early Coum Transmissions slogan put it, "We Guarantee Disappointment." And, by that metric, this album eagerly delivers. Great band name, terrific concept, massively influential, but not a great listen. 5 stars for the ideas, 1 star for the music. Look, I'm glad I have actually, finally listened to at least one TG album all the way through, but I'm not racing out to buy a copy.
Solomon Burke
4/5
I do not understand why Solomon Burke isn't as known and revered as Otis Redding or Wilson Pickett. He released a tonne of records on Atlantic that charted (in the US at least). He has a fantastic preacher's soul voice, and benefited from excellent production values. Jerry Wexler is clearly working from the Ray Charles playbook with his classy production on this album.
Solomon Burke has, I think, always been around in the background. A cover of Everybody Needs Someone to Love features prominently in the Blue Brothers movie. Nick Hornby waxes lyrically about Got To Get You Off My Mind in High Fidelity (it's the song that is the meet-cute between Rob and Laura). I came across a random selection of his numerous singles on compilations, including a handful of tracks on the (excellent) Atlantic Rhythm & Blues series. but the track that really caught my ear is Home in your Heart, which appeared on a Mojo cover CD called Raw Soul. Since then, I've gone out of my way to pick up Solomon Burke singles when I see them. He was a terrific singles act for best part of 20 years.
I know a few of the songs here (Cry To Me most notably) but hadn't heard the whole record before. Unusually for its vintage, this is a really strong album with really great production, six songs that charted as singles, and very little filler. I recognized a few of the songs, and enjoyed them all. You Can't Love 'Em All made me chuckle; I honestly believe that Solomon tried to love 'em all, despite the odds.
I totally enjoyed this album all the way through, and can't understand why it isn't as famous or esteemed as Otis Blue: Otis Redding Sings Soul. In a perfect world, this would be a universally acclaimed five star classic. This really is a truly great early 60s soul album. But given the number of grade-A singles he released, a Best Of compilation is probably the real must-hear record for Solomon.
Beastie Boys
4/5
I was right in the zone for Licensed To Ill to act as a gateway drug to hip hop. I was a 16 year old suburban white boy in Australia when it burst onto the radio. Licensed to Ill was fronted by white boys and sufficiently rock and roll to be palatable to musically conservative Australia radio and record companies, making this one of the first easily available hit rap album in this part of the world (along with Run DMC's Raising Hell, which has similar crossover appeal). Within a year, I was devouring pretty much whatever I could lay my hands on (which was not a lot).
I have teenage sons, and this album is the Beastie Boys album they first gravitate to. They have all moved on to subsequent (and superior) albums from the Beasties, but this is a gateway drug.
Heavy yet agile, obnoxious yet funny, confident yet self-deprecating, smart yet dumb, strikingly original (rhymin') but sampling from the history of rock (stealin'), and always a heap of energetic fun. I didn't own a lot of records when I was 16, but I owned this and I played it to death. It's not a perfect album; the song 'Girls' and Kerry King's terrible guitar solos are pretty egregious. But I am surprised at how well it holds up. Some of the lyrics haven't dated well. I don't think anyone ever believed they were gangstas, but the frat boy sexism is occasionally grating. I will pay the Beasties the credit of being one of the very few bands ion history to actually come out and apologize for the sins of their youth. I highly recommend the Beastie Boys Story documentary for more context. It is a funny and highly entertaining retrospective look at their career that helps clarify that they were young and dumb and grew out of it. As, hopefully, most fo us did.
I haven't listened to this album all the way through in decades, but totally enjoyed spinning it again. Other than 'Girls' (which was always shit), it stands up as a really great listen.
Russell Simmons realised that, if he found some white guys who could rap and marketed it with Rick Rubin's rock style production, he could sell a bunch of records to a crossover audience. I think there was a certain amount of cynical opportunism behind the signing and production of this record, but Simmons and Rubin accidentally found a group of highly charismatic, funny and inventive musicians with a long career in them (not that Simmons really wanted that. He would have preferred some more cooperative flunkies that he could manipulate).
The Beastie Boys are not _really_ rappers, but rather indie/punk musos who do a bit of rapping. Which is great, for what it is. I saw them at Selina's at the Coogee Bay Hotel in Sydney in 1992, and they were awesome. They were mostly playing from Check Your Head, but they were energetic and loud and a heap of fun.
ZZ Top
2/5
I was a teenager just really starting to explore popular music via 2SM and music video shows when this came out. It was really popular at the times, and the videos popped out when they came on. This was a big record, but it didn't move me enough to save my pocket money to fork out for a copy at the time.
Listening to it now, it seems really weird that ZZ Top of all bands would successfully transition into what an 80s band needed to be. Drums machine, slick synthesizers, iconic imagery in expensive videos. How a bunch of aging blues-boogie road dogs decided to go full tilt at pop stardom seems audacious to the point of foolhardiness now. But it worked, even if the metronomic tempos and digital rhythm section removed much of what was charming about the band in the first place. This album certainly doesn't have the boogie or dynamics of Tres Hombres.
This really remind me of the commercial turn that the Black Keys took, nearly 30 year slater. Slick production values that polish and smooth over the rough-edged charm of the band, custom designed for radio play. And listening to Eliminator all the way through is very much like listening to El Camino. Each song is carefully honed and crafted, mixed loud and compressed with hooks a-plenty, designed to play on the radio and sound like the best song you've heard all day. But a whole album of identically paced, similarly sequenced and polished, equally compressed songs just exhausts the ears after 20 minutes. Flipping it over to play the second side was wearisome.
Don't get me wrong; the singles are excellent fun radio pop hits. I would consider dropping one in a DJ set (especially if I was playing for a party of 50 year olds, who would remember the Sharp Dressed Man video). And I have a vinyl copy of this album, that I obsoletely cannot remember buying; it must have been a hand-me-down or bought in a batch of $1 records in the late 90s when nobody wanted vinyl. But this is the first time that I have pulled it off the shelf to play, because really, you never need more than 1 or 2 songs worth of this at a time.
I don't begrudge Messrs Hill, Gibbons, and Beard for grabbing the brass ring. They spent a lot of years working the road to moderate success before this. I just hope they didn't spend all of their MTV millions on blow. But I think they were much more interesting before this.
The The
3/5
I was 16 when the The released 'Infected', and its brand of angsty industrial-lite pop really clicked for me. I liked the sound, and the lyrics were the right brand of serious to seem deep and profound. With the benefit of hindsight, it borders on pretentious miserabilism.
And really, this album is not much different, except released a few years earlier. Even though it is more of the same, it never clicked for me. It's OK. You can hum the tunes, it's got a beat, the lyrics aren't dumb. The sound is kind of dated, but not so 80s as to be unlistenable. I don't really like Matt Johnson's voice that much. And the songs just don't stick in my head.
Everyone raves about Jules Holland's piano solo at the end of Uncertain Smile, but it's just OK, you know?
That really sums this whole album up for me. It's just OK, you know?
Rage Against The Machine
4/5
I was living in a share house in 1992 when this album came out. I had a terrible band with one of my housemates, Andy. "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me" was Andy's motto for living. He must have played Killing in the Name every damn day for a year, screaming along for effect. Twice a day. He loved that song. Which, you gotta admit, is a pretty great song if you're a left-leaning young man who enjoys music on the heavier side of things.
The song was ubiquitous in all kinds of settings in 1992. I distinctly remember dancing to this in an industrial night club at 3am one Saturday night, and then hearing it again at the McDonalds when I went for breakfast on my way home at 6am on Sunday morning. It was a sign of the great alternative music crossover, about which I had mixed feelings. It was weird that a pretty abrasive and left political band were releasing records on a major label, getting lots of commercial radio airplay, and selling a bajillion records. Even a few years earlier, it would have been unthinkable.
Rage Against the Machine's strengths were also its greatest weaknesses. Zach de la Rocha's vocals are forceful and politically aware (which makes a pleasant change from a lot of gangsta rap and nu-metal rappers, whose lyrics are non-stop violence and misogyny). RATM lyrics often read like the rantings of a first-year sociology student (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnZnnkJxoC8), but at least you don't feel morally compromised by just listening to it, even if it does feel like getting yelled at for an hour.
The band is tight as a hipster's jeans, and they can swing like no other heavy band since Led Zeppelin, which is kind of awesome, but they don't really understand dynamics or songwriting. It is one killer, heavy, swinging riff after another, which is kind of awesome, but again, also a bit tiring. And I have this gripe about Tom Morello. I feel like he often confuses turning on a digital effect pedal for a proper solo. I think he is, bar none, the best heavy rhythm guitar player of his generation, but his soloing is not great. Together, though, the RATM band are the best heavy rhythm section around. I will secretly confess I really liked Audioslave, because Chris Cornell brought actual songs with light and shade, and the RATM band brought tight and swinging backing.
There are a few killer tacks on this album, but, really, secretly, if you've heard one, you've heard their whole oeuvre. I really liked RATM when this album came out, but I bought the 12" of Killing in the Name, and I have never really felt the need to buy any other record by them. Actually, I tell a lie. My mate Peter has a 7" single of their cover of Fuck Tha Police on it. I'd _really_ like that record too, and then I'm done.
3.5 stars.
10cc
2/5
This album is why we needed punk. Overworked, clever clogs pop music. In a way this is worse than prog rock (hock spit) or Steely Dan (shudder), because we are expected to have fun and sing along. Which I absolutely cannot do. I find this almost offensive in its pretentious mediocrity. The jokes aren't funny. It's only redeeming feature is its brevity.
Skunk Anansie
3/5
Goodness, the songs on this album slide off my ears like teflon. Theoretically, I should really like this album; loud alt rock, black feminist political singer with great voice and significant charisma, tight and punchy band... it hits all the right notes, but I just find it unmemorable.
I went back and listened to their first album (which I remember much better), and it is front-loaded with 4 or 5 really killer tracks. And I went down a rabbit hole of live performance clips, and they are terrific and compelling. But this album is just aggressively mid....
I've been thinking on it, and I blame the producer, Andy Wallace. Andy Wallace is responsible for the sound of hard rock int he 1990s. He was the mixer for most of the biggest and most influential heavy albums of the decade, especially heavy alternative albums. You can't deny his skills. He can craft a huge and compelling sound. And by the time be produced this record, he had his methods down pat. And the record sounds perfect; it's a big loud cinemascope sound, with not a note out of place. Maybe too perfect.
I am now going to write the most pretentious thing I have written in ~750 reviews on this project. I am going to quote Umberto Eco, from his Paris Review Article 'The Cult of the Imperfect' (https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/10/28/the-cult-of-the-imperfect/). He is talking about what makes cult films and cult books, but I suggest that this can also be extended to albums (substitute 'album' for 'film' when reading:
"In order to transform a work into a cult object, you must be able to take it to pieces, disassemble it, and unhinge it in such a way that only parts of it are remembered, regardless of their original relationship with the whole. .... This means that even a masterpiece, when it comes to haunt the collective memory, can be made ramshackle. But in other cases it becomes a cult object because it is fundamentally, radically ramshackle. ... To give rise to a cult, a film [or album] must already be inherently ramshackle, shaky and disconnected in itself. A perfect film [or album] ... remains imprinted in our memory as a whole, in the form of an idea or a principal emotion; but only a ramshackle film survives in a disjointed series of images and visual high points. It should show not one central idea, but many. It should not reveal a coherent “philosophy of composition,” but it should live on, and by virtue of, its magnificent instability."
And this is, I think, my problem with Post Orgasmic Chill. It is a perfect album, with a cohesive and coherent philosophy of composition. It is like a smooth, polished sphere of marble, with no cracks, faults or fissures that I can grasp, work my fingers into and pry apart. It is stable and it will not break into memorable parts. My youtube research shows I like them much more as a live band, where they are loud, fast, powerful and charismatic, but not perfect.
I wonder if I might have found this album much more compelling if it had been recorded by Steve Albini instead. He understood the power of imperfection (although his records still sound powerful). A missed opportunity for a really great album. But I would certainly much more happily listen to this than much of the overly blokey middle class white boy aggro metal that pervaded the late 1990s.
Kelela
3/5
She's got a great voice, and the production is lush and assured. But the mid-tempo, mid-intensity smooth sound (which is schmick, admittedly) doesn't vary across the hour, and I tended to drift off. I listened to this a couple of times, enjoyably, but there aren't many memorable moments. Great voice, though. I don't think we'll still be talking about this album as a classic album in twenty years' time, although I wouldn't put it past Kelela to produce something really extraordinary down the line. I'm sure she has it in her.
Joni Mitchell
5/5
Blue, eh? Not sure I've heard this one before...
But seriously, I feel envious of anyone who is hearing this for the first time; what a treat! I find it hard to find anything meaningful to say about this album that hasn't already been said a million times. If you were to pick a Top Ten Albums of All Time list, this would have to be on it. I note that the My Favourite Album podcast has effectively banned people from picking Blue, having already done five episodes on it.
It is hard to over-praise the songwriting here. The album is full of absolute classics, and this is a masterclass of confessional songwriting. The melodies are light and full of movement, and harmonic twists that seem so natural and yet surprise me every time I hear them (My Old Man is a particularly good example). The playing is airy and open and always tasteful. The lyrics are poetic and surprising, but often simple and straightforward, and always honest.
I love this quote from Joni herself: "The Blue album, there's hardly a dishonest note in the vocals. At that period of my life, I had no personal defenses. I felt like a cellophane wrapper on a pack of cigarettes. I felt like I had absolutely no secrets from the world and I couldn't pretend in my life to be strong. Or to be happy. But the advantage of it in the music was that there were no defenses there either."
Pitchfork described this as "possibly the most gutting break-up album ever made", but a lot of it is light and playful, with moments of joy. I think makes this the most _human_ break-up album ever made.
I've been listening to this album on-and-off for my whole adult life, and it always feels fresh and surprising and warm and human and real and complex and simple and heavy and just... everything.
There is an argument to be made that this is the best album of popular music ever made. Often imitated, never equaled.
Eleventy billion and out of 5
Frank Sinatra
5/5
My absolutely favorite Frank Sinatra album. I normally find his blustery tough guy persona off putting and borderline unpleasant, but the vulnerability and resigned heartbreak on this album is more human, easier to relate to.
He is exploring his 'mature voice', and he clearly deeply inhabits and understands the material. The arrangements by Nelson Riddle are understated and superb, much simpler than his usual thing, and completely in service to the songs. Song choice is wonderful. There are some tracks here where I might have other versions I prefer (Mood Indigo by Nina Simone, or I Get Along Without You Very Well by Chet Baker for example), but the construction and tone of the album as a whole are just *mwah* chef's kiss. It's not just technique; it's the honesty and (rare) emotional openness that is stunning here. It's hard the think of a time that Sinatra was so connected to his material.
Tom Waits said this is favourite album (and he lifted the whole image and vibe to build his early career out of it).
Every home should have a copy. Five stars
Brian Eno
5/5
I love a lot of Eno's 70s output up to and including My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, technically from 1981. I love it when he is still producing material with enough connection to pop music that I can understand the form (and possibly even dance to it) but weird enough to be surprising. Much of his later work is overly conceptual, and by the time it has devolved into generative music, I'm bored and over it. According to wikipedia, they recorded over 100 songs during the sessions for this album. This is a testament to the benefits of good editing (I'm looking at you, Robert Pollard - just because you hit 'record' and captured random sounds on tape, doesn't mean you have to release it).
Before and After Science is an absolute classic for me. Proper songs, but with a fresh approach to sound that makes them pop through as something both familiar and different. Some tracks are surprisingly funky ("No One Receiving", "Kurt's Rejoinder"), and often catchy ("Backwater", "King's Lead Hat"). It's a smart album and conceptually driven, but he still understands that you need to feel the music in your gut. It's got to work at that level. Side 1 is uptempo and energetic, and side 2 is more open and emotional. Both sides have their secret pleasures.
I've listened to this often over the past 40 years, I confess I did not initially get it, but once I did, I always hear something different and exciting when I listen to it.
Don McLean
1/5
When my kids were young, once a week they would get picked up from school by their pop, who would take them back to his place for an afternoon of bad television and junk food. It was one of their favorite days of the week. On the drive from school, he would inevitably play 'Amercian pie', and, as a result, all my kids love it. As many people do. It is a classic sing-along song. When it starts up, people almost can't help themselves from raucously singing along. It's got an easy tune and even the most mediocre singer can have a crack.
It is the cause of some of some distress to me that my own family think this song is great, and when they've had a few drinks at Christmas, American Pie often ends up on the turntable for a sing-along (although only the title track. Nobody is interested in the rest of the record). I leave the room.
I, however, hate, loathe, detest and despise the song.
I don't like the pseudo-profound lyrics. I read an article once describing it as "the most cryptic song ever written". Cryptic only if you can't decipher ham-fisted allegory, that is. It is the worst kind of boomer elegy for "how great things were in the 50s", which I never bought (see also: We Didn't Start The Fire). I don't know why this appeals to younger Australians so much; it is full of 1950s American references that just don't resonate here.
The tune is banal. And it goes for fucking ever. Eight and half minutes of this repetitive crap! I swear to god if I have to sit through it once more, I will gouge out my own eardrums with a fork.
I usually listen to the album for review through the whole way through, but I can't stomach this. It all sounds pretty much the same, varying between soft, sad songs, and repetitive mid-tempo wannabe knees-up numbers. Vincent is OK. Cover photo is iconic. But I hate the title song and it's malignant presence infects the whole album.
The Fall
1/5
I listened to "Live at the Witch Trials" all the way through. I am now going to re-run my review of "This Nation's Saving Grace" word for word:
I never got The Fall, so I thought "here's an opportunity to give them a proper go, listen to whole album, one that is regarded as their best and most accessible. Maybe Mark E. Smith's voice isn't the most annoying bleating you ever heard once you get used to it. Maybe this is not just one of those bands that John Peel fell in love with and played so much that they became a beloved British institution through sheer familiarity, regardless of being complete rubbish. Maybe this is a band so bad that they're good."
Nope. Just nope.
Boston
2/5
When I was a kid first looking at records (but without the money to buy any), the the covers that caught my eye were Meatloafs's Bat Out of Hell and Boston S/T. Both cool covers on pretty average (but massively successful) albums. 40 years (and lots of record collecting later), I still don't own a copy of either, with no strong desire to do so. Once I actually heard them, I was like "meh".
More Than A Feeling is a terrific single which I don't mind listening to when it comes on the radio. Big crunchy riffs, good hooks, soaring vocals and my favourite bit; the OTT pick slide leading into the chorus
But the album overall is overproduced pap with nonsense lyrics and little to recommend. It's like flavour less Queen. And probably led to the fashion to over polish rock in the late 70s and 80s. A malignant influence but not hateful.
Japan
4/5
I first heard David Sylvian in a year 8 music class, when Mr Glassop played 'Red Guitar ' for us. I think he was a bit obsessed with the song, and I was heavily influenced by that and became similarly obsessed with the 'Brilliant Trees' album it came from, when I eventually tracked down a copy a few years later. It was so much harder to find things in the 80s, especially if you were a teenager without much money to spend. I also totally got into his 'The First Day ' album with Robert Fripp a few years later. But I never really got into Japan, but I can hear the foundations of those albums in 'Quiet Life '.
This record really is a missing link between glam and New Romantics. Clearly heavily influenced by Lou Reed, VU, Roxy Music (using their producer) and Berlin-era Bowie, but leaning into a softer, more spacious sound that they became known for in the early 80s. Funny to hear how much Sylvian changed his vocal style from the first two albums - this softer baritone is what he settled into for his subsequent career. Love Mick Karn's bass playing; it is weird and distinctive and strangely funky, and always adds a fresh surprise.
While there is a lot of Roxy Music and Bowie influences all over this record, you can also hear how much it influenced music that came (shortly) after. Songs like 'Quiet Life's or 'Halloween' could easily be Duran Duran songs (if you turned up the colour saturation a bit), and 'Vogue' could totally be a Cure track.
A bit of a forgotten band, but this was clearly a bit ahead of its time.
Dusty Springfield
5/5
One of my all-time favourite albums. I would listen to Dusty Springfield sin g the telephone book, and she was never better (or with better band and production) than this record.
Dusty in Memphis is probably the greatest blue-eyed soul record ever. Son of a Preacher Man was the big single, but it is the softer, sexier tracks that I really dig (Breakfast in Bed, A Little Loving, I Don't Want to Hear it). I think that A Little Lovin' is one of the Sexiest songs I have ever heard (possibly only equaled by Mitty Collier's I Had A Talk With My Man). Dusty doesn't try to compete with Aretha, but leans into her more tender, more intimate, more sensual style. This is a wonderful blend of Bacharach and the funky Memphis sound. A-grade repertoire throughout, with the possible exception: Windmills of My Mind, which I will forgive, it being 1969. She managed to make even this nonsensical song sound like it means something. Maybe that is the real genius of this record; you believe everything Dusty sings. The heartbreak is real, the sensuality is real.
She was almost too intimidated to record these songs, but thank god she did. I love this album. I own a lot of Dusty Springfield records, but this is the best, and the one I always play.
Django Django
3/5
Better than average alternative pop for the 2010s. I was aware of Default and Hand of Man (both pretty catchy songs). I find a lot of alternative pop of this vintage overworked, so the lofi production style I found fresh and enjoyable. Catchy tunes, decent harmonies, and a fun rhythm-led style. Moments of krautrock minimalism, which I dig. If I came across a vinyl copy for $20, I would buy it.
The Allman Brothers Band
3/5
Hmm, sorry, what was that? I nodded off for a bit there... this record is interminable. I find it interesting the number of reviews that talk about how they "fused jazz with rock/blues", but isn't that just code for "endless soloing"? And the soloing is endless; guitar solos, organ solos, drum solos, bass solos, god help me. Would anyone who knew anything about jazz call this a jazz record?
In fairness, they are super tight, well recorded, and all crack players who can all squeeze out a good solo when required. The twin guitar thing is pretty impressive. But it did give permission for a thousand other bands to do likewise, which you can't really blame the Allman Bros for, but I will. Worse yet, this is like the Bible for Blues Lawyers. I have met quite a few 50 year old financial planner/dentist/IT professionals with $3000 Fenders who want to jam on Stormy Monday.
Truth be told, you can listen to Whipping Post and know everything about this record that you really need to.
Iggy Pop
5/5
My 19 year old son and I have shared spotify list that we both add songs to. We were talking about the song 'Nightclubbing', which I had added to the list. He said he really hadn't understood what the song was about until he was backpacking through Europe, having left a Berlin nightclub at 6am, swung by the youth hostel to pick up his luggage and jumped on a morning train to Prague. He was staring out the window at the snow-covered landscape, with no sleep and the buzz of the club still wearing off, when Nightclubbing came up on the playlist. And then it all made sense; it's a song about leaving the clubs (especially Berlin clubs), not going to the clubs.
I would love Iggy if his proto-punk Stooges and early solo albums were all he ever released. But then there is this pivot; who knew that Iggy had a type of crooner in him, capable of surprisingly melodic and affecting songs? Iggy is a little weirder and slightly less pretentious than Bowie here, but there is a strong Bowie influence. While this album was not a hit record, the quality of the songwriting can be heard in the subsequent hit covers of Nightclubbing and China Girl.
The sound of this record really anticipates and establishes Berlin-era Bowie production, which is, in my mind, a really good thing. The quick and dirty recording methods allowed new sounds to emerge. MVP award to Tony Visconti for managing a coherent and compelling mix out of the tracks.
I like the shitty recording quality, which leads to a cool, spacious, noisy, rhythmic, and atmospheric (if unpolished) sound. Iggy described it as "James Brown fronting Kraftwerk", which is a pretty good description, and sounds pretty ace to me.
Probably Iggy's best album, in my opinion, and certainly the one I play most. 4.5 stars, rounding up.
PJ Harvey
5/5
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, I worked at Scratches Records in Newtown, which specialised in female artists. So, when PJ Harvey's first album appeared, that was right in our wheelhouse. Having a wide back catalog of female artist (including lots of alternative artists), the emergence of a powerful, gritty female voice like PJ Harvey was not unprecedented, and we immediately recognized her as an important artist. Her playing is muscular and compelling (which I love), her singing is dynamic and soulful, and her songwriting is fresh and arresting. I think she really understands the blues without being mere pastiche.
Part of what made PJ Harvey seem so fresh at the time was that she writes from a powerful and distinctly female point of view. It is a shameful indictment on the record industry that women are so under-represented in the music industry that this did seem fresh or unusual. But songs like "Oh My Lover", "Dress", or (my favourite) "Sheela-Na_Gig" are a perspective that we hadn't heard much to that point, and it was thrilling to hear. Many subsequent artists have followed the lead set by this album (which, in fairness, is not the only album by a strong female artist ever). And Polly Jean herself has progressed to show that she is true and evolving artist with much to say and interesting ways to say it.
It's been 30 years since I first heard this auspicious debut record, and I still find it thrilling from the first track. I saw her at the Enmore Theatre in the early 2000s, and she is amazing on stage. This is really what I think the best of rock and roll for me: raw, smart (without being too clever for its own good), emotional, dark, funny, dynamic, exciting and powerful. Five stars.
The Youngbloods
2/5
Oh my god, the supply of late sixties 'cult' bands on this list is endless!
This is more folk-rock than some, but is really just more of the same. Nothing here to convince me that this is an under-appreciated masterpiece. I am bored to death of these types of albums. Not truly heinous, but inessential.
King Crimson
4/5
My feelings on prog are well known. I am not, generally, a fan. Too clever clogs, widdly-widdly, pretentious, ridiculous time wasting, and not nearly rock and roll enough.
I do, however, make an exception for King Crimson, largely because they rock hard. I have a number of albums from across the breadth of their career, although I have never become a devotee (i.e., I have never been even mildly tempted to buy any of their encyclopaedic and hideously expensive box sets).
If ever you were going to identify the ground zero for prog rock, it really would have to be In the Court of the Crimson King. But let's not hold the subsequent sins of others against it. I was turned onto this record, especially 21st Century Schizoid Man, by some uni mates in the early 90s who had an instrumental jazz rock band (Trout Fishing in Quebec, check them out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEeU3rFSO6c You can hear the King Crimson influence).
I still think 21st Century Schizoid Man is the bomb. It excites me every time
I hear it. If all prog was this good, I would listen to prog (but it isn't, so I don't). Observations:
- I am sure that that Fripp and MacDonald are playing each other's solos. The guitar solo sounds like a sax solo, and vice versa.
- The fast start-stop section is awesome. As my drummer son pointed out, the timing is not precise. They were playing that tight in the room together, because they could. If you listen to the live recoding on Earthbound, you can hear that they could replicate that on stage, too. A testimony to Robert Fripp's band discipline.
- This is the first evidence of Robert Fripp's propensity to play at right angles to what any other guitar player ever would. His note choice is consistently weird, but I love it. I will listen to him play on anything. (I particularly like the album he did with David Sylvian in the early 90s. And the Bowie records. And the Eno records. And Talking Heads and Blondie and Peter Gabriel and hundreds of other records).
The title track is majestic, and memorably featured in Children of Men (2006). The use of mellotron has never been bettered.
Really, all the pastoral stuff in the middle of those two tracks are dull with a tendency to go widdly-widdly on occasion. Personally, I could live without everything but 21st Century and the title track. But those two tracks alone rate 4 stars.
Anthrax
3/5
This takes me back to when I was a teenager. My mate Tim loved this record when it came out, and we listened to it a lot. We both liked thrash, but were much more attracted to the skateboard friendly end of the genre (Anthrax, plus local faves like the Hard-Ons, Massappeal, the Hellmenn) rather than the metal-dude end (Metaliica, Megadeth, Slayer). I didn't skate, but Tim did. The skate-thrash bands were a bit funnier and relatable. Anthrax had a sense of humour. It wasn't always so serious, maaaaaan.
This album really took me back, and I enjoyed the clean, unpretentious production (by Eddie Kramer, which surprised me to read).
This is a really minor note, but I find the use of double kick on this album tasteful. Many bands just run the double kick the whole way through songs, and I find it exhausting and, ironically, reduces the impact of the speed.
Moshing was enormous fun when I was 17, but not feasible for the more mature gentleman (as I am now).
Brian Eno
4/5
This is a long time favorite of mine. No real _songs_ on the album per se, but I really like the sample collage over tight early 80s funk. Many have pointed out that the use of samples as a vocal lead was revolutionary, it is now so commonplace as to not be as surprising. The use of samples was not unprecedented or unsurpassed; this lies on the trajectory from Steve Reich through to Public Enemy.
Arguments could be made regarding cultural appropriation and/or stripping the source samples of their cultural meaning (noting that the track Qu'ran was removed from subsequent versions of this release following complaints from the British Islamic Council).
As a listening experience, I still enjoy this record because of the taut funk, featuring an all-star line-up of drummers, percussionists and bass players (plus Robert Fripp) to create a repetitive and funky atmosphere. Again, not really _songs_, but I enjoy listening to it. Today I listened to the expanded version on spotify, which has a large number of tracks not on my original vinyl copy. They have a similar feel, although are not always as focussed, and I can see why they weren't included on the original album. I can hear the way that the recording of this album helped blueprint the approach for Talking Heads' "Remain in light" album, which is their best work, in my opinion.
The Beta Band
3/5
I hated, _hated_, that bit in the film of "High Fidelity" when John Cusack smugly announces that he will now sell 5 copies of The 3 EPs by the Beta Band, pops it on the turntable, to instant grooving and interest from the shoppers. I worked for years in a store almost exactly like the fictional Championship Vinyl and I never, _never_, played a record in an attempt to intentionally sell a copy to unsuspecting shoppers, let alone the unmitigated arrogance to attempt to sell five! Sometimes shoppers would ask about what was playing, but you can't force people to like something just like that. Musical taste is so personal, and works on so many levels, you can't just spin a record you think is good to instant acclaim.
That scenario is the wet dream of every white-boy collector-scum record nerd who ever lived. "I will play this secret undiscovered gem that only I -- the ultimate arbiter of taste and refinement -- know, and the ignorant throngs will instantly recognize my genius and bow before me, thrusting their dollars at me as fitting tribute for me imparting this gift of knowledge to them". ("I know" smirks Cusack).
So, the Beta Band is reputationally besmirched in popular culture before I ever really gave them a listen. I am predisposed to hate them already, not even at their own fault. In fairness, Dry The Rain (which is the song he plays in the store) is a pretty good song.
So I gave Hot Shots II a fair listen. And they are a fair band. They can craft a pleasant tune, with some nice harmonies, with a charmingly sloppy, lo-fi, laid back production aesthetic that I kind of dig. But it's all a bit the same-same (like a series of fading carbon copies off Dry The Rain, really), and I wish they would break out a bit and try and catch my attention with something different.
I note that this album no longer appears in the latest edition of 1001 Albums. But I might consider buying a copy of The 3 EPs. Curse you, Cusack, you got me in the end!
2.5 stars, rounding up.
Dexys Midnight Runners
1/5
It absolutely boggles my mind that Dexy's Midnight Runners have ALL THREE of their albums on the 1001 Must Hear Albums list. That's a 100% batting average for a band that were barely more than a one hit wonder. 'Come On Eileen' isn't that great and isn't even on this record.
I really don't understand the way some people worship Kevin Rowland. He seems to me to be the King of Bad Decisions. For example, wikipedia suggest that he deliberately chose his strangely affected singing voice in order to be unique. It certainly is that, but also sounds shit. And the choice to radically change the band membership (cutting from ten to four members, one of whom left immediately after recording this album), and changing the sound radically from the previously successful model. Now, nobody would want to stifle a band's artistic growth, but you have to wonder about the choices here. The extended and aimless spoken word passages, the weird kludged together song suites, the lack of singles.
It is easy to condemn the mercenary decisions of record companies to not support or promote records, but I have to say, in this case I agree with them.
Everything fell apart for Kevin after this record career-wise and personally, and I feel for him. I certainly think the hate he received as a result of his "My Beauty" solo record in the late 90s had a disturbing undercurrent of trans- or homophobia. But in all fairness, it was a sincere but terrible record of naff cover versions, with a challenging choice of cover art. Another example of Kevin not really reading the room, methinks...
This is not a lost masterpiece or hidden gem. It's a pretty shit record. Critics may champion it, but, in this case the record company and radio stations and buying public all had it pretty right; it's a crap album, best ignored. Objectively, it's a 1.5 or 2 star record, but I am so incensed by Dimery's audacity in putting it on the list, that I am going to give it 1 star. Fuck you, Dimery.
Norah Jones
2/5
This album is incredibly pleasant. Norah Jones has a very pleasant voice (soft, intimate, smooth, and sultry, if not a little unsexy), and a pleasant band. They play pleasant arrangements; a little bit jazz, a little bit folk, and little bit country. But nothing offensive, nothing that leaps out. Nothing is too loud, or too fast (or even too slow). It's very pleasant wallpaper.
I'm not surprised it sold a bazillion copies in physical media (at a time the industry was starting to collapse), because it is a hard to hate. Robert Christgau of The Village Voice cited it as "the most unjazz album [Blue Note] has ever released" (true) and criticized that "Jones's voice dominates the record" (which is a feature, not a bug. She has a lovely voice).
I will concede that she edits her arrangements with impeccable taste. Everything is tastefully underplayed, no superfluous string or synthesizer overdubs, mostly just simple understated and spacious playing, beautifully recorded. The rhythms gently swing. The instrumentation sets a stage for her voice, which is rightly placed in the spotlight.
Nothing outstays its welcome. No songs much over 4 minutes, and many under 3. She has the great sense not to use every minute of available capacity on a CD, and keeps the whole album to a classic and classy 45 minutes. She interprets the works of many songwriters to give all the material a consistent voice, and I she knows exactly how long to play for.
But I am unlikely to choose to play this record again.
The Mothers Of Invention
3/5
Having suffered through a countless number of psychedelic "masterpieces" of the 60s as part of this 1001 albums list, I heartily concur with Frank Zappa the whole music scene was sorely in need of parodic skewering, which he has rightly accomplished. And I applaud that; I would much rather listen to this than (checks notes) Quicksilver Messenger Service or 13th Floor Elevators or Incredible String Band (or any of the dozen or so other similar albums on this list).
There are a million ideas here, with time signature changes, classical allusions, snippets of all kinds of different genres, musique concrete tapes, ambitious musicianship, which makes it dangerously close to proto-prog rock (hock, spit), saved from the excesses of that terrible genre by embracing the ridiculousness of it all. You can't accuse Frank Zappa of not having a sense of humour, even if he isn't actually particularly funny.
Barret Hansen (a.k.a. Dr Demento) praised the album in an April 1968 review for Rolling Stone, but concluded that while the initial listening may be significantly profound, due to the reliance on shock, subsequent listening may be reduced in value. That really succinctly describes the problem with this record for me; it is an impressive and surprising series of jokes which all sound very intricate, profound and intellectual on first exposure, they don't actually stand up to repeated listening. It is _less_ than the sum of its parts and inferior to much of Zappa's catalogue. It's just a historical curiosity. 2.5 stars.
Van Halen
3/5
I sort of wanted to hate this, preferring the earlier, more spontaneous (and harder rockin') Van Halen albums.
But it is hard to dislike this record. The songs are really catchy, and the playing is incendiary, almost overworked in the production, but not quite. I like the variety of bringing in the synth (a suitably crunchy oberheim).
The four singles are stellar (with excellent videos, perfect for MTV), and even the album tracks are pretty strong. Top Jimmy and Drop Dead legs are possibly just filler, but they don't suck. 1984 is a really good, solid (heavy) pop album that is a lot of fun to listen to.
It is also fabulously and appropriately brief, and doesn't outstay its welcome at only 33 minutes. 1984-era Van Halen are like an awesome gatecrasher at your party; they arrive with a swaggering fanfare, flirt with all the girls, drink all the beer, dance on the tabletops, cracking jokes with a big cheesy grin, and then disappear into the night before the cops turn up. Awesome!
The Specials
5/5
Rarely has a band emerged with its first album with such a clear vision statement. The look, the sound, the politics and the voice of this band is clear and strong on this record. The Specials were an integrated band, with equal influences from black (ska, reggae, soul, r'n'b) and white (punk, rock) forms. Politically engaged in the new Thatcherite England, they were both protesting and ready to party.
Elvis Costello did a great job of capturing the live feel of their performances, although some contemporaneous reviews bemoan how much slower the record is than their live shows. Listening to live tracks on the deluxe edition, I can kind of see the point of the criticism. But, as an Australian listener who only heard the studio album and never had the chance to see the Specials live in 1979, the album is still fantastic on its own merits.
Smart, political, and above all fun, this is such a great record. It makes me wanna take to the streets in protest _and_ dance.
Sabu
3/5
I read a review of this record on albumoftheyear.org that said that the repetitiveness of this record (all percussion and vocals chants) was a major issue. Well, that's a feature, not a bug in my opinion. I love that most of this album is just polyrhythmic percussion (mostly hand percussion) with chants. I like the raw recording quality, I like the energetic and layered rhythms, and I like the multi-timbral chants. There's a band in there somewhere (bass, guitar, piano sometimes?) but mixed so low as to remind you of what the point of the record is. I'm kind of surprised that someone had the perspective to record and release an album like this is the 50s. Interesting that it was marketed as "jazz" (which sui drawing a long bow, in my opinion) rather than as presenting it as an ethnographic recording. These kinds of sounds did not become more popular for a very long time. 'Choferito', for example, reminds me of 80s or 90s Tom Waits, for example. I am sure that the guitar on that influenced Marc Ribot.
There aren't many strong or memorable 'songs' here as we would understand it in more Eurocentric musical traditions, but the groove is intense and compelling. It's a really good example of an Afro-Latin model, which places a greater emphasis on rhythm. And I don't feel like this was too compromised to appeal to Western tastes. It's great to break out of one's cultural assumptions and listen to music with a different set of assumptions and priorities.
Grizzly Bear
2/5
Pitchfork fucking _loved_ Veckatimest when it came out:
"Veckatimest ain't perfect; lord knows it tries. More than most any album in recent memory not named Chinese Democracy (please keep reading), it is compositionally and sonically airtight, every moment sounding tweaked, labored over. Perfection-- and the pursuit thereof-- has its price, and in less able hands (with all love to Axl), this obsessive attention to craft and execution could lead to something dull. What's perhaps the most remarkable thing about the truly remarkable Veckatimest, however, is how very exciting much of it is; no small feat for a painstaking chamber-pop record that never once veers above the middle tempo."
Well, I disagree. This is not exciting. It _is_ a dull and over-worked album that was released in a slow year for exciting new music, was over-praised at the time, and is now (rightly) mostly forgotten. No surprise that this has been expunged from the most recent editions of 1001 Albums.
The Verve
2/5
A quick scan of the reviews I have written so far in this project reveal that I have used the adjective "verve" to describe at least five different albums to date. Ironically, Urban Hymns by The Verve will not be one of them.
I never really liked Britpop much; too Anglocentric, too concerned with its own image, a seeming contempt for its own audience, a tendency towards arrogance and aggression and sexist laddishness bordering on outright misogyny. Many commentators have described this album as the swansong for Britpop, and it comes across like that to me; the party's over and this is the hangover album. It is, admittedly, more introspective and downbeat than Oasis (say), but that's because all the cocaine is now gone and we're left to deal with the shitty repercussions. Mad Dick Ashcroft was right on the money: the drugs do not, in fact, work.
Emily Tartanella astutely wrote in the Magnet (https://magnetmagazine.com/2009/08/18/the-overunder-britpop/):
"The Verve has one—count it, one—great song, and that is 'Bittersweet Symphony.' Not only that, but 'Bittersweet Symphony' was immeasurably improved by a Jay-Z remix. The most impressive aspect of the Verve is how Richard Ashcroft has successfully tricked the world into thinking of him as a deep, insightful writer, despite penning lyrics as inane as “Are you invited/To the party of life?/Now you’ve decided/Do you live ’til you die?” The answer to that question is, by the way, yes. Despite having more high-profile break-ups than Jennifer Aniston, the Verve has endured both commercially and critically. While 1995 sophomore album A Northern Soul had its moments, 1997’s Urban Hymns (the band’s biggest success) is one of the most bloated, boring and overpraised albums of the ’90s."
Preach, Emily, preach!
As proof of how over-rated they are, here is a list of musical influences that Urban Hymns 'recalls', according to wikipedia: Oasis, Stone Roses, Suede, Ennio Morricone, old Motown singles, Richard Thompson, Britpop, indie rock, orchestral rock, psychedelia, post-Britpop (whatever _that_ is meant to be), Big Star, Van Morrison, Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones, Amon Duul II, Spacemen 3, U2, Radiohead, boom bap, trip hop, angelic choirs, Aphrodite's Child, Funkadelic, Led Zeppelin, the Stones (again), Kurt Cobain, John Lennon (solo), the Beatles, Cocteau Twins, Happy Mondays, Jeff Buckley, Neil Young ("playing in hell"), Bob Dylan, Derek and the Dominos, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, John Squire, Lee Hazlewood, Echo and the Bunnymen, Neil Diamond, Led Zep (again), MC5, the Stooges, "churchworthy gospel", and, unsurprisingly, Blur. Well, if you mix all of that up in a bucket (and don't skimp on the reverb), you get a pretentious mess of boring midtempo codswallop just like this album.
Of course, if you spend two million quid recording an album, it's going to sound pretty schmick. But every song on the record needs a couple of minutes trimmed off to reduce the bloat that plagues this album. Most albums should be less than 40-45 minutes in length, and that goes double for Urban Hymns. Most of the decent songs are front-loaded on the album, which makes the back half drag endlessly with meandering, over-long and unfocused filler tracks, all plastered over with slathers of reverb to bring some kind of cohesiveness to a patchwork of samples, wonky guitars, and different production approaches.
The spaciousness and slightly depressive lyrics don't hide that Urban Hymns suffers from all the sins of Britpop; bloat, arrogance, infighting, laddishness, public drama, and bucket hats. The proof is all in the final lines of the last song: "Fuck you... we're breaking up".
Frank Zappa
3/5
In the early 90s, when I was about 20, I worked at Scratches, a small record store in Newtown that sold a lot of second-hand records. One of my tasks was to test play all the second-hand tapes and CDs before they hit the shelves to make sure they were in playable condition. It meant that I spent a lot of time listening to records I would not have otherwise chosen. One day, it was my responsibility to listen all the way through to "Shut Up and Play Your Guitar", a double CD of over two hours of Frank Zappa live guitar solos. No songs, just solos, all edited together. It was interminable. A lot of my friends were really into Zappa. Dave, for example, would invariably play Weasels Ripped My Flesh whenever he could control the stereo. I was complaining to another friend, Jeremy, about listening to two hours of unrelenting Zappa guitar solo, and he replied that he had, in fact, himself attempted to make cassette compilations of Zappa solos from bootlegs and other live recordings. A professionally edited CD would be ideal, in his opinion. I couldn't believe there was a market for such a thing.
Personally, I was never convinced about Zappa I mean, I can admire what he does, and it was a relief that he didn't take everything _too_ seriously (at least by way of comparison with most jazz-rock or prog, which is a pretty low bar for levity). But I was never able to buy into the cult. Hsi arrangements were too ostentatiously clever. His famous 'sense of humour' was never actually funny. You only have to watch his ill-fated appearance on Saturday Night Live to see that. Or read an interview with him. Or about him. I watched the Zappa documentary, and he didn't actually seem like a bundle of laughs.
Mark Allen wrote in Classic Rock: "All the boys in my house at college thought it was hilarious ... a cryptic genius working at the coalface of the avant garde .... But the girls thought different. To them, Zappa was a grotesque and irksome pervert whose soulless music knotted the knees and brought dance floors to a shuddering halt." The girls were right on the money, in my opinion.
Some random observations about Hot Rats:
- the general lack of vocals means that the most egregious failings of Zappa's 'humour' (mean-spiritedness, intellectual snobbery and sexism) are largely avoided
- Willie the Pimp is the best thing Captain Beefheat ever appeared on, and it's got a terrific blues rock riff
- while heralded as "jazz-rock", this is improvisational rock, and not a lot of jazz in it
- Zappa can squeeze out a passable guitar lead, but he really only has a limited range, and it starts to get a bit dull after a while
- Gumbo Variations and It Must Be A Camel can be a challenging slog to get through, but not nearly as obnoxious sounding as many people say
Hot Rats is a listenable record (especially side 1), but I'm not in love. I'm certainly not going fight Zappa-freak collector scum to pay $100 or more for a vinyl copy.
Depeche Mode
3/5
I am a fan of the Depeche Mode albums that follow this (Violator and Songs of Faith and Devotion) which are a bit darker, rockier, and noisier than their early records. The more prominent use of guitar and analogue drums, the more industrial-influenced sound design (more noise and distortion), and greater reliance on pentatonic harmonies (ironically, simpler harmonically than their earlier material) is more to my taste. While familiar with their singles, I had not given earlier DM albums much attention. I own a few, but they are cruelly ignored in my record collection.
It was a real pleasure to spend some time with the Music for the Masses album in full. David Bascombe, fresh off producing Tears for Fears and working with DM for the first time, brings a big sound and a penchant for experimenting than is cinematic and grand scale. The sound and lyrical content are less tinny than their early work. There are a some very strong songs here (Never Let Me Down, Strangelove, Behind the Wheel). You probably could get away with only listening to side 1. Watching the doco on this album, Bascombe was influenced by minimalist composers like Glass and Reich, which is a bit of a niche sensibility that appeals to me greatly. Those Glass/Reich/Bowie-in-Berlin inspired deep cuts are tucked away on side 2 for the true fans.
Christgau wrote that Depeche Mode turned "adolescent Weltschmerz into something catchy, sexy and seemingly significant". You can see why the goth kids love this record. He adds, accurately if not a little unkindly, that "Gore can't create without venting his shallow morbidity, which happens to mesh with a historically inevitable strain of adolescent angst... Dark themes combine with light tunes until the very end of side two. Anybody with an interest in adolescent angst (adolescents included) can sob or giggle along as the case may be." I think 'dark themes with light tunes' really captures the strength of Depeche Mode; it's a feature, not a bug.
The vestigial goth kid in me really enjoyed Music for the Masses, although not as much as Violator or Songs of Faith and Devotion. Would buy (for cheap).
Missy Elliott
4/5
My first real awareness of Missy Elliott was the release of Work It. That song was all over the radio, and jeez, it's a banger for the ages. Is there any other track on the album that good? Well, no, not really. But it's a really strong hip hop album of its vintage. The production is fascinating and funky, full of references to hip hop (and pop) classics. But the album is more than a mere throwback. For an album with clear ambitions to mainstream success, it is surprisingly weird, clearly within the history of hip hop, but looking forward into the future as well.
Missy's flow is on point; funny, surprising, and funky fresh. A who's who of A-list collaborators appear across the album, but would it be churlish of me to say I'd like to hear less of the featured artists and more of Missy herself?
Not many hip hop albums of this vintage (especially those pitched at the mainstream) stand up so well over time. This is still (mostly) really listenable. I could live without the spoken interludes, which are sincere, but boring on repeat listens.
Coincidentally, the day after this came up on my listening queue, I was at a record fair where I stumbled across a promo 12" of Back in the Day b/w a remix of Gossip Folks. Yes, please, I'll take that for $4, a bargain at twice the price!
The Black Crowes
2/5
Oh fuck no! This is a faded carbon copy of 70s Rolling Stones. The Black Crowes were a competent (but not extraordinary) bar band that had the good fortune to get spotted by George Drakoulis, who coached them with an appropriate list of band to study and emulate (Stones, Faces, Humble Pie). This record was produced by Drakoulis (who became the go-to guy for that 70s blues rock throwback sound), exquisitely recorded by Brendan O'Brien, with keyboards by Chuck Leavell (former Allman Brothers Band member and musical director for the Rolling Stones since 1982). All that would make any half-decent band sound awesome, even if the songs just really aren't there. Most of the lyrics (and all of the song titles) are a shitty pastiche of cliches inspired by Exile on Main St.
The record is just imitation, and nothing makes that plainer than their first single, a cover of "Hard to Handle". This made me angry at the time and just as angry now; a bunch of white boy wannabes doing a dodgy Otis Redding impression. I'm sure it's kind of good if you've never heard Otis. But, if you are familiar with Otis, then it's a bit shit. But it got a lot of radio play and sold a zillion copies.
This album is clearly only on the list because it reminds Dimery of the music he loved when he was a teenager. "Why do we need new bands? Everyone knows rock attained perfection in 1974. It’s a scientific fact." says Dimery^h^h^h^h^h^h Homer Simpson.
It is a bit of a relief that, these days, the Black Crowes seem to be fading from memory and relevance. Their last reunion tour was greeted with skepticism by even their fans. The sooner that the culture forgets that the Black Crowes ever existed, the better.
1.5 stars, rounding up because it is a pointless record, but not hateful.
Dagmar Krause
2/5
What is this doing on the list? Weimar-era art song has some enduring influence on contemporary music, but is _this_ really the example you must hear? Serialist-inspired agitprop kabaret from the second most important song composer of the period is pretty niche, as shown by the difficulty in finding this album online.
It's quite a tribute to Hanns Eisler (who, let's face it, was hardly Brecht's number one collaboration) and this is surely the definitive recording of this material. I am sure it was enthusiastically received by the 87 people who bought it on first release.
I am stunned that a major record label poured as much money and effort into this record in the first place. it is, to give it all due credit, wonderfully arranged, performed and recorded. This was not an inexpensive undertaking. Dagmar Krause has a really great voice for this type of thing. But how the hell did anyone at Island record ever think this would recoup its budget? I hope that they found other gainful employment after their inevitable firing.
I found if I settled in and let it wash over me, I could listen to this record. It's OK, you know?
But including it on the list of 1001 must-hear albums is either willful perversion or hubristic pretension. Not for the first time, I implore Robert Dimery to pull his head out of his arse.
The Verve
2/5
I recently reviewed Urban Hymns by The Verve, and (spoiler alert) found it to be a load of boring, over-produced todge. But Urban Hymns at least had two pretty strong songs in Bittersweet Symphony and The Drugs Don't Work. A Northern Soul does not benefit from _any_ songs nearly that strong. Nothing on A Northern Soul is worthy to touch the hem of Bittersweet Symphony or The Drugs Don't Work. I find the songs amorphous, vague, unmemorable with turgid lyrics.
A record company rep visited them in the studio, stating that he realized "that here was a band that were in the throes of excess. They were on the brink of collapsing or damaging themselves but at the same time hearing songs like 'A New Decade' or 'History' – you just heard that tension, almost darkness that was there. There were the classic highs and lows of a really drugged-up session and that was reflected in the music."
Not a good thing, guys. The resulting album is an unfocussed, meandering, pretentious, rambling miasma. Andy Gill at The Independent lambasted the album, saying it was the audio "equivalent of crushed velvet flares sagging over scuffed plimsoles", adding that hearing the album was "undoubtedly the longest hour of my life so far." He said the band incorporated the "worst aspects of both the progressive guitar rock that is their clearest historical precedent, and the baggy scene that was current at their inception: sluggish and preposterously self-indulgent"
There is bloat on this album; songs are too long and the meandering instrumentals remind me of incessant Jimi Hendrix jam sessions, slathered in delay and reverb, but with no discernable point or direction.
1.5 stars
Eric Clapton
2/5
There are so many reasons to dislike Eric Clapton the man: his racism, his conspiracy theories, his anti-vax stance, his fucking luxury yacht... and 461 Ocean Boulevard.
Blues for dentists. Blues for audiophiles. Blues for white people who don't actually like blues.
This is uninspired, boring, bloodless and sterile. He's a rubbish singer (not as bad a Jeff Beck, but still pretty rubbish). The solos are pretty average; stiff and formal.
I have several friends (who I respect and admire) who started their guitar playing career emulating Clapton's playing, but they largely moved on to bigger and better things, thank christ.
It's well recorded, but soooo bland.
The Pogues
4/5
Looking at photos of Shane MacGowan at (many) punk shows of the late 70s, you would hardly pick him as the soon-to-be punk poet of Irish(-style) folk balladry that he became.
I love the ramshackle playing and singing on this album. Elvis Costello was smart enough to largely stay out of the way and record them like a rowdy after-hours knees up, a boisterous pub lock-in with a Celtic folk band, three sheets to the wind and racing through a repertoire of classic Irish and Scottish traditional tunes.
Except that many of the songs are MacGowan originals, although you'd be hard pressed to squeeze a cigarette paper between his songs of the traditional tracks or those by more establish songwriters. he can hold his own with Ewan MacColl and Eric Bogle.
it is a shame to me that the alcoholism and drug abuse are so intertwined int eh legend of Shane MacGowan legend. I think the persona was more than he could handle, and it damaged him physically and mentally, and led to many years of distress for him. He was clearly and intelligent and sensitive man, and well liked and respected by his fans and peers. It is a shame that he did not have more time to play to those strengths. It is a blessing that we have this excellent document of him and the band at the height of their powers.
Folk is too often played like museum pieces. This album takes the energy of punk and applies it to the folk genre to show what the best of folk can be; music for drinking, singing, dancing and weeping. God bless the Pogues, in all their rough and ready glory.
The xx
2/5
The Guardian named xx as the year's best record in their annual critics poll and hailed it as "the sound of 2009, a distinctive musical statement of the like we may never get to hear again". God help us, music was rubbish in the 2000s, wasn't it? I notice Dimery struggling to provide albums in the 2000s, and he often lazily relies on just listing the Mercury Prize winner. The Mercury Prize is often a signifier of over-rated rubbish (with a few notable excpetions). If you bought all of the Mercury Prize winners, you'd have the worst record collection in the world (apologies to Cameron Crowe). And, as exhibit number one, I present The xx.
That said, I admire their marketing team. they pulled out all the stops on the early 2000s hype playbook; hitting up the blogs, placing on soundtracks and TV ads, working the awards circuit, hitting the festivals, and working every social media angle they could. I mean, look at the wikipedia page for this record; you can't tell me that isn't shoehorned full of press release filler until it nearly splits at the seams.
Boring, over-rated wallpaper.
Curtis Mayfield
5/5
I was talking to my 19 year old son, Hal, about how some artists really only have one song. They might build a career around releasing different versions of essentially the same song, but, if the song is good enough, that can be pretty awesome and the basis of a worthwhile career.
Is it unkind to suggest that Curtis Mayfield is a bit like that? He has a distinctive sound (funky, string sections, falsetto vocals, sinuous guitar leads, lightness of touch), especially in the 1970s at the height of his powers, as on There's No Place Like America Today.
This album is slightly more laid back than, say, the Superfly record, but still distinctly Curtis Mayfield. Which is pretty great. This is a wonderfully listenable album.
I recently reviewed Clapton's 461 Ocean Blvd album, which is a similar vintage and similar album (laid back, tastefully arranged and played record from the mid 70s), at least when considered at a surface level. But while Clapton is a poorly sung, soulless and watered-down easy listening album, this album is the opposite. It is beautifully melodic, soulfully sung and genuinely moving album. You can hear how much Prince cribbed from this record.
Favourite songs: Hard Times, and Jesus (the gospel backing is really great). It's church, it's street, it's real life.
4.5 stars
The Clash
4/5
I own a copy of London Calling, but, I confess, I almost never play it.
I read somewhere that The Clash's S/T album was generally regarded as their best until a 1989 Rolling Stone article crowned London Calling as the greatest album of the 1980s, having barely qualified for inclusion with a delayed US release in January 1980. And the critical praise piled on from there. I remember reading the Rolling Stone article, and many more that followed in US and UK publications alike, like the single Mojo issue in 1994 with a brace of hagiographic articles about London Calling (favourite photo caption: "Piece of piss. Next one's a triple!"). I was swept away by the tide of critical love, and generally parroted the line that London Calling was, in fact, clearly and obviously, the Clash's meisterwerk.
But that Rolling Stone article tells you so much about what is wrong with Rolling Stone. London Calling is not the best album of the 80s. It really isn't an 80s album at all. It's clearly an American-style (or at least strongly influenced) rock album. They aren't a punk band at all by this stage; London Calling owes far more to the Rolling Stones or Springsteen than to the Sex Pistols. Rolling Stone magazine loves that kind of shit, and couldn't resist given them the crown, because (secretly) they didn't like 80s music.
The most revealing song on the album is, to my mind, Death or Glory. Is it Strummer's rock star critique or his secret fantasy? Worse than either, it's his accidental prophecy for his own band that started out as British punks and ended up more interested in doing coke and shagging models in the back of the limo in America. There are still remnants of leftist politics, but the political outsider stance has morphed into rock'n'roll outlaw posturing. I was never convinced by Strummer's shaky grasp on politics, which might most generously be described as ham-fisted but well intentioned.
But, considered on its own terms as a rock and roll album, it's pretty damn great. The band is super tight and knew how to smash it out in the studio. The production is not overly polished or overdubbed or fussily cleaned up. There's a pleasant amount of grit in the recording, not least in Strummer's howling and occasionally gargling vocals, which are more spit and vinegar than good singing, per se, but pretty rock'n'roll.
There are some great tunes, powerfully played. I can't really ever remember hearing a convincing cover of a Clash song, which is a testimony to the strength their performance. Special mention to Topper Headon, whose drumming lifts the excitement in everything he plays.
Not everything works (Jimmy Jazz is notably awful), but that is always a problem with double albums.
They were at the height of their powers as a live band and songwriting unit, yet to disappear down the rabbit hole of self-indulgent and unedited experimentation ("Next one's a triple!"), then to be followed with egotistical infighting and "musical differences". And I'll bet they were a fucking great live band.
Nightmares On Wax
2/5
Well, Nightmares on Wax don't like to be tarred with the "trip hop" brush. And I agree with them. This is chilled instrumental hip hop, which is all well and good, but does tend a little towards wallpaper. I am also surprised that this is not nearly as crunchy and lo-fi as the leading luminaries of trip hop preferred in their sound design (qv. Massive Attack, Tricky, Portishead). I can also hear the subsequent seismic influences of DJ Shadow and especially J.Dilla on the world of instrumental hip hop. It's hard to believe that instrumental hip was ever this clean and almost to the grid. The whole sense of sound and timing has changed so much since the late 90s, that this sounds almost quaint. Influential in its time, but not really relevant anymore. It's just kind of easy listening jazz-lite with hip hop-ish beats. Cursed by its own ubiquity.
The Dictators
3/5
A lot proto- and early punk has a lot of humour in it; the New York Dolls, the Ramones, the Stooges, etc. It's one of the things I love about a lot of punk; it can be angsty and aggressive, but also funny. But where does a band tip over from being a rock'n'roll band with a humourous awareness of the ridiculousness of life and music into an out-and-out comedy band? I can't say exactly where the line is, but I reckon the Dictators have crossed over it by a mile. The sound is certainly great -- hats off to the production by Sandy Pearlman, best known for Blue Oyster Cult. the Dictators are pretty average musicians (there is some pretty ham-fisted guitar playing), but they sound big and powerful. But the songs aren't always great; the covers are generally head and shoulders above the originals (although I really dig Next Big Thing). The propensity for frat boy humour and proto-edge-lord provocation I could live without.
I feel like this a record I should have listened to 40 years ago but didn't. Now I have. It's OK, but there have been plenty of better albums since.
2.5 stars, rounding up.
Love
3/5
A man woke up one morning with a constant pounding drumming sound in his ears. All day it continues, drumming, drumming, drumming. And the next day, and the next. Drumming, drumming, drumming.
Exasperated ,he goes to his doctor, who can't work out what the problem is. The doctor refers the man to a specialist. It just won't stop, the never-ending drumming in his ears.
"Ah ha" says the specialist, "I've seen this before. To cure it, you just need to light a cigarette lighter, and wave it slowly from side to side in time with the drumming."
The constant noise is driving then man crazy, so he decides to give it a try. So, he gets a cigarette lighter, stands up and waves is slowly above his head. And, sure enough, the drumming ceases.
"Oh my god, what a relief" cries the man.
And then the bass solo starts.
That is exactly how I felt listening to 'Revelation'. Self-indulgent 1960s jamming. I know it was the vogue at the time, but it is the worst kind of padding. If I owned this record, I would never, never, NEVER EVER, play side 2. It is interminable wank (with a bass solo). Even the band hate it.
Side 1 is somewhat better, with some pretty tunes and those ornate chamber pop arrangements so beloved by music critics. Arthur Lee's tendency to shout can be annoying, although works well in "7 and 7 Is", which is the stand-out track on the record. Most of the other songs can be a little precious.
I find Dimery's obsession with psychedelia really reflective of rock snob music critics' infatuation with 'cult' 1960's albums, especially if they were not commercially successful at the time and at least one member of the band had a significant mental health issue. It reeks of hipper-than-thou, "you wouldn't have heard of them" snobbishness which gives me the screaming shits. Maybe I'd be more tolerant of this if the critical praise wasn't so over-hyped and exclusionary.
Don't get me wrong, I really like 'Forever Changes', but today, I'm just not in the mood. If it was all like side 1, I might be tempted to give this a 4 star rating, but Revelation is just a horrible waste of everyone's time. So, 3 stars it is.
Magazine
4/5
I am familiar with Shot by Both Sides, which is a regular feature in my general listening, but I have never knowingly listened to this album before. And I don't know why. How have I deprived myself of this record for so long?
This is right up my alley; muscular post-punk, intelligent, angsty, aggressive (when necessary). Apparently, Howard Devoto recruited the band by pinning up a notice in a record store; "musicians to perform and record fast and slow music. Punk mentality not essential". And that's what he got.
Howard Devoto's vocal styling can be overly arch, but the rhythm section is tight and powerful (shout out to Barry Adamson), the keyboards are fascinating but never overpowering. Magazine had clearly been listening to Bowie's Berlin albums. John McGeoch is that star player. His guitar solo on 'Burst' just slays me. I'm a little less impressed with his saxophone stylings, but I could listen to him play guitar all day.
This definitely goes on my "must buy" list. Shame about the cover art, which is needlessly ugly.
Pearl Jam
5/5
I was 21 and working in a record store when this record came out. One of our regulars, Beth, was absolutely smitten with this record, and recommended it to me. I dug the classic rock sound and bought a copy fairly early on and played it a lot. There was a lot of debate at the time as to whether they were really "authentic" or bandwagon jumpers. I was aware of their pedigree in Green River and links with other Seattle bands, so never bought into that criticism. The arrival of the second wave of grunge, and the generic mainstream 'alternative rock' that followed across the 90s made it clear that Pearl Jam were, in fact, the real deal.
That said, their rise to ubiquity was uncomfortable (for the band as much as the listener), and their subsequent albums didn't really do it for me. Possibly because they moved away from their strength, which to me, was their ability to powerfully channel classic rock (riff heavy, lots of hooks, stadium ready), without the macho posturing that went with the form. You don't have to scratch the surface much to reveal the DNA of this record (Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Grand Funk Railroad, et hoc genus omnes).
The playing is powerful and forceful, but loose enough to swing a little bit. The guitars have a great 70s swagger, a welcome change from the shredders who had dominated hard rock and heavy metal for the previous decade. Jeff Ament is the MVP, playing the most terrific moment on the record; the fretless harmonic bass slide at the beginning of Even Flow. The band didn't like the original mix -- too reverb heavy -- but it is what it is. I've listened to the Brendan O'Brien mix from 2009, but it isn't different enough to make me re-think my take on the original version.
Are the lyrics and vocal delivery a bit melodramatic? Possibly, but you have to admire the way that Vedder leaves it all out of the floor. You can't doubt his sincerity, and I'll take a credible and passionate (if idiosyncratic) performance over a technically perfect performance any day.
Pearl Jam was not my favourite band of the Seattle scene and I never saw them live. By the time they toured Australia, they were playing stadiums -- there was no way I was going to pay to see them at the Eastern Creek International Speedway (I've seen Gimme Shelter) -- and eventually they descended into purveyors of boring dad rock. But I played this album a lot in the early 90s and liked it a lot. I preferred Temple of the Dog which I regard as a sibling album to Ten. But every now and then, I give Ten a spin, and it always surprises me how well the album stands up. The songs are strong and moving, and the performances are powerful. I always find it easy to listen to all the way through. 4.5 stars.
Eminem
1/5
Nope. I didn't make it two minutes into this. I had some trepidation, because I really don't like Eminem's obsession with violence and especially misogynistic violence. But the opening announcement alone was enough proof that he intended to be as offensive as possible, and that I could suck his dick. I feel disrespected by the artist.
Interestingly, Eminem won't use the n-word (out of respect for black people?) but is happy to malign women in disturbing detail. I swear, he uses the word "slut" at least three times in the first 60 seconds of the first song.
Eminem is an adolescent edgelord who confuses provocation with value. There's nothing to recommend here, other than his linguistic dexterity. But I don't care how good your flow is, if the words that come out are so noxious.
Did not enjoy, will not listen.
Van Halen
5/5
Bang, out of the gate comes Van Halen with this cocksure and confident album that changed the sound of hard rock/heavy metal forever. Pyrotechnic, rockin', and above all fun, this album does not take itself too seriously, which is a major blessing compared to most heavy rock bands, who are generally po-faced in the extreme. Eddie's guitar style completely rewrote the book of heavy guitar playing, using the technological innovations of guitar and amplification to reinvent what technique could be. When I was teenager in the 80s, I was heavily into Jimi Hendrix, but a friend made the case that Eddie Van Halen's playing was more influential. And I reluctantly have to agree. When this album came out, it seems like every guitar player had to decide whether to adapt to the new techniques or sound old fashioned. Often imitated but rarely equaled, the Van Halen guitar sound really dominated hard rock/heavy metal for over a decade until grunge started knocking the edges off mainstream playing over a decade later.
Some of the songs are relatively weak, especially in the back half of the album, but a record with Runnin' with the Devil, Eruption, and Ain't Talking About Love and their cover of You Really Got Me as the first four tracks is always going to seem weaker in the home straight.
David Lee Roth is not the world's best singer, but his confidence, chutzpah and sense of fun leads the band in its party-hard strut. It was such a breath of fresh air for a heavy band to not take themselves too seriously. You just know you're going to have a great time with this album.
A dead-set classic.
SAULT
4/5
Tricky one. It feels too soon to really tell if an album is a real classic or not less than 5 years from release.
That said, this one might be a real contender. The political/cultural content is powerful and timely.
The sound is quite extraordinary. It has been a long time since I heard a record taking established genres (soul, r'n'b, hip-hop, afrobeat, jazz) and turning them into something new and fresh, not just a mélange of styles. Maybe Massive Attack is the last precedent. I've listened to this three times through in a row, and I am still wrapping my head around it. The singing and playing is also excellent.
Does it feel a bit churlish to say that the songs feel a little under-developed, like sketches for something more polished? Many songs are repetitive without seeming to go anywhere. Or do I not quite get this yet?
It also has skits, which I really don't like. They never hold up as a listening experience.
I will be really interested to see how history remembers this record in another ten years. It might be forgotten, or it might be recognized as the beginning of some whole new movement in music. Time will tell, but it's hard to predict right now.
3.5 stars.
Common
3/5
This is sweet relief after a bunch of gangsta rap albums. Gangsta lost me; it was just too violent, too misogynistic, too homophobic and just deliberately unpleasant. By way of comparison, soulquarian, conscious hip hop is a blessed relief. I love the Dilla/Questlove production on this record. Common isn't the world's greatest rapper, but this record is a breath of fresh air after the violence and misogyny of much of 90s hip hop. The production is A1, which makes this a really wonderful album to listen to.
Os Mutantes
4/5
There is a special place in every record collector's heart for a weird old obscure record with a cool cover that you pick out of a bargain bin for $1, which turns out to be awesome fun. I confess I have a few of those in my collection. Collectors love to champion those kinds of records; hard to find, strange, often misbegotten, and probably not really that great or important in the scheme of things. But a fun artefact to share with your friends. The obscurity is part of the fetishization.
Every now and then, a cult will build up around those kinds of finds, and suddenly they are a cause célèbre. I am thinking of things like the Shaggs' Philosophy of the World, the Kashmere Stage Band and the entire Numero Group catalogue.
I've always been wary of Os Mutantes as exactly that kind of hipster-bait. It's for music snobs who think that Pet Sounds is too mainstream ("yeah, Pet Sounds is OK I guess, but I bet you've never heard _this_ one.") I have slogged through a long list of 60s psychedelic cult classics as part of this list (Love, Spirit, 13th Floor Elevators, Skip Spence, Shuggie Otis, Iron Butterfly, Quicksilver Messenger Service, for god's sake), and most are a pretty shitty listening experience.
I am doubly wary when the legend of the band is an integral part of their 'appeal', especially if that legend is predicated on career collapse and/or the suffering of one or more band members' due to mental health or other issues. And this album ticked nearly all the boxes on my 'pretentious music sob under-rated masterpiece psychedelic cult favorite' bingo card before the stylus even hit the vinyl.
But what's the listening experience actually like, if I give it an honest chance? Well, pretty damn great, actually. The tunes are catchy and melodic (even if I can't understand the Portuguese lyrics), the singing is great, especially Rita Lee, the Tropicalia rhythms are fun, the songs are generally pretty economical without too much unlistenable psychedelic nonsense (cf. Pet Sounds low point 'Vegetables'. Don't come at me, hipsters, but 'Vegetables' is shit), the lo-fi recording has a charming warmth, the fuzzy guitar is excellent. I realized I did know 'A Minha Menina', which is a terrific tune. 'Baby', 'Trem Fantasma' and 'Bat Macumba' also really strong stand-outs.
The whole album is charming (if occasionally twee), left of centre (generally avoiding disappearing too far down the black hole of pseudo-experimentalism), with great pop chops. Loathe as I am to admit it, I really like this album. It's fun to listen to. It is, dare I say, more to my taste as an enjoyable listening experience than Pet Sounds (which I consider to be massively over-rated. Dude, I already said, don't come at me). Do you really _need_ to hear this record? Not really, but I like it.
I would seriously consider buying this record. But I don't want a pricey vinyl reissue. I want a shitty, beaten-up copy from a dusty bargain bin on the floor of a small record store with the cover all split, lots of surface noise, and a previous owner's name written in biro on the label. That's the way this album should be heard.
Bad Company
3/5
Generic, marginally better than competent, early 1970s hard rock. It's got a bit of boogie, it's got a bit of rock. The singles (Can't Get Enough and Movin' On) are fun enough. But all I can think about is Stillwater from the film Almost Famous; a competent band, struggling to make it in the big time (and I know Bad Company sold a metric shit-ton of records, and filled stadiums for most of the decade). But really, this is a compilation of ham-fisted musical and lyrical hard-rock cliches. Fun for what it is, but is it groundbreaking or historically noteworthy in any way? (Spoiler: no, it isn't)
The Temptations
4/5
Love this. Funky first half, ballad side B. Beautiful arrangements and playing by the Funk Brothers, terrific vocals, and a-grade repertoire choices. And it has 'Papa Was A Rollin' Stone' in its glorious full 12 minute version, which is the high-water mark of psychedelic soul.
The Temps themselves didn't really go for the funky material (especially Papa Was A Rollin' Stone), fearing it was more about Norman Whitfield's arrangements and production (true), and less like the ballad material they were more comfortable with. But the amazing cinematic soul expanse of Whitfield's production on Papa is an absolutely landmark.
Whitfield had a great ear for what was happening, with much of the material on the album covers of previous singles (and likely picking up The First Time I ever Saw Yoru Face from the placement of Roberta Flack's version in Play Misty for Me, just before it was released as a single). Whitfield could hear the possibilities in the songs and arranged them into something new and different, clearly influenced by Isaac Hayes' unhurried and spacious production approach to soul
The politics are sometimes a little wonky. The Temps really didn't like the lyrics to Run Charlie Run, a clumsy statement on white flight with repeated and prominent use of the n-word, and were uncomfortable with the presentation of black fathers in papa, which didn't align with their own experiences.
But the playing is majestic, one of the last great works of the Detroit-based Funk Brothers before Motown moved all their operations to LA. The legend is that James Jamerson walked out of the Papa session because he hated playing the same simple riff for so long.
But the tension between the singers, the musicians and producer Whitfield (and songwriter Barrett Strong) create a master work, even if they could never work together in combination again. They created one last masterpiece before they went their separate ways.
Postscript; shortly after writing this review, I found a copy in the $1 bin of Real Groovy Records, Auckland, NZ. For the win!
The Auteurs
1/5
At first listen, I thought this was solidly two stars; pretty standard lackluster, uninspired, typically boring mediocre indie-filler band, but not hateful. The songwriting is mediocre at best, the playing is barely average, it's poorly recorded, and Luke Haines is a pretty shit singer. This was just forgettable proto-Britpop, overhyped at the time by the UK music weeklies (NME is especially to blame, I reckon) beyond what the actual music itself could bear. The band was runner up for the Mercury Prize (itself a marker of over-praised UK rubbish), squeezed out a few more albums and effectively disappeared, left behind by their Britpop contemporaries. A sad case of 'nearly was'.
And then I started reading about Luke Haines, and I realised that I suddenly knew who this guy was. He is the pretentious bore at the party, with his slightly thinning hair and shirt unbuttoned to the waist, droning on about how great his band is (although, truth be told, he's the singer and guitarist and songwriting, so it's really all his vision), and their material is really meaningful and intelligent, not like most music these days, you know? You should really come and see us, we're playing at a dingy pub down the road on Thursday, and it'll be really amazing, you should come, Yeah, I will have another glass, thanks mate. But what was I talking about? Yeah, I'm really influenced by Rimbaud and Leonard Cohen, but I think really pick up where they left off, because they didn't really follow through on their ideas, and I really want to push the limits of what music can do, you know what I mean?
Heaven forbid you actually go to the gig, because it's 8 people standing around the pub, including the band's girlfriends standing down the front trying to dance while the rest of us sip our beers and feign interest in the boring mid-tempo indie rock the band is playing, while Mr Songwriting-Genius complains about needing more vocals in his foldback.
So, the generic type of pretentious git is bad enough, but Luke Haines appears to have been cursed with a fortnight of accolades, which never turned into the world-conquering success his simultaneously craved and spurned. As a result, he appears to have become twisted into a bitter, spiteful, angry, self-absorbed, troll. Pitchfork described him as "a songwriter whose shtick involves both unflagging self-admiration and utter contempt for labels, marketing, colleagues and fans." I started reading his autobiography ('Bad Vibes; Britpop and My Part in its Downfall'). He claims to be a recovering narcissist, but I really don't think he is over it (point of evidence: the album title 'Das Capital: The Songwriting Genius of Luke Haines and the Auteurs'). It's a perversely fascinating read of how much a brush with fame and subsequent failure can create ongoing challenges for a moderately-talented egotist, who loves to bite the hands that might feed him (record labels, fans, press, bandmates, anyone who could potentially help him).
I return to the eternal question of how much to conflate the artist and the art. In this case, the artist is a hateful troll and the art is blandly mediocre. Hence, I consign the Auteurs to the 1 star bin.
Franz Ferdinand
3/5
Better than average art-rock from the early 2000s. Heavily disco-influenced drumming makes this more dance-able than most. Arrangements are bit more inventive than most. Take Me Out is a particularly good example of this. The tempo shift reeks of the Beatles' habit of welding together fragments of half-written songs. And if the Beatles did it, then it must be a sign of song-writing genius! (Spoiler: it isn't.) In fairness, Franz Ferdinand carry it off smoothly, which most people can't manage.
But I can't shrug off the nagging suspicion that a lot of the praise for this release was the result of the last of the huge major label promotion budgets. I just don't hear this band talked about much anymore. I hope the band members invested their money wisely and are comfortably resting on their laurels.
5/5
Rock and roll was only about 15 years when Bowie dropped the Ziggy Stardust album, which codifies many of the legends and tropes of the rock star; the pan-sexual, androgynous, drug hoovering, alien rock god, messianic, paranoid, self-destructive, apocalyptic, prophesying and ultimately doomed ego monster. He was partly wishing himself into existence with this record, which is a key text in both Bowie's career and of rock itself. I couldn't count the number of English musicians who talk about his 1972 appearance on Top of the Pops singing Starman as a pivotal moment in their musical life, a moment when everything seemed possible. You would have to rate that appearance as one of the most important int he history of rock, up there with Elvis or the Beatles on Ed Sullivan for impact and influence.
And, for all the rock opera, concept album pretention, Ziggy Stardust is a terrific listen. The songs are really, really strong. I own the 1990 reissue with a few bonus tracks, including the piano demo of Lady Stardust. You can clearly hear the Brecht-Weill influences on his songcraft. Bowie is also a lyrical magpie, picking up interesting tidbits from all over the place, cutting and pasting into an intriguing collage.
And, it shouldn't be overlooked, there are a bunch of real bangers on here, too. Sophisticated as much of the songwriting might be, it all gets filtered through Mick Ronson's outstanding and unfussy band leadership. The band was tight and hard rockin', and bashed out muscular and dynamic versions of the songs in a few live takes. These songs were intended to be played live and are performed with minimal frills and overdubs, but considerable brio. To be played at maximum volume, indeed.
I've been listening to this album regularly for nearly 40 years now. And it still works. I still get a thrill from the rock and roll urgency of this album, but it isn't stupid either. I still hear new and surprising ideas in it. I cannot praise too highly. This is probably in my all-time top ten albums of all time. Every home should have a copy.
Lauryn Hill
5/5
I bought tickets to Soulfest 2015 in Sydney almost solely because Lauryn Hill was scheduled. I was devastated when the festival was cancelled a week out. But earlier this year I saw Lauryn Hill perform a Miseducation 25th anniversary show in Sydney. She had the flu and almost no voice. She apologized profusely, sang mostly in her lower register, and by the end of the show her rapping sounded like a member of the Wu-Tang Clan. But Lauryn Hill on her worst day (and I'm sure she would think this was one of her worst shows) was awesome. She gave a performance that left everything out on the floor. She was gracious, generous, and giving to the audience.
I am firmly of the belief that Lauryn hill is one of the great artist of our time, and that is mainly on the basis of this album. The songwriting is personal without being self-obsessed, and covers an encyclopedia of emotions. The tunes are great. She can sing like an angel, and her flow is outstanding. There is so much in here, Even the deep cuts are gems that offer up a lot. I often drop 'Lost Ones' into my DJ sets; it wasn't a hit, but it bangs. This album helped restore my faith in hip-hop, after nearly a decade of increasingly violent gangsta albums.
I could live without the skits (a common complaint with hip hop albums), but otherwise, this is as close to perfect album as I could imagine. I could listen to it every day.
At the show, she did say she had more music and that it would get released, and I really hope that is true. Miseducation is a wonderful album encompassing the concerns of a young woman, and Lauryn Hill has a place in history even if she never releases another else. But I believe that she has another album this good in her that could speak to her experiences as a more mature woman. I would _love_ to hear that. I hope we all get to hear it. Can't wait.
Patti Smith
4/5
It's hard to believe that Patti Smith was the first CBGB artist to get a major label deal. 'Horses' is the first proper full-length document of the New York punk scene. In the early 90s I picked up a copy of 'Shots from the Hip', a collection of Charles Shaar Murray's journalism from the 70s, which was pretty influential on some of my musical opinions, even when he was comically wrong. He published a few pieces on the New York punk scene in 1975, including "1975: A scuzz odyssey" (https://archive.org/details/shotsfromhip0000murr/page/124/mode/2up), in which he surveys a bunch of CBGB's bands (Blondie: cute but no star power; Johnny Thunders: might actually be a terrible guitar player, but he's so stoned that nobody can really tell; Talking Heads: Tina Weymouth is awesome; The Ramones: best band on the scene but nobody will ever give them a recording contract). And he totally digs Patti Smith (https://archive.org/details/shotsfromhip0000murr/page/92/mode/2up):
"Patti Smith has an aura that'd probably show up under ultraviolet light. She can generate more intensity with a single movement of one hand than most rock performers can produce in an entire set. On the face of it, it's an unlikely act... A lady poet, backed by a band who don't even have a drummer, sounds like an improbable expression for any kind of definitive rock consciousness. But Patti Smith is in the rock and roll marketplace and she knows the ground rules. More important, she knows how it works."
This record has a lot of aspects that I really like in rock and roll: it's a dangerous and unpolished performance that could go horribly wrong at any moment, but doesn't (cheers to producer, John Cale, who keeps it just on the right side of disaster). I think it exemplifies the school of 'low technique, high IQ' rock and roll that I really dig. It's smart and visceral, alive and poetic, a bit dangerous, and not fussy or over rehearsed, which was pretty revolutionary at the time. Have other people done it better since? Well, yeah, including Patti herself. Truth be told, I prefer her Easter album (because it's louder).
So, really, this is probably a three star album for pure listening experience but I love the doors this album opened for punks, for women, for poets, for musicians with something to say but not a lot of chops. I'm giving it an extra star for that.
Post script: Patti Smith's memoir 'Kids' is the best written book by a rock musician ever. It is a beautiful memory of her youth in New York City and relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe. Highly recommended, go read it.
Dexys Midnight Runners
2/5
I recently had to review Dexys' third album, the disastrous follow-up to this, their smash hit album. I _hated_ that record. It was a colossal and hubristic artistic misstep and a deserved commercial flop. And no fun to listen to.
Too-Rye-Ay is somewhat better. It is up-tempo, catchy and knows how to have a good time. Come On Eileen was a monster hit and for good reason; it's got a great sing-along melody, an infectious and energetic performance that is great for bad dancing (which explains its popularity on wedding playlists). But, frankly, it is over-played and I am sick of it. Nothing else on the rest of the album is quite that good but isn't dreadful. I do find Kevin Rowland's vocal affectations super-annoying, though. Apparently, he did that purposely, but that was the first indicator of his tendency to make poor decisions (see also: the cover to his solo album 'My Beauty').
This is a tolerable album, but not to my taste. 2.5 stars, rounding down.
Blondie
5/5
I first heard Blondie on the Muppet Show when I was a child in around 1981, but let's not dwell on that.
When I was teenager, my mate Shawn's parents had a caravan at Kendall's Beach, near Kiama, and they kindly let Shawn and his friends (including me, Philippa, Tim, Jessica, Irina, and few others) head down there for the occasional weekend, unsupervised. We were generally a well-behaved bunch, and didn't get up to much trouble beyond splitting a bottle of lambrusco between of us (which is not a lot of cheap wine per person). We would often go hang out at the pizza place at Surf Beach, just over the headland, eat pizza and feed coins into the jukebox. A vinyl jukebox was almost an anachronism by then, so it was a bit special. They didn't update the singles very often, if at all, so it usually had the same reliable songs available whenever we visited, including a bunch of Blondie singles. We always played the Blondie singles. Always.
When Shawn and Tim and I formed a band a few years later, we mostly played (terrible) originals, but Heart of Glass was a regularly featured cover.
As a result, I mainly think of Blondie as a singles band. The Best of Blondie is a guaranteed good time, and a record I keep in my DJ crates for dance floor emergencies. They had a magnificent streak of amazing pop singles through the late 70s into the early 80s. I own a few of their albums (including Parallel Lines) but I rarely play them because I live under the misapprehension that they just were a singles band, and that the albums are full of filler.
So, giving Parallel Lines a proper listen today was quite a surprise. Blondie _are_ a phenomenal singles band, and they were at the height of their powers here. There were six (SIX!) singles released from the album, and they are all pretty great (with chart-topper Heart of Glass the clear standout). But even the album tracks are pretty damn strong. This is a really consistent album of power pop all the way through. The songs are awash with hooks and strong melodies and a beat you can bug out to. The covers are well chosen and sit well with the originals. Their cover of Buddy Holly's 'I'm Gonna Love You Too' is my deep cut discovery from this listen (although, in fairness, it was released as a single. I didn't know that).
Mike Chapman had a hard time wrangling the famously undisciplined band into playing, you know, _well_, which he managed to do without smoothing off all their energetic edges. The band is muscular and taut and melodic. Debbie Harry's vocals are tough and expressive and charismatic, even if not always technically perfect. Charles Shaar Murray famously wrote in a 1975 overview of the CBGB's scene that Debbie Harry was cute, but lacking star power. By 1978, I'm sure he was eating his words.
Fade Away and Radiate is a bit of the odd track out, and I understand why some people don't like it, but I love the moody weirdness, embellished by Robert Fripp and his idiosyncratically Fripp-y guitar playing. Always love a bit of Robert Fripp.
Based on this listen, I am prepared to re-evaluate my prejudices about Blondie. They were an outstanding singles band, one of the best of all time, _and_ capable of producing high quality pop albums as well. All killer, no filler (as they say). Five stars.
Traffic
2/5
Interesting... I am not familiar with Traffic's oeuvre, and have been recently considering spending some time with their back catalog, based on the occasional track that pops up in my listening (eg, covers by Tigers at the Edge of Time, a local bar band I quite like).
OK, I have listened to some of their previous records, and then this one all the way through... and I'm not thrilled. It meanders, more folk-jazz and less rockin' r'n'b than previous records. Unfocused, not well structured, a bit too laid back for my taste. The guitar leads are (at times) pretty awful. Interestingly, the live tracks on disc 2 of the deluxe version are far superior. A bit rougher, better playing, and more focused even when stretching out. I was tossing up what rating to give this album... should it be 2.5, maybe 3? The band is clearly talented and it's not _bad_ per se. But when I listen to those live tracks, it makes the studio album sound like a missed opportunity. This turn to folk-pop just doesn't spark for me (pun not intended), and I feel aggrieved that it has wasted my time that could have been spent listening to something better, like their self-titled record. 2 stars only.
A final thought: the font on the cover is incredibly ugly; clearly a chance for the graphic designer to pull out some novelty letraset from the bottom drawer, slap down a piece of clip art, and bob's yer uncle, there's your cover. If the whole cover design took more than 20 minutes, I'll eat my hat.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
2/5
I never understood the cult of Neil Young. The breathless praise of his undying genius by white boy rock snob types borders on a form of mutual masturbation, rivalled only by the fans of Steely Dan.
I kind of like his tendency to turn the amps up REALLY LOUD and refuse to tune the guitars. He doesn't suffer from being overly polite, which is a good thing in rock and roll. But I don't dig his voice, and I really feel like his songwriting is vastly over-rated. I just don't understand the way Powderfinger is praised as though it was the greatest song ever written. Really? And I made the mistake of reading some appraisals of Pocahontas, which waffled on about how the ambiguity of viewpoint creates a casual morality and a surreal a journey through the 17th century to the modern day. I think it is just sloppily written, and don't get me started on how he wants to sleep with Pocahontas "to see how she felt". That's just creepy, dude. Stop it.
And I just don't dig the whole "better to burn out than fade away". The sentiment has been around in rock and roll for a long time ("Hope I die before I get old"), but Hey Hey My My is a key text in codifying the idea into the rock cannon. But how much destruction and misery has been wrought in service to burning out? I find it hard to believe Neil really believed it at the time and, as he approaches 80, can he still say this with a straight face? As I get older, I am increasingly uncomfortable with the fetishization of human misery in rock and roll.
The Electric Prunes
2/5
It's the now sound, it's what's happening!
I first came across the Electric Prunes via a compilation cassette from my mate Peter. He used to often include on his mixtapes a commercial for the Vox wah wah pedal featuring the Electric Prunes. It was made in 1967 and tacked on to the end of Glen A. Baker's excellent 2LP compilation 'Songs of a Psychedelic Age'. Check the commercial out here: https://youtu.be/17h773ldGds?si=SDtPFwACcyQwmceI
My next exposure was the track 'I had too much to dream last night', which was a highlight of the famous and influential Nuggets compilation. It is a great piece of 60s garage rock and a longtime favourite track of mine. It's weird and rough and catchy.
But the rest of this album is just another mediocre example of the 1960s cult psychedelia that Dimery is obsessed with. I found the rest of this record pretty forgettable. I swear I own at least one Prunes album (possibly even this one) but I can't find it anywhere, and I can't remember the last time I might have played it; probably about 30 years ago. Maybe I sold it and can't remember.
"I had too much to dream last night" is a moment of accidental genius that the Electric Prunes never came close to matching. They deserve to be remembered for that (and possibly the wah wah commercial), but on compilations, comfortably nestled between tracks from other similar one song wonders.
It's ok if a band only ever produced one song of real lasting value. That's one more than most of us ever manage. And those songs should be remembered and celebrated in a suitable manner; compilations, playlists, mixtapes, radio, DJ sets, placement in tv or movies or videogames or whatever. There are lots of places where a single dong can be heard and enjoyed. But please, Dimery, don't make us sit through whole mediocre albums on the basis of one great track.
Jane's Addiction
5/5
I bought this album the week it was released. I saw Jane's Addiction at one of the last shows they performed as part of their initial run (Sydny Hordern Pavillion, June 1991), which was, frankly awesome. On stage relations were clearly frosty, but not yet to the point of fists thrown.
I loved this album at the time because it heralded change. Metal in the 80s was mostly spandex-clad, poodle-haired posturing and bloat, smeared with two-handed tapping guitar solos and banshee wailing, simultaneously homoerotic and sexist. The two bands that blasted onto the scene to clean house were Guns 'n Roses, with their street-smart grittiness and Jane's Addiction, who presented with a much more bohemian approach. Both were obsessed with sex and drugs, but Jane's seemed much more interested in blowing open the doors of perception than Guns more self-destructive quest to get trashed. Jane's were a real call back to the promise of Led Zep -- a bit more mystical, artier, expansive. It was fresh and exciting and dangerous and different and sexy and free from a restrictive morality; "Ain't no wrong, ain't no right. There's only pleasure and pain". Farrell had a genuinely free (and amoral) artistic sensibility. It was different and dangerous and unpredictable, which was enthralling at the time. And you didn't feel stupid while you were listening to it.
Farrell is a charismatic and mesmerizing front man, despite his idiosyncratic and sometimes bizarre vocal style. He is objectively a terrible singer, but it works within context. God knows how many takes they had to do to comp together something in tune. But the band is awesome, and Dave Navarro is one of the last true guitar heroes. He was never better than on this record, and there is some astounding lead playing (notably on Three Days). The rhythm section is solid and dynamic and the whole album is arranged with light and shade and space in way you don't hear much.
This album was a surprise hit, and was one of the records that helped crack the damn between the alternative scene and the mainstream, with Nevermind finally bringing it crashing down a year after this. Jane's split a few weeks before the release of Nevermind, but their influence (and Farrell's key role in establishing Lollapalooza Festival) makes this an important album and a key moment of the underground breaking into the mainstream. It was exciting at the time, but, in retrospect, I'm not convinced it was an entirely good thing for music. I miss the days when there really was an alternative music scene, before 'alternative' was just another generic marketing label.
I really love this record, and have listened to it a lot over the years. But... Perry Farrell is an arsehole. He has a track record of exploiting the artistic input of others (especially younger collaborators) and taking credit for their input. It's true of bandmates, collaborators and 'muses' (a term commonly used to belittle women's artistic contributions). And worse, his active encouragement of the use of dangerous drugs was incredibly destructive. Dave Navarro and Casey Niccoli have both spoken about how lucky they were to survive the drug habits that Farrell encouraged. Xiola Blue, the subject of Three Days to whom this album is dedicated, died at the age of 19 as a result of a drug overdose. Farrell has been open about their sex and drug experiences together (again, the subject of Three Days), when she was a vulnerable teenager and possibly underage. This is deplorable behaviour, potentially contributing to this young woman's premature death. And, looking at Farrell these days, it is hard to see him as a poster child for the benefits of long-term heavy drug use; he seems out of it, incoherent and unable to work with others.
I am increasingly uncomfortable with the appalling behaviour of artists. I'm not sure whether it is worse when they celebrate their philosophy openly in their art (Jane's Addiction, Led Zep, Marilyn Manson) or when they hide behind a mask of faux sensitivity (R. Kelly, Ryan Adams). With some artists, I can't get over the ick factor (Marilyn Manson is probably the most extreme example), while I feel that other albums are still listenable, although I wonder when the hammer will finally fall (Led Zep, Jane's).
So I am still rating this with 5 stars, using the Ike & Tina Turner rubric. Just because Perry Farrell, like Ike Turner, is an irredeemable figure, this does not prevent me from enjoying the contributions of his collaborators (Navarro, Perkins, Avery, Niccoli, and others), which are still compelling and amazing (like Tina Turner).
Queen
5/5
A school friend made a cassette copy of Queen's Greatest Hits for me (with a couple of Black Sabbath tracks on the end to fill up the tape), which I played a lot during my teenage years. It is a terrific listen, but I couldn't afford to buy a lot of albums, so I didn't start collecting Queen albums until I started working in a record store and picking up second hand copies of their albums.
I was introduced to Sheer Heart Attack by Andrew N. Andrew was a punk rock optometrist who was dating my friend Kate. He was pretty big on Husker Du and Fugazi and that kind of stuff, but wasn't dogmatic in his approach. He also had alive for some pretty cheesy 70s rock. The love of both 70s classic rock and punk rock became fashionable a few years later with grunge, and Andrew was fashion forward anticipating the aesthetic. He had a short-lived band that played a gig or two at the Sandringham Hotel in Newtown, and I remember him leading the whole bar in a singalong to Cheap Trick's Surrender. Awesome!
And he loved Sheer Heart Attack. I only knew Killer Queen (from the aforementioned Greatest Hits), but Andrew extolled the virtues of this as Queen's most straight ahead hard rock album. The songs are shorter, heavier, less ornately arranged than most of their records, and it rocks hard. It still has the Queen features (lots of guitar and vocals overdubs), but the circumstances of its recording meant they didn't have time for prog-like suites with multiple sections. The lyrics are bit more straightforward and less fantasy based (even if still occasionally fantastical).
And did I mention that it rocks hard? It has a bunch of their heaviest songs (Brighton Rock, Stone Cold Crazy, Flick of the Wrist, Tenement Funster). In fact, the novelty aberration of Leroy Brown aside, this is as close to a meat-and-potatos hard rock album that they would ever produce. Under Andrew's influence, I purchased a copy (second hand) and played it a tonne. It is still my favourite Queen album to play all the way through. Five stars, no notes.
An aside re: Metallica's version of Stone Cold Crazy, which is almost a note-for-note copy, with a few "fucks" added for added spice. It doesn't surprise me that, of all the songs from the Elektra back catalogue, this is the song that Metallica would choose to cover for the label's 40th anniversary. People talk about James Hetfield's 'right hand of doom', his powerful and heavy rhythm playing. But you can hear how similar it is to Brian May's rhythm playing, which is not mentioned as much as his rightly praised fluid and harmonically rich lead playing. May has a strongly rhythmic metal rhythm style that you can hear across this whole record. Hetfield has plenty of other influences (cf. the whole New Wave of British Heavy Metal), but I'll bet anything that he was familiar with Queen as well.
2Pac
1/5
I never liked gangsta rap, and that extends to Tupac, the undeserving martyr of the genre. I find his flow monotonous, and the tracks are musically just terrible. It is true that, unlike many gangsta rappers, he does show the occasional modicum of human emotion and a tiny glint of vulnerability. He loved his mother! I could have died of shock! But it is not enough to outweigh the violence and misogyny that
The worst thing about Tupac were his efforts to live up to his image. The assaults, the beatings, the gun violence, the rapes are not just (unpleasant) features of his lyrics, but he did them in real life too. It seems almost inevitable that he would die in a hail of bullets. I think he wanted it. The introduction of the albums seems to almost revel in his legal issues and street violence issues. He is obsessed with his own imminent death.
Charisma, prolificacy and reasonable flow are not actually enough to warrant the praise that has been posthumously heaped on Tupac. This is a garbage album; nasty, unpleasant, monotonous and musically bland.
Missy Elliott
4/5
Missy, you are indeed supa dupa fly, Hip hop albums don't always age well, but this one is still damn fine after all these years. If I was going to edit, I would cut the skits and guest spots (I mean, why did we need Busta Rhymes to introduce the album? No offense to Mr Rhymes). Missy's flow is on point, and pairs wonderfully with the consistently funky fresh production from Timbaland. Great choice to keep a consistent vision across the whole album, although tracks maintain their individual identity. Love the singles (obviously), but this one is a great listen throughout.
Happy Mondays
4/5
In the immortal words of David St Hubbins, it's such a fine line between stupid and clever. And this band is right on that line. Were the Happy Mondays a bunch of ham-fisted, untalented, drug-addled chancers and plagiarists who stumbled into a music career as a cover for their ecstasy dealing, or were they the outsider poet geniuses of a new postmodern musical scene that melded indie and dance?
Well, kind of both... The band's management were really smart in following through on the wonderful Wrote For Luck single, where Paul Oakenfeld and Steve Osborne had produced an excellent and innovative remix. it was an unusual call to hire remixes to produce the whole album, but it works. The band are technically limited (and that's being a bit generous), but the groovy dance production courtesy of Oakenfeld and Osborne suits them well. The dance production really highlights their strengths and covers up their weaknesses as a band (particularly the inept drumming). Some of the songs here are a bit rubbish, clearly the result of some pretty forgettable jamming, but edited and cobbled together by Oakenfeld and Osborne into a seemingly coherent and eminently danceable album. Overdubbing Rowetta's vocals over a number of the songs helps a great deal, too.
I find Sean Ryder's loose and impressionistic lyrics both infuriatingly stupid and also full of fresh and surprising imagery. He can't really sing, but he can get the point across. The Mondays didn't really have their own musical ideas: they pilfer and grab musical snippets from wherever they please. But when they play back their magpie gleanings, they emerge in an idiosyncratic and unfiltered way that actually is something fresh. This accidental innovation is a mixture of lack of musical knowledge, carelessness, low inhibitions, and heavy drug use. I suspect this sounds great if you are off your head on acid.
I'm sure this was great in the Hacienda in 1990, but at the end of the day, all I can really hear is the drugs. So many drugs. 3.5 stars
Elbow
2/5
This is another example of early 2000s indie-style that passed me by. It's not as bad as generic indie landfill, but still doesn't really set my world aflame. A few good tunes (Grounds for Divorce, One Day Like This) that catch my ear. It's OK, I guess. But dull, very dull.
Carole King
5/5
I'm about 800 reviews into this project, and my wife keeps asking me why on earth do I persist with Dimery's clearly flawed list which regularly infuriates me. The most obvious shortcoming is the under-representation of female artists. Every time I have to suffer through another album of 70s classic rock or a cult psychedelic band or a gangsta rapper or over-rated male songwriter (have you seen how many records Neil Young has on this list?) or some other boring bunch of blokes strutting around showing off their allegedly enormous cocks and badmouthing the women in their lives, I get frustrated that there are so few female artists here. I mean, did you realise that Paul Simon has seven albums on this list and Nina Simone only has one? How does _that_ work?
I want to quote here from Jessica Hopper's massively insightful essay 'Emo: Where the girls aren't' compiled in her book 'The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic':
"Can you ignore the marginalization of women's lives [and artistry] on the records that line your record shelves in hopes that feigned ignorance will bridge the gulf, because it's either that or purge your collection of everything but free jazz, micro house 12"s and the Mr. Lady Records catalog?"
Actually, there are a hundred bits of that essay that I want to quote here, so you should just go read it right now (published under a different title): https://lithub.com/classic-jessica-hopper-emo-comes-off-like-rimbaud-at-the-food-court/
Ms Hopper posits a really great question, and a hard question: how do we justify the exclusion of female voices and perspectives from our listening? I am now going to talk to my straight white male rock fan homies as a straight white male rock fan myself; where are the female artists? where are the queer artists? the artists of colour? the indigenous artists? the differently abled artists? the artists who speak languages other than English? How did the musical canon become so focused on a particularly Western white male perspective that we would deny ourselves of the artistry and perspectives of the diversity of artists? Yes, there are a few examples of those groups in the 1001 list, but let's get real; it's not truly representative. If you are curious, if you want music to show you new and different things, then a diversity of artistic voices provides a wealth of treasures. Things you haven't heard or experienced or thought before. We are all richer for it. There should be, there _must_ be more women on this list.
</rant>
Ok, now that I have that out of my system, let's talk about Carole King's Tapestry. It is a breath of fresh air to listen to this record. This album is embedded in the basic DNA of the culture. A classic easy listening album. Carole King would be a songwriting legend even if she had never released a single record under her own name. But it is a great pleasure to hear her perform some of her greatest songs herself, in her own voice. The band is relaxed and understated, playing as friends rather than hired guns (even though they were all crack session players). The Sound Opinions show celebrating the 50th anniversary of Tapestry (https://soundopinions.org/show/799) interviewed several band members who, even 50 years later, clearly had fond remembrance of the sessions and their friendship with Carole. That makes a pleasant change from the number of albums I have listened to recently by men who were talented artists but real arseholes. Thanks, Carole, for proving that you can be a successful artist and a decent human being. It restores my faith in humanity.
I don't blame Tapestry for the thousands of pale imitators that followed. This is up there with 'Blue' as one of the greatest and most influential singer-songwriter albums of all time. I think Smackwater Jack is a bit out of place on the record, but, other that, it is difficult to fault. This album is warm, human, and comforting.
Every home should have a copy.
Soul II Soul
4/5
A record that I own, but don't spin nearly as much as I should. Smooth, funky, and beautifully orchestrated. Caron Wheeler's vocals (unsurprisingly on the big singles) are a real stand out. String arrangements are lush and sophisticated. This really is a precursor of Massive Attack a few years later, although perhaps with a little less grit and less depressive/gloomy. I really enjoyed listening to this. If this had been made even two years later, it would have been based on grainy loops rather than drum machines, but this really is an album a few years ahead of its time.
Led Zeppelin
5/5
When I first moved out of home in the very early 1990s, the share houses I lived in were pretty musical in tone. We listened to a lot of contemporary alternative of various flavours, but also a lot of what we referred to as "ancestor metal". Deep Purple, Sabbath, Led Zep, et hoc genus omnes. Dave C. was never an official flatmate, but he spent a lot of time hanging out in our lounge room, playing Led Zep II a lot. A lot. Dave's theory was that all of their songs (especially on this record) could be summarised as "look at the size of my enormous cock". Which is kind of ridiculous (but also maybe a little bit awesome).
Mark Richardson wrote pretty good summation of Led Zep's first three albums (https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/19418-led-zeppelin-led-zeppelin-ii-led-zeppelin-iii/):
"They made the heaviest hard rock records ever recorded, but their lyrics tended toward loopy mysticism when they weren’t either stealing ideas outright or wallowing in a kind of hedonism where misogyny was a given.
In 2014, Led Zeppelin is typically viewed through one of three lenses: those among the 50-plus set who were actually there hear their music with a nostalgic ear, remembering the days of their youth. There are those who grew up with the assumption that Led Zeppelin were important—let's say 30 to 50 years old—hear them filtered through a second wave of nostalgia, from movie titles like Dazed and Confused and the memory of classic rock radio. To these people (including me), Zeppelin defined an otherworldly image of '70s rock deities, conquering the world on the strength of volume, arena shows, and the baddest riffs the world had ever heard. And then there’s the younger set for whom Zep might seem a little comical, a faintly embarrassing relic from another era even as a certain amount of the music remains undeniable. In one sense, this latter group have more in common with the skeptical critics of the first wave, possessing expectations of "what music should be" that don’t necessarily apply for a band that sounds like _this_."
We definitely fell into the second group. Led Zep were the blueprint of arena rock. This was how riffs should work, how drums and bass should be mixed, how a band should play at arena scale. The influence of this record is incredible. In the 800 or so reviews I have written for this project, I have made nearly 30 references to Led Zep as an influence of other records, which is up there with the Beatles, surely. Sure, you also need to overlook the ridiculous lyrics and rumours of wildly unethical behaviour because, you know, this was the archetype and the music mattered more. These days, I am increasingly queasy about what I read about the band and their management; the bullying and violence and plagiarism and business practices were bad enough, but the sexual exploitation of young women (girls, really) is just inexcusable.
But the record _sounds_ so great. They play so well. Led Zep are a cornerstone band for me, and I could listen to any of their first five albums any day of the week. I know the critiques (bombastic, stupid lyrics, sexist, plagiarized, and the litany of absolutely deplorable behaviour especially directed at women), but I really enjoy listening to them. I'm not sure how much longer I can keep that up, though. But I don't know how I would feel about this if I was a woman; there are female artists who has stated their love for Led Zep (Tori Amos, for example), but, to paraphrase Jessica Hopper, how are we supposed to feel about music that we think is awesome , but hates us at the same time?
Five stars for awesomeness and classic status. To be reviewed at a later date as I work through the issues about personal culpability.
Queen
5/5
When I was about 13, my mate Peter D. played me The Prophet's Song on his walkman during a school excursion to the Sydney Opera House (we were there for an afternoon at the opera, a matinee performance of Puccini's Manon Lescaut) I didn't think much of the Puccini, but Queen blew my mind. Peter subsequently made me a cassette of Night at the Opera backed with Queen's Greatest Hits. I had been familiar with Bohemian Rhapsody and some of their singles prior to that, but Night at the Opera was the first Queen studio album that I really delved into and played obsessively. I find it hard to approach this record objectively because of my nostalgic love of the record. Does it have a lot of songs that delve into pastiche and novelty? Yes. Is it almost bombastically over-produced? Well, yes. Is it full of cracking tunes and rocking rock? Well, hell yeah! Let's play it again, and louder!
I love this review from Pitchfork (https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/15221-reissues/), which encapsulates my feelings about the band:
"Fucking Queen. For all their reported bombast, pomp, and tendency to overshoot and double-slaughter any semblances of good taste, everything you've heard about them is still true. They're one of the few phenomena who deliver on the hype, regardless of how you approach them. Hate or love proggy album suites? Doesn't matter, Queen will make you feel good about your choice. Can't stand operatic drama, or can't get enough unitard-clad frontmen? Love to hate prime 1970s hard rock with arena sheen? Welcome to the greatest/most horrible band of the 20th century. They did and wanted it all. Yet, so much of Queen's music is still under-recognized even by people who know and love the hits."
Bohemian Rhapsody is the jewel in the crown here, and one of the most unlikely of iconic rock songs. Is it Freddie Quicksilver bringing ballet to the masses (according to the possibly apocryphal encounter between Freddie and Sid Vicious), or a barely disguised metaphor for Freddie coming out ("mama, I just killed a man", except maybe not "killed"?) Doesn't matter! We're all singing along and banging our heads! I was recently at a grungy bar on a Saturday night, when the manager climbed up on the bar to lead a very raucous sing-along of Bohemian Rhapsody. You better believe everyone knew all the words.
And The Prophet's Song still blows my mind.
It's a crazy, over-top-top, bombastic, proggy, weird, rockin', idiosyncratic, occasionally silly, wondrous feast. Fifty bazillion stars.
John Lennon
3/5
Five important Lennon solo songs; Jealous Guy, Gimme Some Truth, How Do You Sleep, How, and his signature song Imagine. A mixture of protest songs, primal scream truth-telling, and pop fancies. Straightforward production with a crack band, tastefully under-playing, and really lovely string arrangements. This is probably Lennon's strongest solo record, but it sure ain't a satisfying substitute for a Beatles album. Thank god Lennon vetoed the record company's desire to release Oh Yoko! as a single. Nothing against Yoko, but this song is noticeably more pop than the rest of the record, and a little out of place.
The thing I really noticed about this record is how honest Lennon often is. Listening to Jealous Guy, he is saying things in a blunt, unvarnished way that I find hard to believe that the biggest pop star in the world would put on a record for all to hear. He is really laying himself open on this record. Although that could be the flipside of a view that everything he says is a Very Important Work of Unimpeachable Genius, and he uses honesty as a moral shield for his culpable behaviour. He seems to regard his shortcomings (temper tantrums, domestic abuse, vitriolic egotism, needless provocation, unfaithfulness, hypocrisy, etc etc) as artistic opportunities rather than personal failings.
Mind you, a myriad of followers had been telling him he was some kind of messiah for nearly a decade at this point. I'm sure it's hard to maintain perspective in those circumstances. As a result, he still can't reconcile his ambitions and ideals. I mean, Imagine is just the tone-deaf plea of a multi-millionaire to eschew material possessions. Easy to say, if you're rolling in it, mate. But I think this song is now officially recognized for the hypocritical bullshit it really is, following Gal Gadot's incredibly ill-conceived cover video released during covid.
Nirvana
4/5
This is a tough one to listen to. It's hard to consider this outside the circumstances of Cobain's imminent suicide. There were certainly plenty of indications that Kurt was not coping and in peril; reports of his escalating heroin use, the failed suicide attempt in Rome, and even this funereal performance.
I am not convinced that this was a harbinger of a possible new musical direction for Nirvana (or Cobain solo) as some have suggested. There are reports that everyone was nervous that they could pull off the performance at all following brief and shambolic rehearsals, and some feared that Cobain could not perform at all due to nerves and drug withdrawal.
I think the performance was lightning in a bottle; nobody really anticipated that they could do it, right up to the minute it happened. Cobain seems certain that he will screw up, and seems shocked himself by his reading of Leadbelly's Where Did You Sleep Last Night? (watch him gasp and his eyes open during a pause in the final line). It is the last dry breath of a collapsing god (to quote Patti Smith). I don't think Cobain or the band had much left in them after this. No encores, they're done.
Is it a fitting epitaph? Is it the anomalous offering that proves that Nirvana were more than just loud and angry? I think that Cobain's death, inextricably linked to this performance, guaranteed the legend of Nirvana, not that that helped Kurt any. I think this is a uniquely vulnerable performance, never anticipated and never repeated, a single unfiltered moment from a man right at the end of his rope. It is astonishing and heartbreaking to see something so raw and true on an MTV stage of all places.
This is an important and unique record in the history of rock, but maybe not suitable for regular listening. I still can't explain the presence of the Meat Puppets on this record. But this was not commodified rock for the masses, this was blood on the floor. Until, of course, it was packaged and released for your consumer pleasure at the local mall, just $9.99! Makes a great gift! Buy two!
Aretha Franklin
5/5
It is hard to say anything new about Aretha. She is at the height of her amazing powers here, finally escaped from an unfulfilling contract with Columbia to Atlantic Records. Atlantic totally knew what to do with her; step away from polished jazz-pop arrangements and unleash her soul. And she re-writes the book of what soul could be. Even the filler tracks are funky and she sings the hell out of every song. There is a reason the standout tracks from this record are absolute classics; Respect, I Never Loved a Man, Dr Feelgood, Do Right Woman. She owns everything she sings.
Rolling Stone apparently thought the band tracks were "unpolished", but the rough edges are a feature not a bug. This is band with considerable power, chemistry and feel, especially when Aretha leads from the piano. Backing vocals from Aretha's sisters Carolyn and Erma are strong and tight. It's hard to imagine that anyone else could possibly hold their own with Aretha on lead. (BTW, check out Erma's 1969 solo album Soul Sister. It's also great!)
An unambiguous five-million-star all-time classic album. I could listen to this every day. Damn it, I _should_ listen to this every day.
The Zutons
2/5
Here is a list of things this album sounds like, according to the wikipedia entry: Musically, the sound of the album has been described as folk, garage rock and indie pop, rooted in blues rock; the Coral; Love; the Animals; swampy blues, '60s psych-rock, offbeat folk; the Beatles, the La's and Shack; Led Zeppelin, Traffic and Frank Zappa; Dr. John, old-ska, trashy ’60s garage rock, Johnny Cash; goofy B-movie atmosphere; 'soul-funk-voodoo vibe'; ska and country; Spaghetti Westerns; Eastern European folk music; the Ink Spots; garage boogie; doo-wop vocal harmonies; Eric Burdon; "Crosstown Traffic" by the Jimi Hendrix Experience; "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding; Stax; the Zombies; Dire Straits; Franz Ferdinand; Tina Turner; and Merseybeat.
All mixed up in a bucket, and don't skimp on the saxophone. I think I'm gonna be sick... (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aczPDGC3f8U)
Radiohead
5/5
I've listened to a bunch of Radiohead albums, both in life and for this project, and I swear to god nearly everything they have released in the past 25 years is the emperor's new music. People rave about how deep and meaningful and boundary pushing and blah blah blah, but I just don't get it. The tunes are forgettable, the lyrics obtuse, the electronic beats don't move me, and the random washes of sound don't light me fire. Most of their albums are forgettable soundscapes.
But The Bends is the real deal and one of the dual cornerstones of their career (along with OK Computer) that established their reputation. Radiohead were only momentarily a really great rock band; The Bends and OK Computer are (truth be told) their only two great albums. I thought Creep was a great song when it came out, but there was nothing else on Pablo Honey that even approached it in quality. Most of it was try-hard pretention that just didn't get where it needed to go.
And then came this record. I actually think, pound for pound, it is a better album than OK Computer; a bit more direct, a bit less pretentious, and a more consistency rockin' and high-quality record. OK Computer suffers from Fitter Happier (which everyone agrees is filler rubbish) and Electioneering (which is OK, but is a little out of place on that record). I was surprised to read that this was recorded in a variety of locations and settings. It doesn't sound that disjointed. You can hear that the band have come off a few years of heavy touring; they are a tight, focused and powerful band at this point. They all know their jobs, and they get to it without too much extraneous mucking about. And the songs are great; good tunes, good arrangements, lyrics you can listen to without feeling stupid.
Fake Plastic Trees is used as the literal example of what Cher Horowitz describes as "complaint rock" in Clueless. And I remember my mate Peter commenting at the time (in reference to Radiohead) that it hadn't taken grunge very long to turn into Pink Floyd.
But they are a smart, powerful, guitar-based rock band, and they are really good at it. Sadly, they completely gave up on guitar rock after OK Computer, so The Bends is really only a momentary aberration in their catalogue. I love it and enjoyed listening to it again, and it has me wishing they would go back to producing this kind of music. I think a lot of their other fans also secretly wish they would, too. 4.5 stars.
Simon & Garfunkel
3/5
Well, it has a few drop-dead classics on it (title track, The Boxer, Cecilia), but is it generally just well-produced filler? Not so deep as it seems? Certainly not as deep as it thinks it is! It's not a surprise that it sold 25 bazillion copies, 'cause there's not much here to offend. Great melodies, wonderful lead singing by Art Garfunkel, terrific harmonies, fantastically produced album. But I think I agree with Robert Christgau who remarked that "its flawless, rather languid loveliness is ultimately soporific".
I also feel that Paul Simon is over-represented on this project. Dimery clearly has a major love of his oeuvre, but I just feel he's a bit over-rated, and certainly not worthy of six albums' inclusion.
We also see here a few examples on this album of Simon's willingness to take credit for other people's work (El Condor Pasa, originally credited as 'Trad.', and Bridge Over Troubled Water, based on the Swan Silvertones' Mary Don't You Weep). Considering his repeat offenses over the course of his career, some might go as far to accuse him of serial plagiarism.
Glad I listened, but I feel no need to own.
Genesis
2/5
Ugh, prog. Too clever clogs, rubbish lyrics, no good tunes, and heaven forbid you should rock out for more than 8 bars at a time.
I am incredibly uninterested in the musings of a bunch of elite public school boys on notions of 'Englishness'. Pretentious gits.
Phil Collins, bless him, manages to keep his drumming tastefully restrained and maintain some sense of momentum, which is rare in 70s UK prog,
The Crusaders
3/5
A bit smooth for my taste. I have a live Crusaders album, which has a little bit more bite, but I find their jazz funk a little too polished on this album. I mean, I get that they were pitching this album to a more mainstream, audience, and who can blame them? Joe Sample, Wilton Felder and Stix Hooper had each been working musicians for probably 20 years by this stage and had earned a financial payoff.
The title track is terrific (chef's kiss to Randy Crawford's sublime vocals), but the album just washes over me, making little impact.
Title track aside, this is not the most interesting representation of the Crusaders work. But I hope they invested the proceeds of this album wisely and enjoyed their eventual retirement comfortably. Well earned, gentlemen!
My Bloody Valentine
3/5
Loveless was a revelation. It took the lessons of the Velvet Underground and descendants (Jesus and Mary Chain, Sonic Youth, et hoc genus omnes) about the use of noise in rock and roll and took it to an extreme. It wasn't pure noise (a la Merzbow) -- there was still melody and a song in there -- but the presentation was so extreme that it threatened to break everything you knew about music. Everything was mixed upside down, bathed in distortion and reverb and other effects, with a woozy relationship to pitch and harmony. Vocals to the back! Drums almost inaudible! A genuinely groundbreaking record.
And they were loud, by god! I saw them at the Sydney University Refectory in 1991, and the volume was staggering. A friend who was a massive MBV fan smuggled in a tape recorder to bootleg the show. But when we listened back to the tape, it was 90 minutes of white noise. The volume just blew out the poor little condenser mike in his walkman beyond what it could handle.
So, given all that, I remember there was massive excitement when My Bloody Valentine finally announced the release of this album, after 22 years of "we're working on it, it'll be out real soon now, I promise". I signed up for a mail-order copy as soon as it was announced. But my reaction then (despite some of the hagiographic reviews) was somewhat underwhelmed. Yes, it is still clearly a My Bloody Valentine album, constructed from the same toolkit and aesthetic framework. Yes, there are a few good songs on it, and yes they have updated (slightly) some aspects of their approach. But it isn't that different, really, to Loveless, and in the intervening 22 years plenty of other bands and musicians had picked up the gauntlet of ideas from Loveless and taken them to more interesting places.
I think audiences had a genuine desire for something that moved and surprised us in the same way that Loveless did when it was released. But we are in a different world now, a post-Loveless world. While this is an album by the same band (and a good album too), you can't recapture that spark and shock of hearing Loveless when it was still new and fresh. It's an unreasonable expectation that we had, but we had it all the same. I think we tried to fool ourselves into thinking that mbv has the same emotional impact as Loveless, but it doesn't, it can't, it couldn't possibly. It's an impossible task for any band; be the same enough to satisfy our nostalgia for the previous masterwork, but different enough to feed our need for novelty. Waiting 22 years to release really only exacerbated the tension.
But is it any good to listen to? Well, that depends on whether you like to specific and somewhat extreme thing that My Bloody Valentine does. Personally, I like something that is noisy and difficult and loud (really loud!), but still has a good tune, and that it right in MBV's sweet spot. But, truth be told, this is only the second or third occasion I have played this in the past ten years since its release. It's better and more interesting than I remember, but it's not enough to make me want to play this instead of Loveless if I was in the mood for this sort of thing. This is a good (but not essential) album that fits to my specific taste, but I understand that many won't find it palatable at all.
Steely Dan
2/5
Won a Grammy for Best Engineered Album (Non-classical)! Doesn't that tell you everything you need to know?
I swear to god that Steely Dan is a cult for audiophiles and other pretentious middle-aged men seeking validation for their own irrelevance and bitterness, while nursing their secret desire (unrequited) for a Japanese girlfriend. They can all give you a long lecture about the virtues of their favorite single-malt whiskey and the $2000 custom tone-arm on their turntable and why 'the solo on 'Peg' is the greatest moment of music ever recorded. But audio fidelity and ironic intellectualism are not signifiers of musical value, dude.
For me, this album is the apotheosis of Steely Dan's super-polished, over intellectualized, cold-hearted, cocaine infused, studio-tanned, sneering, condescending and ultimately bloodless pseudo-jazz.
I could go on, but I'm going to quote Steve Albini:
"I will always be the kind of punk that shits on Steely Dan. It's music made for the sole purpose of letting the wedding band stretch out a little.
They spent three weeks on the guitar solo... Three weeks of watching guitar players give it their all while doing bumps and hitting the talkback, "More Egyptian but keep it in the pocket..." Christ the amount of human effort wasted to sound like an SNL band warm up."
I could not agree more. I have learned to tolerate (possibly even like) a handful of Steely Dan songs when they give the throttle a little nudge, but this album is the textbook example of why we needed punk.
The Teardrop Explodes
2/5
The Teardrop Explodes were never as interesting as I feel they were mad out to be. I think this is "you had to be there album". If you 14 in the UK in 1980, and the singles came on the John peel show, I'm sure they would brighten your day, but this has not aged well. it's dull pap. Julian Cope's voice is OK, but he really only sings the same basic tune over and over again (and it wasn't that great the first time). As Simon Reynolds says in reference to this album in his excellent book Rip it Up and Start Again: "The Teardrop Explodes wen from the next big thing to has-been with incredible speed, even by the accelerated standards of the post-punk era".
Just not that great and largely consigned to the dustbin of history. Rightly so. 2.5 stars, rounding down.
Bon Jovi
3/5
Bon Jovi, eh? It’s a struggle sometimes to review albums that sold a bazillion copies but are desperately uncool. And that’s the space where Slippery When Wet lives.
I was 16 years old when Slippery When Wet was released, and I had already shifted my allegiances to the alternative scene, back when ‘alternative’ really was a whole different industry to mainstream, with completely different bands and venues and radio and record stores. That difference collapsed post-Nirvana, when ‘alternative’ become a generic marketing term used by the major industry to try to sell a polished-up version of the music we’d been listening to for a decade (until they squeezed all the life out of ‘alternative’ and moved on to the next thing). But that’s a story for another day.
But you couldn’t avoid Slippery When Wet (or the singles at the very least). I still watched music video shows, and the videos for You Give Love Bad Name, Livin’ on a Prayer and Wanted Dead or Alive were ubiquitous for most of 1986 and 1987. My skater mate, Tim, used to refer to the talk-box guitar intro to Livin’ on a Prayer as “the wanker song”, because that’s what it sounded like to him; “wanker, wanker, wa- wa- wanker”. We used to refer to Bon Jovi as ‘heavy plastic’, and the members of the band as ‘poodles’ based on their haircuts. Oh how we laughed!
But as time goes by, I am becoming less sniffy about mainstream music. I have to acknowledge the influence of Carl Wilson’s amazing book Let’s Talk About Love: What Other People Have Such Bad Taste. While he is largely examining his own prejudices about Celine Dion, the arguments certainly apply to Bon Jovi as well. Getting snobby about ‘mainstream’ and ‘uncool’ records is really a way for pretentious middle-class males (nearly always males) to maintain cultural capital by denigrating (very) popular culture. I highly recommend chapter 8 ‘Let’s Talk About Who Has Bad Taste’ for the argument in full. And Bon Jovi is definitely uncool. I note that, even with their current poptimist philosophy, Pitchfork have never reviewed a Bon Jovi record or included a track on any ‘best of’ list (exception; best karaoke songs).
But it is pretty clear that Jon Bon Jovi and his merry band of poodles were not concerned about cool or cultural capital; they were reaching for the brass ring. Their previous albums were moderately successful but unexceptional, and they had the ambition to conquer the world and were willing to do whatever it took to achieve that. They teamed up with Desmond Child with the express intention of writing hits, then employed Bruce Fairburn (ably assisted by Bob Rock, on the verge of becoming the go-to guy for hard rock bands seeking world domination) to produce them with a slick sheen. They got themselves some fancy clothes and big hair, a state of the art lighting rig, and choreographed a compelling live performance set with wire-work, pyro, and well-honed rock star moves. It was a smart move to have all the videos show off their live performance chops; they were a slick and charismatic band who had clearly spent time studying Freddie Mercury’s performance at Live Aid and rehearsing a lot. They could work the crowds and the cameras, and it looked like the best show you’ve ever seen. The videos are still compelling (especially the bit in Livin’ on a Prayer where they switch from black and white rehearsal footage to full colour audience footage. That move was cribbed in the 1995 Isaac Mizrahi documentary Unzipped to great effect).
The album is slick and sleek, with all the songs sounding great; full of sing-along melodies and the hookiest of hooks. The lyrics are often cliched – at best they read like pale copies of Bruce Springsteen – but cliches are always relatable, and they were aiming for widespread appeal here. Props especially to Richie Sambora for playing compelling lead guitar that is far more melodic and musically compelling than was the fashion in hard rock at the time. He plays with panache but keeps the pyrotechnics under control (although maybe leans a little hard on the pinch harmonics sometimes). Again, I suspect Queen was an influence.
Livin’ on a Prayer is still, to my mind, one of the best constructed pop songs of the 1980s; great tune, a chorus for the ages, hooks aplenty, memorable arrangement and guitar work, and the greatest trucker’s change modulation in pop history (made all the more perfect by dropping a beat from the previous bar, which propels the song into the key change like a slingshot. Clever). The only quibble I have is with the way the guitar solo was recorded. It’s exquisitely constructed and played but seems to be oddly mic’ed to me – unlike the rest of the album, there seems to be a lot of room ambience, which is strange.
The most interesting song to my mind is Wanted Dead or Alive, a paean to the travails of being the biggest, hardest working band in the world. It’s a humble brag really, because life is sooooo hard being this successful (but secretly, it’s actually really cool, like being a cowboy). Except that they wrote the song BEFORE they were the biggest band in the world; it’s a statement of their ambitions. When Jon Bon Jovi sings “I’ve seen a million faces and I’ve rocked them all”, he is willing his dream into existence. And, to his credit, he did it. They knew what they needed to do to be the biggest band in the world, and they went and did the hard work. It wasn’t cool, but millions of people liked it enough to buy the album and see the tour and establish Bon Jovi as a massive band with a massive career.
I can respect that, and I’m pretty sure I have a copy of this album that I picked up along the way somewhere. But I never play it because it’s not really my thing. But if you like it, that’s cool too.
Hole
4/5
Courtney Love is a genuine rock star. Intense, angry, articulate, unpredictable, controversial, ambitious, unfiltered, strong, damaged, impulsive, charismatic. She has copped a lot of flack over the years, some self-inflicted damage, but a lot of grief for being crime of being a woman. This album is Hole (and Courtney) at the height of their/her powers. The songs are really strong, partially written in the studio, but also having been partially worked on over the previous two years. There is some understandable Nirvana influence, but these are definitely Courtney's songs. It has the loud/soft thing (which was a step forward in musical development for Hole), a lot of punk rock screaming (and what a scream it is!), but the sheen of being well recorded and edited. I think there was probably some selective editing on the vocals, the guitars and drums sound huge, and some subtle keyboard sweetening in the background. Interestingly, the producers said they didn't double her vocals much to not cut the immediacy. I suspect she never sings a song the same way twice, so doubling was not really a viable option, but she certainly gives each vocal take her all. I'm glad they left in a lot of "mistakes" (vocal cracking, dubious intonation and wayward pitching are common), because the performances are raw and real. Just the right amount of polish, I think. The beginning of the 90s was a unique moment in music history when noisy punk bands like Hole (or Mudhoney or the Jesus Lizard or the Butthole Surfers or any number of similarly bizarre signings) would attract major label deals and the attendant recording budgets. Nobody would ever again give this kind of budget to an honestly dangerous punk band anymore, so we may never hear an album like this again. It stands up as a powerful album, even 30 years later.
Electric Light Orchestra
2/5
I confess that my heart dropped when I saw that this was a double album. I did listen all the way through, but after 20 minutes, my ears just couldn't differentiate between the well-produced, string-sweetened, mid-tempo, melodic yet forgettable rock songs. It's all over-produced songs with middling melodies and Beatle-esque harmonies, and all the songs sound exactly the fucking same. All the songs are between 60 and 90 seconds too long, and there are too many of them. They should have cut the 'suite' at the very least. Rolling Stone reviewed it as a "totally uninteresting and horrifyingly sterile package" and "all method and no madness: perfectly hollow and bland rock Muzak." Apparently, Axl Rose is a big fan, which explains Use Your Illusion. I couldn't possibly comment.
2/5
I do not understand why Dimery included _this_ XTC album on the list. I think it is a mixture of his love of over-produced chamber pop and reclaiming his lost youth in the late 70s early 80s when XTC where a viable and relevant pop band. But this admittedly finely crafted pop album is smart and cleverly arranged and produced, but it is, in the words of departing keyboard player Dave Gregory, "the vegetarian alternative". Well constructed and melodic, but without real visceral pop hooks. There just isn't a sense of a real band. Andy Partrdige admitted that XTC was now a "brand" covering his and Colin Mouldering's music. And it sounds like a brand instead of a band.
Don't get me wrong; I love XTC's work from the first decade or so of their career. They wrote smart, catchy, energetic and enjoyable pop music that you didn't feel like an idiot for listening to. But this album has crossed the line into Steely Dan territory. As Robert Christgau noted "Studio rats being studio rats, the lyrics aren't as deep as Andy and Colin think they are, but at least irrelevant doesn't equal obscure, humorless, or lachrymose." They do verge into twee-ness and whimsy a lot, which is boring, and I hate 'Your Dictionary', which is as bitter and unpleasant a song as I have heard in a long time -- it's possibly even more bitter than a typical Steely Dan song. And I don't mean that in a good way.
Listening all the way through, I am both bored and slightly nauseated. I admire the craftsmanship, but am left unmoved by the songs. Do not like, would not buy.
Bruce Springsteen
2/5
Bruce Springsteen and the world's highest-paid bar band respond to 9/11 with an album of blandly inspirational songs of patriotism, loss and resilience. Bruce pulls all his classic songwriting and production tricks, which we have heard a bazillion times before. I am sure this was meaningful to many US fans in the confusion and hurt post 9/11, but I feel like history has pulled back the curtain to reveal to hollow platitudes of this record. Bruce wants America to rise up from its hurt resiliently, but we seem to have anger and violence instead. We have is a forever war overseas and increasing division and domestic bloodshed. To summarize, Bruce produced a musically rote album full of empty and ineffectual platitudes. Wildly inessential.
Sex Pistols
5/5
Punk always claimed that it was people who "couldn't play", but many bands (Pistols, Clash, etc) were in fact working within a pretty well-trodden back-to-basic rock and roll style and technique. The Pistols had already turned into the stuff of legend by the time I started listening to Never Mind the Bollocks, a mere ten years after its release and the band's demise. The chaos and violence of the Pistols brief career was well documented (if not always accurately), but it somehow, despite the hype and mismanagement, they managed to record and release a really powerful album. The tunes are simple (as befits a singer of limited technical ability) but catchy, the lyrics are immediate and political without becoming dogmatic, and it's got a beat you can rock out to.
Johnny Rotten may not have been a singer of great technical ability, but he was smart and caustic and articulate and funny and charismatic and full of attitude, which makes him one of the greatest front men of all time.
Steve Jones really was the most valuable player on the record, having tightly and powerfully tracked all the guitar and most of the bass parts. Equal parts Johnny Ramone and Eddie Cochrane, it's a loud and compelling hard rock record, not groundbreaking really, but energetic and exciting all the way through.
Sid Vicious, by the way, is an icon of self-destruction, but no musician. His early death was sad but inevitable.
Never Mind the Bollocks is an unusual album in many ways; it was a world-changing symbol of a new musical movement and heralded decades of sound-alikes (most of whom can't hold a candle to this record), it's a legend and a media circus, and massively culturally important. And still eminently listenable and exciting nearly 50 years later, after the death of Sid and Nancy, a million copycat bands, cash-grab reunion tours, box set reissues, and Johnny Rotten spruiking butter substitutes and Brexit. God bless Richard Branson for insisting that all of the singles appeared on the album, which helped ensure that this was a record for the ages. It was powerful and sincerely meant and, ultimately, unsustainable. But it is amazing that they managed to produce this record, and that it is so great. This record, along with the Ramones self-titled, are seminal texts for me (and certainly highly influential for all the bands I ever played in, for attitude even if not always for genre)
Five stars, must listen. Great cover art, too.
King Crimson
4/5
I don't like prog, but I sometimes make an exception for King Crimson, especially in their more rhythmic, muscular form. There are still a few cod-pastoral moments on this record, but the title track (both parts) and Easy Money are indications of where they will head in the 80s and 90s. The thing I like about Crimson, compared with other prog bands, is that they will settle into a groove and let the rhythm play. Those rhythms are sometimes complex or in unusual time signatures or otherwise difficult, but at least they let you get used to it, unlike many prog bands that think that 'complexity' means changing time signature and tempo and feel every 2.6 seconds, which I cannot abide.
I will also listen to Robert Fripp play anything. His choices are always at right angles to what any other sane player would do, but he plays it so confidently. It is a distinctive style that I will listen to any day. And he has a crack band with him (special shout out to Bill Bruford. He always said that he liked played in King Crimson because it wis the only band in the world where you get to play in 17/8 and still stay in nice hotels).
I never signed up for the cult of Crimson, which seems to involve buying $600, 17LP box sets of reissued albums or obsessively tracking done every dodgy 70s live recording ever made. I'd never given this album a good listen before, and it had some interesting tracks (title tracks and I really like Easy Money), but this is inessential. It is a transitional album into their new thing, better exemplified on later records. 3.5 stars, would buy if I found it cheap.
Earth, Wind & Fire
4/5
When it comes to funk (and, truth be told, most other forms of music, especially rock and roll), I lean towards the philosophy espoused by Gabe Roth of Daptone Records; shitty is pretty. Seriously, you should read Mr Roth's article: https://dustynuggets.blogspot.com/2009/04/shitty-is-pretty-by-gabe-roth_6324.html
If I was going to nit-pick this album choice, it is too polished for my tastes. The ballads in particular are too syrupy for me. But funk is sadly under-represented on this list, and so I am rating this one high because it was a breath of fresh air after far too many prog and psych albums. Shining Star is a banger (I keep the 7" in my DJ crates) and I really dig Africano as well.
Big Black
4/5
Well, this record is certainly not for everyone. I love the sound of this record. Steve Albini's ability to put a driving rock sound on tape became legendary, and this record is probably the first early work showing what he could do. I spent most of the 90s playing in a (terrible) industrial band, and we were constantly chasing that sound, especially that big driving bass sound. The sound of this record is massively influential (although admittedly, not to everyone's taste). Albini's lyrics, however, are deliberately unpleasant and provocative. He later apologized for his proto-edgelord stance, but it doesn't really make this much easier to listen to. I confess I have to tune out the words and just listen to the sound. I own this record and it is influential on my tastes, but truth be told I don't play it particularly often. It acts more like a proof of concept for a sound (drum machines and guitars, played in a noisy and straightforward way) that I have copied many times, but don't feel the need to go back to this ur-text often.
Alice Cooper
3/5
As a child in the 70s, my first exposure to Alice Cooper was his appearance on the Muppet Show, which was awesome and the perfect place for him. Groucho Marx, an unlikely but close friend of Alice's in the 1970s, described the Alice Cooper act as vaudeville, which is exactly right. It's "horror themed", but it's all an entertainment that eventually saw Alice inducted into the Friar's Club,
This album is probably the peak of Alice Cooper. It's a big, cartoonish Bob Ezrin production; fun, technicolor, dramatic. This is good example of the 70s tendency towards big stage shows (the live recordings on the deluxe version show how well they transitioned this to the stage). Fun and funny, but not an album I NEED to own.
Simon & Garfunkel
2/5
There's an old joke -- two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of 'em says, "Boy, the food at this place is really terrible." The other one says, "Yeah, I know; and such small portions."*
And so to Simon & Garfunkel's Parsley, Sage Rosemary and Thyme. Pretentious, self-satisfied, over-produced, dull, and such small portions. Is it worse when he takes the piss out of Dylan (A Simple Desultory Philippic) or when he slavishly cribs Dylan's style (almost everything else)?
And why is Paul Simon so over-represented on this list, especially when every one of his albums seems to have a Wikipedia entry section titled "Songwriting credit disputes"? It's time to out Paul Simon as a serial plagiarist. Two stars, you fucking hack.
* Just to pre-empt any accusations of hypocrisy, this is a quote from the screenplay to Annie Hall by Woody Allen. You see, Paul, you just acknowledge your sources, it ain't that hard!
The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy
3/5
This was a big on Triple J radio in 1992 (especially 'Television Drug of the Nation', which they flogged) and we sold a tonne of copies at the little alternative record store worked in at the time, so I was pretty familiar with it at the time. And it looks like Australia was the only country where this charted at all. That was a bit of a phenomenon, where Triple J (the relatively newly-national public youth radio network) would playlist a track or two by a band and it would become a hit in Australia. I saw them play the 1993 Big Day Out festival. I can see on setlist.fm that they supported Sonic Youth at Selinas a week or two later. I know I was at that show (a band I briefly rehearsed with was also playing support -- big ups to Driptray!) but I don't remember anything about the Disposable Heroes. Clearly did not make a massive impression live. But I was familiar with them at the time of release.
And I was familiar with the original Beatnigs version of 'Television' (personally, I preferred the harder original version) and their cover of California Uber Alles on the Virus 100 soundtrack. Really, these are the only two essential tracks from the album.
This is probably the first time I have listened to the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy in 30 years. The name of the band is completely naff, I am grateful that Michael Franti quickly jettisoned it for the more reasonable 'Spearhead'. His predilection for bad puns is not a form of clever wordplay. It's just shit.
Most of the elements of the band are pretty good, but not quite of the standard of their influences:
- it's political hip hop, but not as powerful as Public Enemy
- it's conscious, but not as good as Gil Scott Heron
- it's got industrial beats, but not as good as Consolidated or Meat Beat Manifesto
- they used power tools on stage, but not as intense as Einsturzende Neubauten
Maybe these things were fresh and compelling if you hadn't seen them before, but I was familiar with all of those other bands, and so my reaction was that this was really a kind of lite, non-fattening (or non-threatening) version of above. It can feel a bit sociology 101 at times, and Franti does have a tendency to lecture.
The album has aged OK ("rich people are exploiting you" is a message that never goes out of date) and the beats still have a bit of bite. I certainly would _much_ rather listen to this than many of the contemporaneous gangsta albums, which Franti correctly criticizes.
I don't think this is a must-listen album -- any one of the first four Public Enemy records could easily fulfil the requirement. But it is a solid three-star album (if a little over-long, as was the fashion at the time. An edit down to 45 minutes would improve the record)
Michael Jackson
2/5
Somewhere, Michael Jackson evolved from the exuberant, multi-talented child through confident and charismatic disco superstar into a disfigured, drug addicted, child molesting ambition monster. And I rate this album as the point at which that final stage started to rear its ugly head and become publicly visible.
It is always an interesting question of when an artist's personal behaviour makes it impossible to accept the art. And Michael Jackson is a really interesting case, because the 12-year-old who sang those early Jackson 5 singles is not the same person as the 50-year-old man who died, drug addicted, mangled by plastic surgery and reclusive, twisted by an abusive parent, fame, money and ambition. I absolutely believe the accusations of child sexual abuse, although I know many people struggle with that.
By the time Bad was released, there were enough stories of Jackson's behaviour that much of his album just doesn't ring true. I don't believe that Jackson was capable of having a normal romantic relationship, so all the love songs seem fake. I don't believe that his care for children was entirely altruistic, which makes those songs very uncomfortable. I find his singing of dealing with "the man in the mirror" sadly ironic, because Michael Jackson clearly could not accept himself as he was. And that's the first big strike against this album; pop music needs to be credible, you have to believe the singer, and I just don't.
I also hate the way this record sounds. The crispy digital perfection is just soulless and abrasive sounded to my ears. It has dated like warm milk, and the middling tunes are peppered with Jackson's idiosyncratic vocal affectations (shamone, heeeheee) that get more annoying with time. Everything is so cleaned and polished and quantized that smooths off every rough edge and any semblance of swing. There is none of the disco strut and swagger that was all over Off the Wall and (to a lesser degree) on Thriller (which I also think is a middling record). I know there were 9 singles from the record, including 5 US number ones, but ubiquity is not the same as worth. The songs just aren't that great.
Jackson had ambitions to be the biggest act in the world, and he arguably accomplished his goals for a period around the release of this record, but at such personal cost that it eventually killed him. And not without causing significant collateral damage to many people in the orbit of his fame.
Two stars is the best I can muster.
Black Sabbath
5/5
When I was 15, a school friend taped Queen's Greatest Hits for me, and on the spare room at the end of the cassette he included War Pigs, Paranoid and Iron Man. I played that tape incessantly and fell in love with those Sabbath tracks. I used to buy records from this weird UK catalogue printed on cigarette paper with 6 pt font lists of new (not secondhand) overstocked or deleted records from warehouses around Europe. The records were cheap, but they took about 3 months to arrive in Australia via sea mail. About one in three records would turn out not to be available, but what did turn up were like Portuguese pressings at substantial discount. I am sure that is where I bought my German pressing of Paranoid, still one of my favourite albums.
Black Sabbath aren't great musicians, but they managed to turn their shortcomings into a whole new genre. You can hear them desperately trying to be Led Zeppelin, but it turns into their own thing through sheer hamfisted-ness. There are some classic tunes on here (War Pigs, Paranoid, Iron Man, Calm Caravan). But, as a fan of stoner rock and sludge metal, this is one of the seminal texts and all the tracks are worth a listen. The Rat Salad drum solo is a bit rubbish, but even that isn't too long, and everything else I find super fun, rockin' and charming in its own way. I mean, it's all as dumb as a box of hammers and Lester Bangs wasn't far off the mark when he described them as "unskilled laborers... just like Cream! But worse!" But I also agree with Charles Shaar Murray (review of Hammersmith Odeon show, NME, 1976) that the key to enjoying Sabbath is to listen to them REALLY LOUD!
I find Black Sabbath really fun; they rock hard and get me all worked up whenever I listen to them (especially if it is REALLY LOUD!!). I also refer to Henry Rollins' spoken word piece titled 'The Virtues of Black Sabbath' (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ovATokHcqw) as uses Iron Man as an example of why Sabbath is awesome (short version; because rejection sucks and AAAARRRGH!)
Five stars, perfect. Wouldn't change a note! I even like the famously shit cover.
Elvis Presley
2/5
Elvis' first album after the army. You can hear the work he had been putting into his singing during his time away, with a more mature tone and increased range. This was recorded in a top Nashville studio with top players and was his first stereo album.... but all the things that went wrong with Elvis' career in the 60s start here. Designed to be an (inoffensive), four-quarters crowd-pleaser, appealing to absolutely everyone, there is a not a lot of edge here. A couple of ballads, a couple of gospel songs, some inoffensive blues filler, and not a lot of rockin' going on.
Elvis is not yet fully leaning into the glory of his maturity (that didn't come until the comeback special and the bombastic glory of the 70s), but without the energetic immediacy of his Sun years, this is an album designed to be as big and shiny a mass-market blockbuster as you could possibly produce. And, like most early 60s albums, nearly all the good tracks were released as singles and not on the album. This actually plagued him most of his career; poor song choice leading to albums full of filler. The only albums really worth listening to are ones with a particular viewpoint (such as the Memphis album, Christmas albums or gospel albums).
This is a completely inessential release from one of the great giants of 20th century popular music. Listen to a best of compilation instead. There are a zillion to choose from, and they are all excellent.
Traffic
4/5
This is really the sweet spot for me for the band Traffic. The folk and jazz leanings of their later albums are distractions from what they are really great at -- cooking versions of catchy songs. The Dave Mason songs really stand out on this record. they are much more tuneful and straightforward than the Winwood/Capaldi numbers, which can tend to provoke a "huh?" reaction in me. But, in fairness, this album isn't too psychedelic or folk or jazz or other muso-indulgent waffle. Everyone is playing really well. Winwood's singing is the standout, but the tracks where he and Mason trade leads are typically the standout for me.
It didn't chart for Traffic at the time, but Feelin' Alright was recognized as an instant classic. if you look at the list of cover versions by A-list artists that were released within two years. I love the live version by the Jackson 5 on their "Going Back to Indiana" TV special in 1971. It's totally worth a look to see the Jacksons at the height of their powers, kickin' it out live (https://youtu.be/6EtxrIpyuQY?si=P4nePLoltq0c8_bZ&t=139)
Back to Traffic, this is a great record, would buy.
Soft Cell
3/5
I'll confess, my initial reaction to this album was not great. Tainted Love aside, the songs are pretty under-baked and not well recorded. But I think the not-well recorded thing is something I often consider as feature, not a bug, in a lot of the guitar-based music I like, so I needed to give this a better go.
I'll quote from Simon Reynolds' Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984:
"Soft Cell's Marc Almond was fragile too, but in a different way: wonderfully uncool and hyper-emotional. His vocal pitch wavered, the intonation was often excessive, but Almond's all-too-human passion burst through. Like the Human League, Soft Cell had no truck with the we-are-robots posturing of first wave electropop: their songs nestled in the gap between glitzy dreams and squalid English reality"
I think that gets to what is great about Soft Cell; their ambition to bring a sleazy cabaret, art pop, chanson vibe to their music. Barely musically competent and with minimal technical ability, they recorded this with big ambitions and big emotions. And it is certainly one of the first clearly gay-coded pop records. Marc Almond wouldn't comment on his sexuality at the time, but it's all out there to see, and I applaud the courage to be out in all but name. It paved the way for much of the great pop of the 1980s; the Communards, Pet Shop Boys, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, and a bunch of others travelled the trail blazed by Soft Cell.
Mind you, I don't think they had the expectation of being a big chart band, but that's what happened thanks to their cover of Tainted Love. I'm a lover of Northern Soul, and love Gloria Jones' original, and Soft Cell closely follow her vocal arrangement and performance, but the recontextualizing as synth pop (and prescient of the AIDS crisis) really owns the song. It was a deserved worldwide monster hit and a classic song for the ages. Tainted Love is the absolute banger and clearly the best song on the album.
The other tracks have a tendency to be under-developed.
I wish they had the time to refine and arrange the songs a bit more and the budget to record them properly, because Marc Almond's vocals are generally terrific. He can really sell a song. But they are not really songs for the ages (although do I hear a resonance between the portamento synth line in Sex Dwarf and a similar lick in My Bloody Valentine's 'I Only Said'?)
I also love the fact that their manager, Stevo, used Soft Cell's success to fund and launch the Some Bizarre record label, which brough us not only Soft Cell and Marc Almond's solo works, but also records by Psychic TV, Cabaret Voltaire, The The, Einstürzende Neubauten, Test Dept, Foetus and my own personal white whale Renaldo and the Loaf's 'The Elbow is Taboo' LP. So, there's that.
TLDR: I appreciate the idea and influence of this record, but sadly, it's not that great to actually listen to. Except Tainted Love, which is an absolute banger.
Buddy Holly & The Crickets
3/5
Well, you can hear why this was so important to early fans of rock and roll. Buddy Holly really does set the template for the genre as it develops; the Fender Strat, nerdy guys playing rock, the use falsetto and verbal ticks (including a surprising amount of growl in his vocals), the tragic early death, and the deluge of posthumous cash-in releases.
This is the one Crickets album released in his lifetime (in a time when singles were far more important), and it contains a few absolute classics, but not all of the must-hear Buddy Holly tracks (curse Dimery and his allergy to greatest hits compilations). There is some filler too, but with 12 songs in 25 minutes, it whips along at a cracking pace and doesn't allow time for boredom. I'm all for albums that don't overstay their welcome.
Buddy Holly has become so stylized in his rock martyrdom that he is more often remembered as a symbol (like the Weezer song or Don Maclean's American Pie or his 'cameo' on The Young Ones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0nK6dlbfmU ) but actually listening to the album reveals songs that are energetic and well crafted, enthusiastically and muscularly performed and really compelling. You can dance to it. No wonder the Beatles et al. were all influenced by him.
What would Buddy have accomplished in the long term? Hard to say. But his records are well worth listening to. But I would still recommend a greatest hits compilation over this album.
Grateful Dead
2/5
849 albums into this project, and finally the moment I have been dreading has arrived: the Grateful Dead.
I never got the appeal of the Grateful Dead, and believe me, I've tried. I could never quite work out the scenes in Freaks & Geeks where various people praised the amazing impact of American Beauty. Were they serious? Was it really that life-changing? Or is it just a piss-take of the kind of thing that an old hippy guidance counsellor would recommend? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgmcqKDlygg) It seems to poke fun at hippies, but then we do get wistful footage of Lindsay Weir dancing around her room to Box of Rain, and she ultimately skips her academic camp to follow the Dead. I think they want us to imagine that the Grateful Dead _could_ change your life. But, in my opinion, if the Grateful Dead are opening your mind, that is a very narrow aperture.
When I listen to this, all I hear are bland platitudes and musical cliche. If you want rock inflected with country/bluegrass/folk/whatever, then you could listen to Gram Parsons or the Byrds or the Band or any number of similar vintage bands that incorporate the same influences in a more compelling way. I mean, I find everything that people praise in this album absolutely enervating; boring tunes, cliched aphoristic lyrics, strained harmonies, directionless soloing, and most of the playing is workmanlike midtempo stodge at best. But opinions around the Dead are like a cult; if you've drunk the kool-aid, then everything they do is fucking genius, but I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. I would rather listen to the Eagles; and I fucking HATE the Eagles.
Now, my mate Dave L. is going to come back at me with "I like this; it's got Dave Grisman on it!" Yeah, but he plays in the background of only two songs. I appreciate your love of Dave Grisman, but if you want to listen to Dave Grisman, go play a Dave Grisman record! I guarantee you will enjoy it more than this load of boring, tepid, directionless, semi-masticated jam-band mediocrity.
As a non-American, I can't really understand the American fascination with the Grateful Dead — admittedly not all Americans, but it is notable that the Dead don't really have the following in any other market. I suspect that everyday experience of enduring racism, capitalist exploitation, creeping fascism and gun violence is so soul-destroying that that it is a welcome respite to put on a tie-dyed t-shirt, smoke dope, drop acid, and hang out with a few thousand like-minded souls while you chill out and dance to non-threatening musical noodling. Hard to blame anyone for that, but please don't make me listen to it.
I am bored and befuddled, but at least this isn't hateful. Two stars.
The Stranglers
4/5
I quite like the Classic Albums documentaries that review the recording of classic albums (like it says on the tin). I find, however that, like Dimery's 1001 albums, there is a tendency to focus on big budget mainstream records. The most boring episode ever was on Steely Dan's Aja; "we just hired the best session players and went into the studio and did a million takes until we got the perfect result". Personally, I'm more interested in bands that can bang it out in a quick yet compelling way. Steve Albini was the patron saint of recording in a rough and ready but super exciting way. Don't let too much time and money tempt you into polishing off what is exciting about your band.
Which is my roundabout way of saying that I really enjoyed Rattus Norvegicus by the Stranglers. It is the type of album I often find more compelling; recorded in a week in a cheap studio, basically reflecting their live set. You can tell that the Stranglers were a well-honed live act. They are tight and powerful. they know exactly what they are doing, but are still having fun with it. Martin Rushent records them really well; he leaves enough rough edges on to make it feel exciting and a bit dangerous, which suits their material really well.
Were they really a punk band? Personally, I don't care that much about semiotic hair-splitting, but I really dig their performances. The rhythm, section is tight and muscular (I especially like the beefy bass tone), and Dave Greenfield's keyboards always add excitement and charm. Normally I would find keyboard solos (as in Down in the Sewer) insufferable (I'm looking at you Keith Emerson, Rick Wakeman, et al.), but I don't feel like Greenfield ever loses sight of the fact that you should be able to dance to their songs. The vocals lean towards that particularly British speak-singing intonation (although not as bad as Mark E. Smith thank god).
There are a bunch of terrific tunes on here (Peaches, Get a Grip On Yourself, Hanging Around), and even the album tracks are energetic and bracing. Maybe Princess of the Streets is below par, but the record overall is a rip-roaring 40 minutes of high-octane rock and roll.
Would buy. 3.5 stars, rounding up for not testing my patience.
Supergrass
3/5
I have already reviewed Supergrass' subsequent album 'Only In It For The Money', which I damned with faint praise as "adequate", bordering on "fine". It was a dull record that wasted my time. Truth be told, I was kind of expecting the same from this record too.
What a surprise then to hear a lean and energetic album that rips along at a cracking pace, full of youthful vigour, enthusiasm and some great sing-along pop tunes. I was surprised to realise how many songs I remember from being on the radio at the time. The material is largely the concerns of being a teenager (appropriate, given the lead singer was only about 19). I love that the album doesn't outstay it's welcome. The singles, especially Alright and Caught by the Fuzz are bangers, but most of the songs are quick blasts of tuneful enthusiasm ,which I can get behind. Clearly recorded quickly and without over-working the material, it captures the rush of a young band bashing out a bunch of songs just for the fun of it. Pop music really should be music by young people for young people (nosin' around, nosin' around) about young people's concerns, and this album really nails the brief.
Is it an essential album? Hmm, not really, but it was certainly fun to listen to. The one criticism I could make is that Sofa (Of My Lethargy) is a waste of time, just unfocussed studio experimentation. And 6 minutes long on album where most tracks are under 3 minutes. If you cut Sofa, you would have a 12 song, 34 minute album that would probably be a classic. But, as it stands, I'm awarding 3 stars.
Echo And The Bunnymen
3/5
This is the third album by Echo the Bunnymen I have had the dubious pleasure of reviewing. I find their albums remarkably undifferentiated, hardly warranting the inclusion of three entries on the list. So too then will be my remarks, which are only marginally differentiated from the other albums:
Oof, are Echo and the Bunnymen possibly the most overrated band of all time? Certainly, if you listen to how they describe themselves ('the greatest album of all time!"), and they could never possibly live up to their own hype.
Obviously, 1001 albums love them, as there are three (THREE!) of their albums on this list..
The lyrics are not nearly as clever as Ian McCullough thinks they are, which makes them The Doors of the 1980s. And they have dated about as well (i.e., they have a shrinking fanbase that are convinced that they are all that and a bag of chips, but the rest of the world shrugs).
That said, The Cutter is a real cracker of a song, distinctive, spooky, atmospheric (if not slightly nonsensical), and side one of the original vinyl is generally pretty damn good.
But not as good as Ian McCulloch thinks it is.
Most valuable player award goes to Shankar for his excellent string arrangements, which lift every track where they appear.
Gary Numan
5/5
Gary Numan, Patron Saint of Aspergers. I am longtime fan of this record, and spent a pleasant afternoon listening through to the record three times on the trot, and also watching the Android in La La Land documentary about his move to LA and career resurgence in around 2012. That then led down a rabbit hole of videos or interviews and stuff, particularly for the last decade or two (personal fave; the Amoeba Records What's In My Bag? video). I am absolutely charmed by Mr Numan, his wife and daughters. I watch a lot of docos about musicians, and it is ironic that I find Gary Numan to be one of the most human subjects that I have seen. he comes across as a shy, humble, funny, loving (and lovable) and emotionally open man. This is ironic given the cold, robotic image he cultivated in his early career. It is so important to have public examples that neurodivergent people ("neuro-sparkly" as my son would say) can be all of those things, despite the social challenges. Good on you, Mr Numan, I wish you all the best in life.
On the subject of this record, it is a robust and highly listenable album, even 45 years later. I think that speaks to the profound and enduring influence it has had; acknowledged and covered by numerous bands (including by Nine Inch Nails and the Foo Fighters) and widely sampled (most prominently by Daft Punk), this album (and Replicas, released less than a year earlier) were massive hits, opening the door for the use of electronics in pop songs in a way that really heralded a bazillion bands in the 80s. Cars, Metal and M.E. particularly stand up as incredibly strong songs. The decision to use a human rhythm section ensures that the band still rocks, even without guitars.
I was going to give this 4, but spending some time with the album today, I am rounding up to five for a being massively influential and a really good listen and for Gary Numan being a stand-up human being.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
3/5
Creedence released a string of really great singles in their peak years -- my favourite stat is that they are the band with the most singles to hit No.2 on the Billboard charts without ever having a No.1 -- but their albums can be a bit choppy. This album is basically the same formula as Bayou Country, but the execution is all around improved, and the record is blessedly free of extended improvisations.
The band was tight from a few years of heavy touring. I love this quote from Doug Clifford (interview with Goldmine, 2013):
"We went to see the local bands and they were so stoned they weren’t even in tune and they were really terrible... We made a pact on the floor of the Fillmore, right then, where we would do no drugs or alcohol. We decided to get high on the music, or get out of the business."
This makes this album sweet blessed relief from much of the unfocussed psych drivel of many of their contemporary bands, and explains how they released so much music during their peak (6 albums and 17 singles between '68 and '70). It's a fat-free 29 minutes, with most songs clocking at or under 3 minutes. That said, most songs are loose re-writes of standard blues numbers, continuing Fogerty's tendency to write about places he had never been.
They have that great mix of a loose, funky feel, while being locked in as a tight unit, knowing what each other are doing. My mate Dave wonders what if Creedence had been a better band (like the E Street Band or Tom Petty's Heartbreakers). I don't think it would make a difference, because it is their chemistry, developed through years on the road, that really makes this work, not the technical skills. It's a great swamp rock sound (even though they hadn't been near a bayou in their lives), it's brief, and the singles are cracking!
I have concerns about Creedence's musical appropriation, which makes me uncomfortable. I mean, this is a band that had never been to the south, and they built this swamp boogie sound based on a tradition that they were not part of. Also, Fogerty's "originals" are essentially loose re-writes of existing blues material. How come this bunch of Californian white boys got to sell a bazillion records, based on a sound that they emulated really well? I'm still thinking about that.
Look, I like the sound, and a CCR greatest hits would be five stars, but this album is inessential.
Pet Shop Boys
4/5
After the more subdued and elegiac Behaviour album, the Pet Shop Boys came roaring back with this baroque and somewhat over-the-top dancefloor monster. Pop music, especially pop music that you can dance to, is their true métier. This is a sophisticated, lush and beautifully produced high water mark of late 20th century pop music. It is a celebration of queer joy as an act of resistance, perfectly capstoned by wonderful cover of the Village People's Go West.
Are any of their albums absolutely essential? Maybe not, there is some amount of filler on the albums, but I would rate any of their singles' compilations as essential listening.
And they are still relevant; my disco-loving 22-year-old son just went to the hairdresser with the cover of Actually, seeking a Neil Tennant hairstyle. And he listens to it, too.
Sufjan Stevens
2/5
This is so f*cking precious I can't even. No more, please.
The White Stripes
5/5
I had heard a few White Stripes songs on the radio, but my eyes were really opened when I saw them on TV playing at some big awards show in the early 2000s (maybe the 2002 VMAs) and realizing that they were doing something _very_ different than most big rock bands. They were actually _playing_. It was rough and raucous and unpolished and sloppy and it really rocked, unlike everything else I had seen that night or at any other awards show ever.
Now, I see a lot of small bands in small venues, so I recognize real sweaty rock and roll when I see it. This wasn't major-label, airbrushed, produced, domesticated and professional rock; this was a band playing in the moment, consequences be damned. Their performance was gloriously imperfect, which gave it power. I wasn't really paying close attention to 'new' bands and releases around this time, but I certainly heard about the White Stripes. They were already big by the time they made an impression here in Australia. I remember the excitement about this record when it came out, and Seven Nation Army very quickly revealed itself as a classic track.
They can capture their live excitement on record, which is no small feat. Jack White is a pretty hot and messy guitar player, and his voice is idiosyncratic at times (that weird warble he does), Meg's drumming is basic, but they play with dynamics and they clearly _listen_ to each other. It's the right balance of tight synchronization between the players, with a looseness that allows them to follow the moment. I really want to emphasize their use of dynamics and space, which is a bit rare these days. They are often loud and noisy, but they can pull back to quite sparse and quiet at the drop of a hat. And on a technical note, they don't over-compress their mastering. Hardly anyone does that these days.
The songwriting is catchy, heavily influenced by blues and country, but not actually either when you dig into it (any more than, say, Led Zep is real blues). The highly stylized and constrained aesthetics of the White Stripes -- visually and musically and production-wise -- play to their strengths, which are that immediacy and a real power (even in their constrained inauthenticity).
Most record company execs would, I'm sure, list a bunch of weaknesses -- the basic drumming, the simple songwriting, the relatively unadorned arrangements, the noisy recording, Jack's voice, Meg's voice -- but these 'weaknesses' are all strengths. Hell, you level nearly all the same criticisms at the Velvet Underground, similarly despised by record execs but, you know, the Velvet fucking Underground.
This is probably the White Stripes' best album; it's got some really classic songs (Seven Nation Army, Hardest Button to Button, Ball and Biscuit). it passes Howard Hawks' rule for a good movie (and a good album): three good scenes and no bad scenes. Playing is powerful and generally tightly edited (later albums can tend to ramble) and Jack is not distracted by fad ideas (whoever left a marimba in the studio for him to experiment needs a firm talking to).
But at the end of the day, the most important thing about this album is that it rocks. It's one of the big major label records that does actually rock. Rock as a genre has been unwell since the late 80s, and it hard to think of many bands that have had this kind of major success by playing straight ahead rock. Is this the final spasm of rock as an important genre? Maybe. There are still plenty of smaller bands, especially if you are willing to hand out in dive bars, but I don't think rock will ever be relevant to popular culture in the same way ever again. A last great album for a previously great and important genre, and a great listen.
3/5
Yet another white boy rock critic cult classic... an overlooked gem of 1960s pop / rock opera, just like soooo many others we have reviewed as part of 1001 albums. I mean, it's pleasant enough (by design), but part of Dimery's obsessions with the (1960s) Kinks.
I have not enjoyed any of the other Kinks studio albums on the list so far. I find the album tracks. But I hit a patch in the middle of this record where I really started diggin' the listening experience (especially the run of Brainwashed / Australia / Shangri-La). They were pumping out some recent 60s rock there. Great tunes and muscular performance.
This cottage-scale rock opera is less ambitious than, say, Tommy, but it is also far less pompous and batshit crazy then most rock operas, which is something of a relief.
There are too many 60s Kinks albums on this list, but this is the one most to my taste.
That said, as an Australian living in the 21st century, I find Ray Davies' wistful nostalgia for a bygone England just a bit irrelevant and hard to connect to, so it's a bit of a non-committal shrug from me.
I would still tend to recommend to any new listener to track down a compilation of the Kinks' 60s singles rather than any individual album. Now, _that's_ a great listen.
The Beta Band
3/5
Listening to this album evoked exactly the same response as when I listened to Hot Shots II, so I will replay my review of that album below, substituting "Heroes to Zeros" for "Hot Shots II":
I hated, _hated_, that bit in the film of "High Fidelity" when John Cusack smugly announces that he will now sell 5 copies of The 3 EPs by the Beta Band, pops it on the turntable, to instant grooving and interest from the shoppers. I worked for years in a store almost exactly like the fictional Championship Vinyl and I never, _never_, played a record in an attempt to intentionally sell a copy to unsuspecting shoppers, let alone the unmitigated arrogance to attempt to sell five! Sometimes shoppers would ask about what was playing, but you can't force people to like something just like that. Musical taste is so personal, and works on so many levels, you can't just spin a record you think is good to instant acclaim.
That scenario is the wet dream of every white-boy collector-scum record nerd who ever lived. "I will play this secret undiscovered gem that only I -- the ultimate arbiter of taste and refinement -- know, and the ignorant throngs will instantly recognize my genius and bow before me, thrusting their dollars at me as fitting tribute for me imparting this gift of knowledge to them". ("I know" smirks Cusack).
So, the Beta Band is reputationally besmirched in popular culture before I ever really gave them a listen. I am predisposed to hate them already, not even at their own fault. In fairness, Dry The Rain (which is the song Cusack plays in the store) is a pretty good song.
So I gave Heroes to Zeros a fair listen. And they are a fair band. They can craft a pleasant tune, with some nice harmonies, with a charmingly sloppy, lo-fi, laid-back production aesthetic that I kind of dig. But it's all a bit the same-same (like a series of fading carbon copies off Dry The Rain, really), and I wish they would break out a bit and try and catch my attention with something different.
I note that this album no longer appears in the latest edition of 1001 Albums. But I might consider buying a copy of The 3 EPs. Curse you, Cusack, you got me in the end!
2.5 stars, rounding up.
The Dandy Warhols
3/5
"Dig!" is one of my favorite music documentaries, carting the parallel journeys of the Dandy Warhols and the Briamn Jonestown Massacre. it's a great and compelling story of the music industry in the 1990s and the comparisons between the two bands (once friends, later enemies) make for fascinating viewing, full of drama, violence, drugs, ambition, mental illness and self-destruction. While the Brian Jonestown Massacre's willful embrace of the rock'n'roll myth, all sex and drugs and destruction, left a trail of self-sabotage, missed opportunities, ex-band members and failure, it looks like they were ultimately the more artistically successful. There are a lot of subsequent bands subsequent that were clearly influenced by their 60s inflected drone rock (personally, I quite like Wooden Shjips), although Anton Newcombe's continuing behaviour issues become less and less charming as the years pass. Artistic endeavor doesn't give you a pass to act like an arsehole.
The Dandy Warhols are a different case. They were willing to make the compromises to sign to a major label and reach for the brass ring. They were a bit out of step with American "indie" music at the time; they had an air of louche glamour and decadence. Interestingly, Pitchfork cite this album on their list of "Best Britpop albums that aren't British". And I can see the reasoning; enthralled by the first British Invasion (more Stones than Beatles in this case), the cocaine strut, the naked ambition and embrace of all the rock star lifestyle.
Were they arrogant? Were they drug-addled (even if not embracing the full-time junkie depravity of BJM)? Were they naive about how the industry works? Well, yes, they were all those things. But they released a couple of major label albums (best summarized on their retrospective compilation), had some hits in Europe and other markets (they were pretty big in Australia due to lots of play on Triple J radio), toured in a tour bus, played a bunch of festivals, did a lot of drugs, and basically fell into every music industry trap that Steve Albini warned us about. So, mission accomplished!
What's the album like to listen to, though? Well, there are a handful of decent songs (Last Junkie on Earth, Boys Better), but really nothing special. And sooooo much filler. All the songs are a minute too long, and there are a few tracks that need to be cut entirely (Pete International Airport, immediately springs to mind). What was going on in the 90s that albums needed to be more than an hour long? The Dandys obsession with sixties rock should have told them that an album really shouldn't exceed 40 minutes. The record desperately needs 20-25 minutes edited out. I don't mind a bit of drone in my rock, but when the drone is all there is (and the Dandy's drones ain't that great), then they're just wasting time. I feel that this album is mostly posture; all talk and no trousers. It was sort of cool at the time, but the years haven't been kind.
This album is pretty inessential. But go watch "Dig!" That really is essential viewing about how bands work.
Tim Buckley
2/5
I can't recall what was my first awareness of Tim Buckley; via the (awesome) This Mortal Coil cover of 'Song to the Siren' or mid-80s Triple J listener poll of "sexiest songs ever", that included 'Get On Top' pretty high on the list. In the 1980s, Tim Buckley was a largely forgotten artist. His albums were largely hard-to-get, often deleted. And, frankly, I think he would have stayed that way if not for Jeff Buckley's career and the eerie echoes of their similar looks, voices and early deaths. (David Browne's book Dream Brother points out the ways in which their lives also contrast.).
I do not know why the Greetings from LA album is on the list. It's well recorded and pretty great band (shout out to Venetta Fields, always happy to see her name on album credits), but this album is not Tim Buckley playing to his strengths. A deliberate play toward some sort of commercial appeal, this turgid white-boy "sex funk" is frankly embarrassing. I cannot think of anything worse than trying to get it on to 'Get On Top'. It's appearance in that poll suggests to me that Australians in the 1980s were not a particularly sexy people, because this song is just cringe.
I have time for Tim Buckley's jazz-inflected folk rock, and he has a great voice, and he wrote and covered some great songs over his career. But not on this album. This is not good.
Yes
2/5
I am not a fan of prog, not a fan. But I did not hate this nearly as much as I expected. The B3 keyboard playing of Tony Kaye is far less pretentious and widdly-widdly than the subsequent synthesizer overkill of Rick Wakeman. New boy Steve Howe hasn't gone full prog yet, either. This still sounds like a rock band, as opposed the over-arranged clever-clogs, full blown progressive of the 70s that was right around the corner. As with all prog albums, moments of rock and roll appear, only to be lost in a swamp of tedium. All talk and no bloody trousers. Even Classic Rock magazine thinks this album is not up to par but could have been, and they _like_ this stuff. What chance does a non-prog fan have?
According to wikipedia, they were on the verge of being dropped by their label, but avoided this by manipulating the charts to goose the release until it got its own sales legs.
Prog: it's the emperors new music.
Ice Cube
1/5
Early 90s gangsta rap. One of the best examples of the genre, but this type of hip hop left me cold at the time and continues to leave me cold to this day.
I don't mind the politics, but the extraordinary misogyny and violence make me uncomfortable and nauseated. I haven't listened closely enough to accurately determine the level of homophobic content, but you gotta imagine there's some of that too.
I really don't want to listen to this again.
KISS
3/5
Trying to convert the success of their allegedly 'live' album into sustained popularity, Kiss's management roped in Bob ezrin to produce, hot off his string of Alice Cooper albums. Ezrin realised that Kiss aspired to be rock and roll heroes, but should be aiming to be rock and roll SUPERHEROES. He whipped them into musical shape with a view to presenting them as superheroes, reflected in the cover art. And it worked.
Many rock critics, Dimery included, are obsessed with notions of credibility. This often manifests as a disdain for any artform that is _too_ popular. Carl Wilson breaks down this urge in detail in his wonderful book 'Let's Talk About Love: Why Other People Have Such Bad Taste'. I highly recommend his analysis, go read it. Needless to say, it tends to be white, male, middle-class critics claiming cultural capital by denigrating mass popularity.
Gene Simmons bypassed this whole issue by explicitly rejecting the notion of credibility: "It's a delusional notion, credibility. ... You either succeed - in which case people are going to be willing to put their money down - or you don't."
Or even more succinctly: "I would urge all bands that say they only care about credibility and don’t care about money to send Gene Simmons every dollar that they don’t want. I’d be happy to take it off them."
Don't get me wrong -- Gene Simmons is a reprehensible human being in many ways, but he has a point about the intersecting role of artistic and commercial ambition. And I do note that he wasn't saying this kind of stuff until he was already rich as Croesus, and maybe he didn't always feel that way.
But it is true that this is the first studio album where Kiss really let go of going for credibility (even as a hard rock band) or critical acclaim to reach for the brass ring. If Kiss Alive was a Hail Mary to save their career, with Destroyer they deliberately aimed for massive success. It is designed from the ground up for mass appeal. It's dangerous, but not too dangerous, sexy, but not too sexy, rebellious, but not too rebellious, and largely coded as fun and entertaining rather than actually subversive. Plenty of hard rock bands have done this over the years -- Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, AC/DC, and even Metallica -- but Kiss are pretty much the first. They sacrificed critical approval for the money and chicks (Christgau said of them "You know damn well that if they didn't have both eyes on maximum commerciality they'd call themselves Blow Job").
But this represents a non-trivial segment of the music industry. Is it less artistically worthwhile to make a record that millions of people enjoy? Sniffy rock nerds might say so (and I have to admit that I fit that description myself for a looooong time), but frankly, as Duke Ellington repeatedly said "if it sounds good, it is good". It might not be precisely to my taste, but let's not yuck anyone's yum.
Like the Alice Cooper records that precede this, it's a big, cartoonish Bob Ezrin production; fun, technicolor, dramatic. Lots of bright colours, flashy moves, big riffs, dumb lyrics, and cinematic orchestration. This is good example of the 70s tendency towards big stage shows, with a clear agenda to entertain. This is a fun and funny record, that roars in with 10 kick-arse songs in 34 minutes, taking no prisoners, and blazing off into the sunset, leaving nothing but the smell of gunpowder and greasepaint, fake blood, and a ringing in your ears. It's a hoot and a half, and deserves to be on this list, but not an album I need to own.
Mike Oldfield
4/5
Back when I was a kid, albums were expensive and I didn't own that many. I also hadn't discovered where the good record stores were, so most of my records were sourced from the Ashfield Record Bar (in Hercules Street, now a bakery), Kmart, or mail-order from the World Record Club. I'm pretty sure I bought my cassette copy of Tubular Bells from the Kmart bargain bin when I was about 13, and I played it a lot. But I can't say I have played the album often since I turned about 16. I've since picked up a vinyl copy, but I am most likely to spin this disco cover by the Champs (https://youtu.be/qgtRVTU6hv8?si=3N_3dGVdLGidefxz&t=16). It's been over 30 years since I listened to the original Tubular Bells all the way through.
I generally don't like prog (too clever clogs), but I enjoyed spinning this again. Mike Oldfield knows a good melody and hook. Tubular Bells feels full of surprising little musical moments. It's like an Easter egg hunt in a hedge maze, where you turn a corner, and suddenly there is a new little vignette to surprise and delight. And then you push on further through the hedge maze to find the next egg.
Some stray observations after listening to this all the way through for the first time in 30 years;
- It is more fun than I remember, and much more memorable. I can still remember a lot of the melodies and moments along the way.
- Some sections are clearly jokes.
- It is a chock-a-block with mistakes. For some reason, I had it in my head that they'd laboured over this record, obsessively overdubbing. With my more mature ears, I can hear how quickly it was thrown together. Lots of flubbed notes, out of tune guitars, clumsy transitions, sloppy playing. This was recorded quickly by a nerdy teenager on whatever equipment was available. Nobody involved really knew what they were doing, and it shows. Personally, I find the imperfections kind of charming.
- I now realise how much the main section is cribbed from the Bonzo Dog Band's 'Intro and the Outro'. Not a bad thing really -- more people should get Viv Stanshall to narrate their records. "Eric Clapton on ukelele, Princess Anne on sousaphone"
- Also, Terry Riley was clearly a big influence. I also listened to the Part One demo, and the influence is especially profound there. I quite like minimalism, so that works for me.
- Part One is definitely better than Part Two.
- I don't normally approve of guitars DI'ed straight into the desk, especially in the age before cab simulators. They sound fizzy and claustrophobic. But I'll forgive them here because of the way they fit into the (inadvertent) sound design. They sound really up-close and warm.
-When I was a kid, I always wished it had more drums in it, and I secretly still feel that. But maybe it would be much more serious with drums and lose its charm. Maybe it's better like this. I note this from Simon Frith's contemporaneous review (quoted on wikipedia): "Oldfield's concern is the sound of rock, but Tubular Bells lacks rock's other essence — energy. This is no way body music — no sex, no violence, no ecstasy; nothing uncontrolled, nothing uncontrollable." I think he's correct, so I think the decision to leave off the drums was consistent with the more cerebral, less physical music. You couldn't dance to this record, by intention.
- The version I listened to today was heavily remastered (and possibly remixed?) in the 2000s. I did not enjoy the extra brightness and space in the mix; it actually makes it sound like the recording is hollow and missing its centre. I was immediately nostalgic for the overly compressed tape saturation of my old cassette copy.
- That cover art really is great, isn't it?
I was expecting to return to this album to find that early 70s prog seriousness and pretentious cleverness that I really hate, but instead found a charmingly amateurish, fun and often funny album (in a quite teenage way). It's full of cracking little tunes and delightful moments. It's a really easy album to like. 3.5 stars, rounding up for being more fun than I remember.
Simon & Garfunkel
2/5
One of the surprising side-effects of this project has been my growing and active dislike of Paul Simon. Previously, I thought he was OK -- he wrote a bunch of pretty memorable songs both with S&G and solo (as showcased by his appearance on the Muppet Show), and Graceland was a great album, and he did occasional cameos in movies. But having sat through more than half a dozen of his records, I now find him an annoying and pretentious narcissist and unrepentant serial plagiarist. I am not inclined to give him a pass based on a few pretty tunes.
Admittedly, there are some great tunes on this record (America, Mrs Robinson, Hazy Shade of Winter), but as a child of the 80s, I prefer the Lemonheads' version of Mrs Robinson and the Bangles' version of Hazy Shade.
But there is also a lot of filler on this record, ranging from insipid and unmemorable songs through to Voices of Old People, which is the worst kind of time-wasting tape 'experiment'. Does anybody ever need to hear this more than once in their life? And the production choices on 'Save the Life of My Child' are not innovative and groundbreaking; they are just shitty.
I would also like to discuss the ways in which _this specific album_ was a powerfully malign influence on the music industry. Simon & Garfunkel, realizing that their contract guaranteed that their record company would pick up all of their recording costs, disappeared into endless studio indulgence in the name of 'art'. Columbia Records, unhappy but reasonably confident of a big hit, indulged them. Not even the Beatles spent this amount of time and money recording their albums in 1967. But this high recording cost then justified increasing the album cost by $1 (over 20% of the usual retail price, to the equivalent of over $50 in today's money). For a 29 minute record! And they got away with it! It sold a bajillion copies while maintaining artistic cred, despite being artistic self-indulgence and a flagrant and merciless price gouge on the listening public. This price strategy was, unfortunately, successful and so helped establish the model of record companies screwing their customers at every opportunity, and for the ongoing indulgence of misguided artistic bloat. And I suggest that _this specific album_ is one of the first examples of record company greed being successfully leveraged against listeners. They happily did so for the next 35 years until file-sharing crashed the business model that delivered seemingly endless rivers of cash squeezed out of music fans. We all suffered as a result.
Fuck you, Columbia Records, and fuck you, Simon & Garfunkel for being the record company's shills.
The Rolling Stones
5/5
When I think about my favorite album by a particular artist, the best measure I have to ask which album I am most likely to put on the turntable. Once upon a time, Let It Bleed was my favourite Stones album, but for the past twenty years or so, it is Sticky Fingers. I was introduced to it in the first share house I moved into when I left home. David C. was not a flatmate, but the boyfriend of one of my flatmates, and he spent a lot of time in our living room. He was passionate about this record and played it a lot. So, it gives me a nostalgic thrill of being 21 and out of my parents' house for the first time. And the sleazy, slightly transgressive edge to this record made it feel very appropriate for the ramshackle student terrace we were living in. There was a lot of music and drinking and not a lot of food. But that was OK, because we were young and wild(ish).
What do I particularly like about this album? It's the Stones at the peak of what I like about the Stones; it's bluesy and countryish, and loose as fuck, but confident and focussed. it's got a great groove (check out the outro on Can't You Hear Me Knocking -- they are right in the pocket). It's sinister and rocking and dangerous and decadent and glamorous and groovy and darkly funny. The Stones can be dodgy in terms of their sexual and racial politics -- Brown Sugar and Bitch skirt on the border of being songs you really shouldn't play any more (along with Honky Tonk Woman and Under My Thumb). It's obsessed with drugs and it has the feel of a post-binge come down.
But, dodgy lyrics aside, this is the Stones at their best. This is their first post-Brian Jones studio album, but extensive touring his Mick Jones well integrated into the band. The usual array of guest players (Nicky Hopkins, Bobby Keys, Jack Nitzsche, Ian Stewart, Ry Cooder, Billy Preston) are all on fire, and the band is honed to a knife edge from touring.
My favorite songs on the album are Bitch, You've Got To Move, Can You Hear Me Knocking. I can listen to this any day of the week, very happily. Many people rate Exile on Main Street as the Stones' greatest album, but, for me, it's Sticky Fingers.
Julian Cope
2/5
I find Julian Cope the media identity a lot more interesting than many of his records actually play out.
Julian Cope's voice is OK, but he really only sings the same basic tune over and over again (and it wasn't that great the first time).
Given his interest in krautrock (he literally wrote the book), this is much less krautrock-y than I would expect. Not very motorik,. Not very interesting, or psychedelic. The tinny early 90s production grates on my ears. And so fucking long... this album is twice as long as it needed to be.
This album made very little impression on me, other than to test my patience.
The Mars Volta
2/5
2000s prog. I'm not a fan. But this a marginally better than most prog, because it's a bit less obsessed with clever clogs musicianship, and has a certain willingness to rock. But why this needless complexity? It's pretentious and meaningless. Sometimes I think that white boys just don't understand what rock and roll is...
Some thoughts:
- Lots of echoes of Robert Fripp in the guitar parts, but it never quite reaches his level of inventiveness.
- The inclusion of latin percussion does not make it Santana-like. Not a lot of groove to this record.
- I like the noisy sound design, which give it a rough and atmospheric edge than I find lacking in much prog (which tends towards clean production to show off the chops).
- Good vocals, but don't get me started on the meaningless lyrics -- they are just atrocious.
I enjoyed it well enough while listening, although it is a little wearying, and I don't feel the need to listen again. Hal might like it, though.
The Fripp-like guitar work is interesting, but, honestly, aren't there plenty of King Crimson albums that I would much prefer to listen to? Yes. Yes, there are (but no Yes records, please)
Eels
2/5
I assume that Dreamworks poured a truckload of cash into this project looking for the next 'alternative' trend. I hope that Mark Oliver Everett and Jon Brion and the other musicians involved managed to pay off their mortgages care of Dreamworks' largesse.
But the album itself is dull. It is really of its time; based on loops and samples and atmospheric pads, with occasional bits of quirky instrumentation throughout. E's semi-spoken vocal style manages to wash the tunefulness out any hint of melody that might persist. The lyrics, though, are just a litany of "Life is hard, I'm sad". Ironically, that would be justifiable on their NEXT album, following the tragic deaths of E's mother and sister, but here it seems like he is just a whiny white man.
I was talking to Hal, and he said it vaguely reminded him of Soul Coughing, a similarly hip-hop inspired, white boy, alternative speak-singing band of similar vintage. But in their case, their musical backing is more robust, thanks to a really tight live rhythm section. And despite a dry delivery, Soul Coughing lean into absurdist humour, which prevents their album descending into an hour of beige dirges, as with Eels.
Not worthy of hate, but gosh, this is dull.
Not hateful, but not much to recommend it.
Chicago
1/5
Sigh. This is what happens when young white men have too many music lessons and start to think of themselves as real 'musos'. they all like to think they can play jazz, which is really just an excuse to show off the chops they have acquired., but it does tend towards self-indulgence. A tendency towards lengthy improvisation and a liberal sprinkling of fancy jazz chords does not a jazz band make. And, ironically, the hard-earned technical skills tend to wash the urgency out of their attempts at rock and roll (the roll is typically in very short supply).
Chicago are an early and, unfortunately, commercially successful example of this tendency to 'professional musicianship' that makes so much 'rock' music of the 1970s so un-fucking-listenable. I mean, really, this album (mostly) sounds like the house band for an early 1970s TV variety show. This is not _that_ different from a James Last record when they 'rock' out (proof point; just take a listen to their cover of Hawkwind's Silver Machine: https://youtu.be/gF2ODWluPlY?si=6eiMKA6tA0MbhJGC).
I can hear that Terry Kath was clearly influenced by Jimi Hendrix (Free Form Guitar, anyone?), but his highly competent playing doesn't have the excitement of Jimi. And personally, I find Walt Parazaider's oft repeated anecdote that Jimi once told him that "your guitar player is better than me" frankly offensive. I cannot believe that ever happened.
God only knows what possessed them to release a double album. But if you trimmed all of the fat off this record (i.e. at least half of it), there might be a passable rock album hidden in there. But it is just a fair copy of actual exciting bands that were playing at the time. Hendrix and Traffic are the obvious influences, but I'll leave identifying others influences as an exercise for the reader.
It came as no surprise that this was produced by James Guerico, who was also responsible for Blood, Sweat and Tears' second album. I constantly confuse those two bands, as they are cut from the same cloth. It is boring dross. And this album doesn't even have '25 or 6 to 4' on it, so beloved of school brass bands. I would much rather listen to a ropey school band roughly blast their way through '25 or 6 to 4' than endure the glossed up, over-polished, under-sexed, watered-down, professionalized wallpaper music of Chicago Transit Authority.
And the worst of it is that it sold! It was not just "sterile and stupid" (to quote Robert Christgau), but they convinced major record labels that this is what we wanted to listen. It fostered decades of further pap, not only the 30-odd records Chicago subsequently released (including a 4-LP live boxset, god help me), but countless other bands of professional musicians who thought that could release commercially appealing supposed 'rock' albums that also showed off their chops. Toto and Journey and Asia and Kansas and the Alan Parsons Project and Steely Dan and the whole yacht rock genre and so, so many other terrible bands. Chicago Transit Authority is a malign cancer that metastasized across the music industry.
It is neither rock nor jazz. It is lukewarm, and I spit it out of my mouth.
1.5 stars, rounding down for the terrible influence.
I think I have some hand-me-down Chicago albums in my collection. I think I need to pull them off the shelf and file in the bin.
Grateful Dead
1/5
I never understood the appeal of the Grateful Dead, and, believe me, I've tried. Their studio albums are dull and enervating to my ears, but everyone says "oh, you really had to experience the Dead live, they're such great musicians, and they take improvisations to a higher plane. It's transcendent". OK, so here we are listening to Live/Dead, so let's see what it has to offer.
Fuck me, this is a terrible band playing terrible music terribly. It takes a full 35 minutes before the start playing like a coordinated band playing the same song. All of Dark Star and most of St Stephen and the first half of The Eleven is seven musicians independently noodling without listening to each other at all. I almost thought they had recorded themselves tuning up at interminable length, except for the fact that their guitars are not in tune.
The. Guitars. Are. Not. In. Tune.
And then there is 'Feedback". Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of copious feedback and noise in a live settings (I'm seen my share of Sonic Youth shows) but this is interminable.
The only time they sound like a competent band (and only a barely competent bar band at that) is with Pigpen singing 'Turn On Your Love Light'.
As a non-American, I can't really understand the American fascination with the Grateful Dead — admittedly not all Americans — but it is notable that the Dead don't really have the following in any other market. I suspect that everyday experience of enduring racism, capitalist exploitation, creeping fascism and gun violence is so soul-destroying that that it is a welcome respite to put on a tie-dyed t-shirt, smoke dope, drop acid, and hang out with a few thousand like-minded souls while you chill out and dance to non-threatening musical noodling. Hard to blame anyone for that, but please don't make me listen to it.
I don't understand the praise for the Dead — Allmusic says that this album "was able to relay the intrinsic sonic magnificence of a Dead show in real time... including the sidelong epic and Deadhead anthem Dark Star". Sonic magnificence my arse. 'Dark Star' in particular is tuneless meandering and unfocussed waffle.
This is a 1.5 star record, rounding down because of the deluded way that the Cult of the Dead praise this shit. I don't care if you like this band, just don't try to browbeat me that this is the greatest thing since sliced bread. You're delusional.
I would have to take _a lot_ of drugs to sit through a performance like this. I once snapped both bones in my forearm and dislocated my wrist. The hospital shot me full of morphine to handle the excruciating and unrelenting pain while I waited for surgery. I reckon I could sit through a Dead show on that amount of drugs, but no less.
Teenage Fanclub
4/5
Triple J, Australia's public 'yoof' radio network, playlisted some Teenage Fanclub songs very early. But, as a record store clerk in a small alternative record store, they were the bane of my life. Just because Triple J were playing Everything Flows every hour, doesn't mean that it is available as a single. In fact, it was only available in Australia on imported copies of A Catholic Education LP, and truth be told, none of the rest of that album was nearly as good as Everything Flows. Worse yet, Triple J then started playing God Knows It's True, which was a UK single only, and you couldn't source for love or money. Both pretty good songs -- noisy but tuneful -- and an indication of what was about to come.
Bandwagonesque was released locally in Australia, and we sold a stack of copies in the store, despite the memorably rubbish cover. I saw them play the Big Day Out festival in 1994.
Bandwagonesque is, in my mind, Teenage Fanclub's masterwork. Full of trainspotter influences (Big Star, the Byrds, British invasion, Dinosaur Jr), it was noisy power pop with great tunes, terrific harmonies and a big heart. I think those references, beloved of record nerds and white boy critics everywhere, are the reason that Spin rated this as the best album of 1991 (above Nevermind!). It was a critics' darling, but here's what I really like about the album: the band themselves did not fall into that cult of rock critic cool. They embraced an everyday, slightly nostalgic, and definitely uncool sensibility; "She wears denim wherever she goes, she's gonna get some records by the Status Quo, oh yeah!"
They are a band uninterested in cred. As Norman Blake said in the NME: "We write honest tunes, man… Songs." There is a workman-like quality to this record. It's rough-hewn and noisy (as was the vogue at the time). They tidied up a bit later in their career, but I really like this inflection point between their earlier noisier records and the mature songcraft they developed. This is best of both worlds, and a bit out of step in its time; catchy melodies and sweet harmonies were not generally a common feature of guitar rock in 1991, but they age really well.
I've listened to this through four times today and enjoy it more each time. The Concept is one of my favourite songs of the decade, and my 7" copy is a prized possession.
The Doors
3/5
God, I totally don't know what to do with the Doors... the hip consensus seems to be to sneer at the Doors, but I have to admit that all three Doors albums I have reviewed for this project (S/T, Morrison Hotel, and now LA Woman) have all been kinda fun to listen to.
Morrison is a pretentious prat and not nearly as deep as he pretends, although he certainly knew how to strut around in leather kecks convincingly.
By this, unknowingly the end of their recording career, the band have grown beyond their glorified lounge act, into a confident and reasonably muscular bar band. The addition of Elvis Presley's bassist Jerry Scheff and rhythm guitarist Marc Benno certainly help with the heft and groove. Scheff in particular helped sit the band in the pocket and counteracted Manzarek's tendency to rush. I like the relatively unadorned recording with minimal overdubs (although sometimes I wish the vocals had been recorded better -- you can hear the weird room ambience on many tracks, such as Love Her Madly. And Morrison has a tendency to yell in his attempts at a blues growl).
This album leans heavily on the blues tropes and riffs, which make it generally listenable (better than the cod-classical aspirations of Hyacinth House, for example). But I do worry about appropriation. Led Zeppelin are the poster children for ripping off blues artists, but I can hear direct lifts of Jimmy Reed and Lowell Fulsome here, plus general blue slicks and riffs, in addition to the cover of John Lee Hooker's Crawlin' King Snake. But trying to work within a blues genre reigns in the worst of Morrison's literary pretentions (although we still have to suffer through L'America)
I really want to hate the Doors, but this album is kinda fun if you don't expect too much, just regard it as a tight band pumping out some tight blues boogie. I can forgive the band's pretentiousness for this record. 3.5 stars
XTC
3/5
I like the earlier XTC, especially their upbeat singles, full of catchy tunes and nervous energy. This, though, I find less to my taste; just a bit too polit and deliberately crafted. Someone once said that XTC, as they progressed in their career, their two main themes were semi-pastoral idylls and the travails of the down-trodden breadwinner. And their tone is often leavened with a sort of snarky "I'm the smartest man in the room" energy. This vibe often leaves a bitter aftertaste, and is especially apparent in "Dear God", to an extent that even Andy Partridge thinks is a bit too much. It's like Christopher Hitchins wrote a pop song.
I can't fault the pop craftsmanship and production. The animosity between Andy Partridge and Todd Rundgren is legendary, but it hasn't hurt the record any, at least as far as I can tell. That said, the Colin Moulding songs are the ones I enjoy most ('Grass' especially).
Generally, I find this type of middle-aged, willfully domestic-scale chamber pop just a bit too polite for my tastes. I love the Fossil Fuel: XTC Singles Collection 1977-1992. That is a compilation of 31 really fantastic tracks from go to whoa. Skylarking is a pleasant a listenable album, superbly crafted and played, but not a record I would choose to spin on any given day.
Dr. Octagon
3/5
I was a teenager (in Australia) in the 1980s, and loved hip hop. I eagerly consumed the tiny amount of hip hop that was available in Australia. It wasn't much, but I picked up Run DMC (who I saw at the Hordern Pavillion in 1988) and Public Enemy (who I also saw live the following year, I think, supported by Eric B. and Rakim), and Ice-T (at the Enmore Theatre), and the Beastie Boys (Selinas, Coogee Bay, 1992). But then came gangsta rap, which lost me. The sound was cool, but the lyrics were just awful. The glorification of misogyny and homophobia and violence just made me sick. And I tried, but the malign influence of gangsta throughout the 90s really turned me off a lot of mainstream rap.
So, while I remember reading about Dr Octagon, I never hunted this down to listen to before now. And this is much more to my taste. It's weird and funny and surreal and alien, with a funky, strange, lo-fi production to match. I could live without the semi-pornographic moments, and I still think that skits are never a good idea on any record (apologies to De La Soul), but I regret having slept on this record for nearly 30 years.
3.5 stars, rounding down for skits and occasionally puerile 'humour'.
The Monks
3/5
This would be pretty revolutionary if you had never heard 60s garage rock before. But I have. I believe this is on the list for two reasons:
1- Dimery won't allow compilations, which rules out including Nuggets, which is a really great listen and was genuinely influential on many bands when it was initially released (first volume in 1972), making this underground proto-punk sound more widely accessible.
2- The rock snob's obsession with obscurity, especially if combined with a good story. US servicemen in Germany dressing up as monks and releasing a widely ignored album that becomes 'lost' really fits the bill. I find this fetishization of obscurity a form of snotty gatekeeping, and certainly don't regard it as an automatic indictor of quality.
This album is not incredibly original. Nuggets reveals that there were many 1960s garage bands that sounded a lot like this. And the songs aren't particularly original; they are pretty standard contemporary riffs with hastily improvised and highly repetitive lyrics over the top. For example, 'We do, wie du' is a pretty barefaced re-write of 'I'm Blue (The Gong Gong Song' by the Ikettes.
Anyone making an argument that this record was influential on anything (and I have seen people claim this was an influence on the development of punk or krautrock) is delusional. This album was essentially unheard for 30 years before being embraced by the Obscure Reisssues community in the 90s. There are plenty of other very similar bands that were influential on those genres that people actually had a chance to hear. They did not learn this from The Monks.
That being said, I dig a bit of noisy 60s garage rock. Three stars
Meat Loaf
3/5
When I was a kid, I would spend lots of time loitering in the record section of the local Kmart or the Hercules St Record Bar, looking at records and wondering what they sounded like. I listened to the radio (2SM Top Forty) and borrowed some tapes from friends or the local library, but my listening was pretty limited, really. I certainly couldn't afford to buy records, and, truth be told, the offerings available in Ashfield in the early 1980s weren't particularly varied or exciting. I spent a lot of time just looking at the cover art, really.
Theer are two albums that I particularly remember where the cover art just popped out and caught my 11 year old eye; Boston's S/T debut and Bat Out of Hell. What a cover! It is an awesome fantasy of rock and roll and motorcycles and hellfire and sex and danger and rock and roll! I looked at this and imagined some kind of scary heavy metal. I didn't actually make the connection to the Meatloaf songs, semi-ubiquitous on Australia pop radio, until much later.
For a long, long time, I really didn't get Meatloaf an Bat Out of Hell. Australia was one of the countries where this album was omnipresent and incredibly successful for years. I have never owned a copy of the album, but can sing along to more than half of it just through 40 years of environmental exposure. For a long time, I regarded this album as deeply uncool, a kind of amped-up Springsteen parody. And given that I don't really like Springsteen, I could happily leave it.
But then I saw the Classics Albums episode about Bat Out of Hell, and realized that it isn't really rock and roll; it's musical theatre, with a pretty good rock and roll band and production (courtesy of Todd Rundgren and few E-Street Band members). Suddenly it all made sense; it's funny and melodramatic (but not very serious) and bombastic and stupid by design. When I finally understood the joke, I realized that this album is a lot of fun ("well, duh" said my wife when I described my Road to Damascus moment).
Do I need to own a copy of this record? Not for my own listening pleasure, but possibly I need a copy to put in my record box when DJing 50th birthday parties. Middle-age Australians still enjoy a sing-along to Paradise by the Dashboard Light. I'll certainly buy the next copy I see in a $2 bin.
Muddy Waters
5/5
OMG, a genuinely great blues album (not just a bunch of young white Englishmen playing their copies thereof). This is the real deal, and massively influential (on said English whiteboys). Muddy Water sis probably more important for the series of sides he released starting in 1948, but Dimery will not include compilations, so we have this live 'best of' instead. Can't complain too much, though. Perfect, no notes.
Fun fact: Muddy posed with John Lee Hooker's guitar for the cover photo. He _actually_ played a Telecaster. for the gig. You can always trust a man with a Tele.
Billy Bragg
4/5
I always liked Billy Bragg's ability to mix the personal and political. He occasionally verges on the polemical, but generally his politics are well founded in real-life realities; what is the impact of employment practices and capitalism on the ordinary person's ability to live a life? And, at heart, politics are just another signifier of how we choose to live our lives. Which is why he has been such a strong voice against failings of personal behavior; homophobia, racism, domestic violence, exploitation, etc. And I'm on board with that. Politics is personal, and at this stage, he was stating it strongly with this mix of political songs (in the protest tradition) and everyday love songs.
Billy Bragg was a popular troubadour for the left in the 1980s, and he got a lot of play on Triple J (Australian public alternative radio). I feel like I saw Billy Bragg at the Enmore Theatre around this time, but I don't have any clear memory of the show. I certainly own this record (and a few of his other records), which was de rigueur for left-leaning uni students of that era (as I was). This album was a delicate balance between his previous unadorned solo guitar style with some additional instrumentation, without over-egging the production. It's still pretty straight forward sound (which allows the songwriting to shine), with tasteful accompaniment. Kirstie MacColl and Johnny Marr lift everything they appear on, including their contributions here.
Billy Bragg's subsequent history of closer involvement with party politics are more complex and, some might say, a bit compromised. Maybe it was more straightforward when we there was a clearer ideology to push against in the form of Thatcherism. Mind you, I am even more worried about the recent rise of extreme right-wing ideologies in Western (supposed) democracies; this could get ugly. Mind you, it shows how the concerns of this record are timeless; the rich and powerful will continue to ride on the backs of the workers (corporate profits are simply stolen wages, as my brother-in-law likes to point out).
Side note: I appreciate Bragg's willingness to call out Morrissey's increasingly problematic political stances. I couldn't agree more.
This album also contains 'Levi Stubbs Tears', which is an all-time classic song, one for the ages. 'Greetings to the New Brunette' is also pretty good. I haven't listened to this record in a very long time, and enjoyed returning to this record. I should play it more often... 3.5 stars, rounding up for 'Levi Stubbs Tears'
Peter Gabriel
3/5
Overall, I find this album over-produced and bombastically theatrical, heightened by Bob Ezrin's arrangements and productions. Gabriel still hasn't shaken his prog tendencies. Not a great combination, unfortunately.
I think the Ezrin thing works better with much more basic, dare I say cartoonish, material like Alice Cooper or Kiss or The Wall. In the context of Peter Gabriel's songwriting, this just seems overly cerebral and complicated and pompous. Even something as deliberately whimsical as Excuse Me just comes off like a self-conscious Randy Newman off-cut. Even Gabriel admits that 'Here Comes the Flood' is over-produced (and, hoo-boy, is it ever), but I would go further to say that the whole album is over-produced, mired in theatricality and artifice.
Solsbury Hill is a lovely song, and the most emotionally authentic moment on the album, but hard to take seriously anymore; it's use in trailers and soundtracks as a signifier of 'heartwarming emotionality' has become a cliche. See, for example, this 'trailer' for The Shining, as if it was a romantic comedy: https://youtu.be/XIeasQTs6_g?si=-wNiQuX8qoRHra1b Not technically Gabriel's fault that Solsbury Hill became a trope, but it is a bit tough when the best song on the album wears out its welcome. I hope the licensing and royalties have bought him a really nice house.
I own this album, but now I remember why I don't play it much. If I want to listen to Peter Gabriel, I always reach for his third solo album ("Melt") in preference to this. Peter Gabriel has an ear for unusual sounds and musicians, that he isn't flexing yet. I mean, this has probably the most boring playing Robert Fripp ever did in his whole career (I blame Ezrin). Gabriel let musicians stretch out much more on subsequent albums (especially "Melt").
2.5 stars, rounding up, because it's not to my taste but not actually _bad_.
Peter Frampton
2/5
By the time I was a teenager in the late 1980s, Peter Frampton (and especially 'Frampton Comes Alive') was already a cultural shorthand for bloodless boomer rock that was big at the time, but quickly faded into irrelevancy. There was a certain sort of daggy ironic nostalgia, as exemplified in Reality Bites (a film that insultingly pandered to 'yoof' culture -- it has not dated well. Just like Lelaina, am I right? She also didn't date well. What did she see in Troy character?). And even that was an attempt to package and re-sell any lingering good will in the form of a lightweight faux-reggae cover of 'Baby I Love Your Way'.
Don't get me wrong, I don't _dislike_ Peter Frampton. He's a pretty hot guitar player, I quite like Humble Pie, and he has played on who's who of records and touring bands across the 1970s and 1980s (Bowie! Sly and the Family Stone! Dionne Warwick!). He always adds quality when he guests on other people's records. And he seems like a nice guy.
But this record... I'm sure it was a great show, if you were there. The band is tight. His playing and singing are quality. But it's just boring boomer rock. I think even Peter Frampton himself realises the damage this commercial juggernaut did to his reputation as a musician (see this insightful article by altrockchick: https://altrockchick.com/2022/10/23/peter-frampton-frampton-comes-alive-classic-music-review/ )
2.5 stars, rounding down.
Wire
5/5
Why do I not already own this record? Well, I have this well-worn philosophy for record collecting: We buy the cheap records, because they are cheaper to buy. And I have just never seen a cheap copy of this record, even though it has been on my want-list for years and years.
This is my cup of tea; nervy, energetic, muscular post-punk. It's the blueprint for that type of music. I love that this wastes no time at all; 21 songs in 35 minutes. And some really standout tracks; Reuters, Three Girl Rhumba, Ex Lion Tamer, Strange, Fragile, 12XU. But there is nothing here that outstays its welcome. This album is the very definition of pithy. I want to sit don the members of any 90s artist that felt like they needed to fill up the whole run time of a CD and force them to listen to this and to me explain why, exactly, they felt the need to pad out all of their songs to an unlistenable length (Oasis, I'm looking at you, man).
I think it's time to bite the bullet and buy one of those over-priced vinyl reissues that are floating around. It doesn't quite seem in the spirit of the thing, but, man, I really dig this album. I'm flying to London next week; let's see if I can find a copy of this in the record stores there.
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band
2/5
I guess you had to be there.
The Coral
2/5
The Coral's S/T album was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize the day after it was released, because of course it was. Early 2000s nominees for the Mercury Prize are a notorious but reliable indicator of over-hyped rubbish.
An overview of reviews shows that the UK press -- the NME and the Guardian and the BBC and blah blah blah -- all seemed to fall over themselves hyping this album.
But here's how I know this record is going to be rubbish -- let's look at the number of different bands/genres that wikipedia says this album sounds like or was based on; neo-psychedelia, folk rock, Eric Burdon of the Animals, Jim Morrison of the Doors, Can, Captain Beefheart's "Trout Mask replica", Kraftwerk, pirates singing on a ship, Van Morrison's "Into the Mystic", Echo & The Bunnymen "Ocean Rain", bad dance music, techno, happy hardcore, traditional Russian music, Nick Cave, Dr Dre, Ennio Morricone soundtracks, Spaghetti western films, reggae, doo wop, Merseybeat, psychedelic sea shanties, punk rock, the Ex, the Nuggets compilations, the Zombies, Frank Zappa, Middle Eastern music, house music, The Teardrop Explodes, Button Moon (a UK kids TV show, I think?), old blues murder ballads, weird Americana, Waring's Pennsylvanians, Beck's "Mutations", Spanish folk, Frank Sinatra, and the Wailers. I mean, what a fucking mess.
It's overhyped, unfocussed and derivative pablum that hasn't stood the test of time. But at least it's short.
Billy Bragg
4/5
No Woody Guthrie albums on the list, just this? This is a fitting way to honour Woody, the playing and songwriting is sympathetic to the lyrical material. The recording quality is to modern tastes, but I like Wilco's restraint in keeping the presentation unfussy and spacious, and a little rough-hewn.
I like these songs more than the couple of Wilco albums I have reviewed. Great hear Natalie Merchant on a few songs (although her harmony singing, fine though it is, made me wonder what Emmylou Harris would have done on this record).
Billy Bragg is an odd pairing on a decidedly Americana album, but I do think he can sing Woody Guthrie lyrics with credibility. I believe that he believes what he is singing.
best songs are frontloaded on the record, and the second side drags a bit.
3.5 stars, rounding up because I can still hum some of the tunes.
The Flaming Lips
5/5
I really fell in live with this album when it was first released in 2002. I had previously considered the Flaming Lips a bit of a novelty act, especially based on "She Don't Use Jelly", which got a lot of radio play but I found super annoying. I never glommed on to any of their albums before or since, but somehow this album just clicked.
There are some really great tunes and a "budget lush" aesthetic that appeals to me. I really like the lofi production and big orchestrations (using cheap detuned keyboards), and generally hippy vibe, lyrical material that veers between the humorous and the profound, an embrace of life while acknowledging the reality of sadness and despair.
There are lots of reasons that I shouldn't like this album; concept album, sci-fi themes, self-conscious psychedelia, over-produced. But I really do.
I think I was really primed for this. I had just become a father, which I found a wonderful and frightening experience, and had me thinking about what it means to be a man and mortality. I felt like this was one of the few albums that approached those themes with complexity and humanity and a lack of judgement. It was warm and reassuring, while simultaneously acknowledging that life can be confusing and scary. 'Fight Test' and 'Do you realize?' were the standout tracks for me, then and now, but I can happily listen to the whole record all the way through.
I never liked any of their other records. They tended to be unfocussed and trying too hard to be... quirky or twee or cute or wacky something. Maybe when it came down to it, they only really had one great album in them. I really like this record, and it was a pleasure to revisit it like an old friend. 4.5 stars, rounding up.
Holger Czukay
4/5
Krautrock but with an 80s update. Touches of early 80s sampling in the vein of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. I can dig it. 3.5 stars rounding up
Led Zeppelin
5/5
I have already written at length about the pros (great musicians, powerful production, swaggering performances, Bonzo's drums) and cons (weak songwriting, ridiculous lyrics, plagiarism, culpable business behaviour, sexual assault, Bonzo's behaviour) of Led Zeppelin, so I will avoid repeating myself.
This album contains all the best and worst of Led Zep. How can an album bookended with Black Dog and When the Levee Breaks go too far wrong? I am going to suggest that Stairway To Heaven is, in fact, the weakest song on the record. It is cobbled together out of disjointed sweepings with the world's naffest lyrics. Robert Plant is right to be be embarrassed by this song. It does have an iconically great guitar solo (and typically great playing from Bonzo and JPJ), BUT THIS IS NO EXCUSE. Just because it was played on FM rock radio a hundred billion times does not make it good, just familiar. Ubiquity is not the same as quality (see also: Hotel California).
That said, this album also has Sandy Denny and a couple of tunes with mandolin (hi Dave, those tracks are your favourites, aren't they?) and that monster drum beat on Levee. For all their myriad faults, Led Zep are still a band you have to hear. I'm not convinced it is actually their best record, but it's still pretty damn great. It's really hard to make a case that this isn't a five star classic.
Alice In Chains
4/5
This album is hard going. I listened to Dirt quite a bit when it first came out, and it was heavy listening even by grunge standards. Grunge was a genre marked by anxiety, self-loathing, depression and heroin abuse, and Alice in Chains took all of those themes to their ultimate extreme. It was really dark at the time, but became horrifyingly real when it became apparent that the band (especially Layne Staley) were living that reality. Staley's descent into a self-created slow suicide to through drug addiction is tragic and highly disturbing. I find it hard to listen to the album, aware of the reality. I just can't get off on the drama of the story anymore.
I saw them at the Hodern Pavilion in late 1993, which seems like it was right at the end of their life as a (barely) functional touring unit. Staley had broken his foot, and sang from a chair, barely moving. The band was professional and sounded great, but clearly did not want to be there, and I recall little communication or chemistry between the band members. My memory is that they didn't play 'Would?' and possibly didn't even play an encore. I was disappointed that they didn't grace us with their best song and biggest hit. It was not a happy show for anyone, I think. They just seemed morose and barely tolerating being on stage.
Musically, the album is really strong. Jerry Cantrell's guitars are amazing -- how many people have copied that guitar tone since, although few have his tasteful playing. Despite being a heavy, noisy and often dissonant album, the vocal melodies are often strong a memorable, and the vocal harmonies are amazing -- something you rarely hear in heavy music. This is uncompromising and original; one of the best albums of its era. Unfortunately, the darkness it described was documentary, and ultimately destroyed (slowly and painfully) several members of the band. It's difficult to take pleasure in that. I certainly don't understand anyone who thought that this album encouraged or glorified drug use.
4.5 stars, rounding down for being a petulant live act.
The Pharcyde
3/5
Fun, funny and funky. I've had a few gangsta rap albums recently, which I find totally toxic. This was a breath of fresh air by way of comparison. Enjoyable, if not super memorable. The humour is often puerile, but it is a massive relief to hear am album not obsessed with violence and anger. I wish the skits were gone. Passin' Me By is a highlight.
4/5
I immediately feel in love with the music of PJ Harvey when she first appeared, and her first three albums were all played repeatedly and religiously at my house. I found her powerful, emotional, honest and with the ability to surprise and disturb. I really liked the raw production of her first two records, and the change to unsettling "To Bring You My Love" was welcome. The brooding, seething restraint of To Bring You My love is a masterpiece that I am, frankly, surprised to see is not on this list. But, as I listened to less new music in the late 90s and early 2000s, I lost track of her new releases. I certainly continued to read about PJ Harvey, and saw her live at the Enmore Theatre in the 2000s (she was awesome)
Which brings me to this album, that I do not love in the same way. She produced it to be more 'beautiful' and pop (in her own way). It was a big success (especially in America) and the sheen clearly worked. But I miss the drama. I miss her ability to surprise and disturb me. I miss her rocking out (Kamikaze excepted). I feel like she took the wrong lessons from Radiohead (whose post-OK computer albums are clearly a big influence here); a mood is not preferable to the drama of great rock music. And it won the Mercury Prize, which is a usual signpost of mediocre crap. There are some parts of the record that remind me of her previous work, although never quite to the standard. I mean, the lyrics to "the Whores Hustle..." are an embarassing first draft that never should have made the released record (although I find it compelling musically).
Am I judging this too harshly based on this not being as great as her previous records? I think maybe so. This is certainly better than many, many records on this list, and a shit load better than most UK indie of the same vintage. 3.5 stars, rounding up
The Saints
5/5
A formative part of my musical education was sitting up late watching Rage, the long running, all night music video show that ran on Australian ABC television every Friday and Saturday night. Friday nights were new releases, and Saturday nights were guest programmers, where local and touring international musicians videos from the ABC's extensive library. They would talk about why they chose the various clips, explaining their influences. One of the clips that many programmers frequently chose was "Know Your Product" by the Saints. It's a terrific clip and you should go watch it right now (https://youtu.be/h9M3b9lh-7s?si=7azGljV74j_iB4ZS ). The Saints were massively influential in Australia because they showed that a band from the backwater of Brisbane could be as important and innovative as any London band hyped in the NME. They had a powerful and intense sound (Ed Kuepper's guitar tone is awesome) which was much emulated, along with pioneering the career move of relocating to the UK, later followed by the Birthday Party, the Go-betweens, the Triffids and others.
I love this record, and am shocked that I don't own it already. (It's going on my want list). I actually really love the horns, although I know they were divisive at the time. I think they give the album extra punch, without seeming out of place in a punk album. Maybe we are more comfortable with genre cross-pollination these days. I think it also has become clear the extent to which punk was not musical ground zero, but rather a return to the essence of rock and roll, re-imagined in a new way. (Thanks to Simon Reynolds, for that insight). In the same way that the Pistols called back to the Eddie Cochran, Carl Perkins rock and roll, the Saints have a bit more Ike Turner in them. International Robots and the (bonus track) of River Deep Mountain High show the rock and roll roots of the Saints. Know Your Product and This Perfect Day are dead set classics, performed (as all of this album) with gusto and infectious energy.
Side note: I think that "c'mon" is one of the great vocal utterances of rock and roll. It is an energetic outburst that invites the listener to join in. It is welcoming and inclusive. Chris Bailey is one of the great "c'mon" practitioners, although when he tells it, it seems like an invitation to break windows, kick a policeman and burn down a public building. Well, that sounds awesome, let's go!
Radiohead
5/5
I remember my mate Peter commenting, in reference to OK Computer, that it hadn't taken long for grunge to turn into Pink Floyd. True that.
I did love this record when it came out. I played it obsessively for a year or more. It was a smart, inventive art-rock album with great tunes, some stellar guitar playing and a paranoid, anxious outlook that seemed to sum up the times. Things have only gotten weirder since, which makes it seem prescient.
I haven't listened closely all the way through in many years. I find the prog leanings (overly complex arrangements, lofty themes, borderline clever clogging) slightly unsettling, and am surprised that I connected to it so strongly, as I usually prefer my rock and roll much more straightforward. But the band can tear it up when they want to, and I mourn that they have steadfastly refused to ever since.
I have seen OK Computer referred to as the last great innovative British rock album, and I think there is some truth to that. Even Radiohead couldn't live up to its reputation. The combination of gruelling touring and trying to meet the expectations arising from the critical adoration drove them to retreat into increasingly cerebral electronic music, which frankly bores me to tears. Other bands stepped into the vacuum created by this retreat (Coldplay, Travis, Muse, et alia), but none of them could hold a candle to this.
When I look at the state of rock music these days, I see very few vital and important acts. I fear 'rock' is an increasingly irrelevant genre, and maybe OK Computer was the swan song for a once culturally dominant part of culture: the last truly important rock album.
Certainly this 1001 albums project has failed to suggest any rock album since that is this important. Maybe the White Stripes, but their albums are more like a summation of the past than a way forward. Radiohead were clearly influenced by rock history, but were trying to move into something new, even if it turned out to be a dead end.
Side note: why is Fitter Happier on this record? It is boring filler and annoying every time I hear it. I listened to the OKNOTOK extended version of the album, and they were clearly on a creative run at the time. They had _lots_ of songs in the can that were far better than this. If they felt the need for extra running time (which they probably didn't. I prefer a concise record). No excuses for this time waste.
OK Computer is a great and important record, even if not perfect (I would argue that The Bends is possibly a better album). Five stars
Suede
3/5
Suede was victim to the UK weekly music rag hype machine. They played a few gigs, appeared on the cover of the NME before they even had a single out, got called the greatest band in the world before they really paid any dues. It must be really easy for that to go to your head; you're getting great press, buying leather trousers, and doing coke with your hipsters buddies in some Camden pub. You're a big fish in a small pond! The NME says you're a genius! You were on Top of the Pops -- twice! One of your singles charted in the US, so you're just back from a gruelling American Tour that the band barely survived! And now it's time to record your difficult second (or third) album, and you have major ambitions to write a masterpiece, a work of lasting importance that will change rock and roll forever.
And here we are at Dog Man Star. Some call this album a masterpiece. Some call it the most pretentious album of all time. I don't think it is either. It's like a record of Bowie at his most bombastic, full of melodrama and overblown, over-arranged songs. Surprisingly coherent, given the band broke up while recording it, taking their musical force out of the band. Efforts were hampered by internecine band warfare, egos, and heavy drug use.
This is a fair album, a brave swing for the outfield that doesn't quite get there. I admire the ambition, even if it does veer into self-importance (think U2 at their worst). I really could have done without so much reverb slathered over EVERYTHING, which tends to turn this into a muddy mess to listen to.
Yesterday I reviewed OK Computer, which was recorded under similar circumstances, and I believe actually achieved the band's ambitions. Radiohead's efforts were bolstered by greater discipline and band unity, which were sadly lacking for Suede, although no less pretension.
Garbage
4/5
"Disco Techs and the Sex-O-Lette"? Harsh but fair.
Bitch Vig produced some of the biggest and most influential and best sounding albums of the height of grunge; Nevermind, Dirty, Gish, Siamese Dreams, Bricks Are Heavy (and, for an obscure Australian connection, Feedtime's Suction). But I think he and his production mates looked at the music industry and saw ripe pickings. They could take their innovative production chops and alternative taste to craft pop music with some real edge. Being a bit older and experienced, they realised two things; 1) they needed someone to front the project and 2) what traps to avoid.
The secret sauce is Shirley Manson. She is an incredibly charismatic and compelling front person, and brought an edge to the material and the presentation that cannot be under-estimated. Her input to lyrics and vocal hooks are excellent, but the real trick is her understanding of the visual aspect. The singles from this album all sound great on radio, but they really pop as videos.
I remember being slightly surprised that Garbage were a pop act, given Vig's production credits, but found myself humming along on the radio or when I saw them on music TV. I have never owned this record, but I remember nearly half the album from nearly 30 years ago, which is quite a testimony to the hooks and melodies.
Garbage weren't the first band to fuse alternative rock and dance pop beats (think Curve, Madchester, MBV remixes, Primal Scream, or even U2's Achtung Baby), but were one of the first to achieve commercial success as more than an outlier. I think it's because they really are a pop band that used those alternative influences, kind of like a Eurythmics or Depeche Mode for the late 90s. I hear My Bloody Valentine, Nine Inch Nails, Public Enemy, trip hop and a host of noisy bands polished up and incorporated into a commercially palatable form, with high quality toplining. Depeche Mode is probably the closest model; mopey semi-goth lyrics on pop songs you can dance to. They also used a similar production technique of throwing a bazillion ideas to tape and then filtering out an arrangement in the mix.
Is it a coopting of those influences, just a cynical cash-in, sell-out? It's hard to tell in a period when major record labels were strip-mining the alternative music scene as the next big thing. And Garbage's signature quality was irony, which furthers muddies the waters. Can you tell if they really mean anything they do or say? Is Manson's sexualised presentation a powerful form of self-expression and feminine agency, or is it a willingness to be exploit sexuality for commercial gain? She has repeated a story of a record exec telling her that he masturbated to her picture, but I can't tell from her telling whether she thinks this is a good or bad thing, an example of horrifying sexual harrassment or amusing proof positive of her power over this man? Maybe both.
Similarly, is the music of Garbage just a cynical cash-in or a triumph of alternative tastemakers in a corrupt industry? Garbage certainly enjoyed the trappings of industry success (big advances and recording budgets and tours and photo shoots and million dollar videos) while it lasted.
This S/T record is a terrific pop record, with five or six really strong memorable tunes, and the production method and incorporation of alternative sounds has been massively influential. You still hear echoes of this in pop music today.
Personally, I find the band's irony (bordering on sarcasm) a bit mean and hard to really love. But I have been surprised at how strong the album is and how much I enjoyed listening to it. It has really held up over the decades, which can be especially hard in the pop genre. Four stars.
Dexys Midnight Runners
2/5
While I share Kevin Rowland's love of soul music, Dexys Midnight Runners are really only compelling if you have never heard _actual_ soul music before. The horn arrangement are hamfisted and Rowland's vocals are idiosyncratic at best and appallingly affected at worst, a kind of gargled sobbing. Apparently, he chose to sing like that on purpose. These faults are especially pronounced on the ballads, which are embarrassingly bad. As I am writing, I am listening to Rowland's terrible vocal improvisations at the end of "I couldn't help it if I tried" (from 2:45 onwards) -- I don't know how anyone could defend that with a straight face. It's just bad.
I can see how the English obsession with Northern Soul would make the early Dexys tours a popular live act, given that nobody else was really doing anything like this. I occasionally DJ at a Northern Soul night, and "Geno" always gets a strong response when played. It's the best tune they ever released.
But I do not understand why all three Dexys albums are on this list; the first two are just tolerable, and the third is appalling rubbish.
This is another example of Dimery's obsession with English white boys producing inferior imitations of black music, while denying us the opportunity to listen to the real thing. 2 stars
The Byrds
3/5
I cannot fathom why there are five Byrds albums on this list. They did develop that jingle-jangle guitar sound that everyone from the Beatles onwards copied and they had a cool look, but really, most of their records don't have much staying power. This album is a good example of "the Byrds sound" -- jangly guitars, harmony singing, some slightly out there approach to production -- but the songs just aren't that memorable.
Their lasting influence is probably having invented (or at least perfected) internecine band conflicts. Having David Crosby in a band will do that for you. He was a nasty little troll. Talented, but band poison. (He was also clearly into pressuring girls into threesomes, as documented in his song Triad, recorded for this album but ultimately rejected by the rest of the band because eww, that's just creepy, dude)
The Waterboys
3/5
My mate Dave keeps trying to get me to come to the Canberra Folk Festival with him. "It's great," he says, "after hours, you can just wander into any tent and there will be a bunch of musicians playing standards and you get to hear an eclectic bunch of musos, some amateur, some the best players you've ever heard, jamming it out."
He has never managed to convince me, though. I'm not a huge folk fan, especially the heavily Celtic brand of folk that is commonly played in Australia. I suspect 'Fisherman's Blues' is exactly what I fear that those after hours sessions would sound like; any muso who ever picked up an instrument bashing out never ending versions of songs that are all pretty similar, trying to sound a lot more Irish than they really are.
It's the interminable thing that really gets me. Did you see how long some of these songs are? There are three songs of 7 minutes each and one 9 minutes long! Mike Scott can write a fair facsimile of a folk tune, but they are not long enough to sustain my interest for that long. Seriously, if all the songs on here were edited down to closer to 3 minutes each, I would have a lot more patience for this. I might even like it. Seriously, I started listening to the opening track and thought "yeah, this is alright, I quite like this", but by the time I was five minutes into 'We Will Not Be Lovers', I was a broken man. The 9 minutes of 'And a Bang on the Ear' was like a retreat from Moscow -- thousands of dead soldiers in the snow by the side of the road.
I believe you can buy a 7CD box set well with over 100 songs they recorded for the album but didn't include on the original release. God help us all.
I've been pretty sarcastic here, but this really isn't a bad album. The songs are pretty good and his voice is compelling -- Mike Scott is not actually Irish, but does a reasonable job of pretending he is. The band is pretty great, although there are times where I would prefer less fiddle all over everything. It just needs some judicious pruning.
I am also a massive fan of ex-Waterboy Karl Wallinger, who left prior to this album to form World Party, and his presence is missed (although I'm sure it would be a _very_ different record if Karl was involved).
I'll bet Dave will give this album an extra star for the prominent use of the mandolin.
Three stars.
Tom Waits
5/5
I was obsessed with Bone Machine from the first time I heard it. It's strange and funny and scary and atmospheric and noisy and surprising and moving and unique. It was marketed (and won a Grammy) as an alternative album, which kind of worked because what other pigeonhole would you put it in? It's an extension of his 80s work, but taken to quite an extreme.
My mate Peter bemoans that Tom Waits stopped writing 'proper songs' and just started screaming over recordings of trash cans ceasing around. A fair critique, but I believe that there are real songs in here, underneath the kitchen sink percussion (which is, admittedly, pretty full on). You can tell by the number of covers by other artists, where the melodies often reveal themselves from behind the noisy production.
Some favourite moments:
- Going Out West is just funny.
- the last verse of A Little Rain ("she was 15 years old and had never seen the ocean...") is possibly the most heartbreaking stanza ever written. I have to fight back tears every time I heard it
- Black Wings is terrifying. There is also this bit in Joe Gore's beautifully melodic guitar lead at about 2:38 where a descending run starts to rattle the grill on the front of the guitar amp that sends a chill down my spine everytime I hear it. "They say he killed a man with a guitar string"
- "there's always some killing to do around the farm"
- That Feel is the best song Keith Richards has written since 1975. The loose playing and vocal harmonisation (they were all drunk, I presume) is a perfect realisation of what the song is about. "It's harder to get rid of than tattoos"
It's a strange beast, this record, full of apocalyptic stories and frightening characters, but it is engrossing and vivid.
Most valuable player has to go to Kathleen Brennan, Tom Waits' wife and collaborator. Across the 80s she had encouraged him to lean into his artistic vision, to produce his own records, to embrace his own aesthetic, which you have to admit,has become less fashionable and more idiosyncratic. Her co-writing has increased significantly on this album, but she is so central to the "Tom Waits oeuvre" that I can't detect the seams. His name is on the album, but this is a powerful collaboration.
Honorable mention to Tchad Blake's mixing, which is spacious and organic. His name turns up on a lot of 90s album credits, and his work always sounds amazing. I'm sure this album was a particular challenge, due to Mr Waits' interesting recording techniques.
I can see that this record is not to everyone's taste. It is not a sugar-coated record, there is not much to sweeten the medicine. But there is so much richness there. I've been listening to this album for 30 years now, and it still surprises me.
I searched for many years for a copy on vinyl. I eventually paid too much money for what I suspect is a bootleg pressing of uncertain origins. But that feels strangely appropriate, like a shady character of dubious integrity from a Tom Waits song.
Frank Ocean
5/5
I am currently sitting on a train travelling through northern Spain, and I have happily listened to Channel Orange twice through in a row, and will line it up for a third run soon. I have obviously slept on this one, and now I'm wondering why. Well, I know why; I had three small children in 202 and wasn't keeping up to date with new music. I knew that this album was highly crtically rated, but I've been around the traps long enough that I don't believe the hype. And 2012 was peak music blog hype and there have been some pretty fallow years for exciting music this century, so I took what I saw online with a pinch of salt until I had the chance to check out the album myself, and in the case of Channel Orange, that was more than decade. The reason I signed up for this project was to prompt ms to give a serious listen to albums I never got around to giving proper attention. Mostly, I find that my preconceived opinion of whether I would like a record are born out, occasionally there is a special moment when my ears are opened to something special. And today is one of those days.
I don't even know where to start with Frank Ocean's Channel Orange. It is an ambitious artistic statement that reminds me of Stevie Wonder, Prince or Marvin Gaye. It has stylistic echoes of those three giants of RnB without slavishly imitating any of them. Lyrically, I find it most similar to Prince, balancing love and spirituality with sex, drugs and the profane, although full of self-doubt and uncertainty instead of Prince's unshakable confidence. The thematic concerns of unrequited love, sex and existential uncertainty are explored with a lyrical freshness. His heavy use of metphor, story telling and surprising imagery allow a level of ambiguity and flexibility to his approach to the themes. I read that Frank Ocean controversially revealed his bisexuality just before the release of Channel Orange, but he didn't really want to pin down exactly his identity. And that is consistent with this album; it contains the freedom and flexibility to allow Frank and the listener to both be whoever we are as complex human beings.
Musically, it is both rooted in classic RnB, soul and gospel while being a new approach. It is quite stunning. The heavier use of musicians over samples is a god idea, especially given the loose song structures, much in the neo-soul tradition, which benefits from sympathetic musicianship to help give some dynamic movement to the songs.
I am not a fan of skits, interludes and segues, but I didn't find the run time too long, which surprised me. I generally prefer a short, focussed album above songs that outstay their welcome. But I found myself pulled further and further into this record as it went on.
I am generally reluctant to award an album 5 stars the first time I heard it, but Channel Orange is stunning and deserves it.
The Offspring
3/5
My best mate Tim and I used to go see a lot of thrash shows when I was a teenager because they were the all ages shows that were available. And they are a lot of fun; loud,fast, energetic and with moshing (which is awesome when you're 17, less so now that I am in my 50s. My knees aren't up to it). Our favourite band were The Hard Ons, who did a fast melodic punk, leavened with humour. This is by way of saying that, when The Offspring appeared, I was familiar with the form.
By this time, I was working in an alternative record store in Newtown, and had seen the effect that Nirvana had on the music industry. Bands that would never have had a look in on radio or MTV or even getting stocked in a mainstream record store were suddenly the flavour of the week. I believe that The Offspring had no real expectations of massive success -- they were on an independent punk label with limited distribution and a very modest recording budget.
They had pretty standard pop punk sound (well recorded by Thom Wilson, with heavy and crunchy guitars and clean drums), but one super catchy single, chock full of hooks, in 'Come Out and Play'. It was released at just the right moment for radio and MTV to give it heavy rotation, and it went gangbusters. In Australia, it broke on Triple J, the national public yoof network, but quickly crossed to commercial rock radio. By the time the band made it to Australia in early 95, they were co-headlining The Big Day Out, our biggest annual travelling festival. The album went to number one on the mainstream Australian charts, the first time an album from a independent distributor (Shock Records) had ever done so. And that really marked the beginning of the end for the truly alternative music scene in Australia. Major label money stated flowing into the alternative labels and fucking ruined everything. Labels that had been healthy and successful for years in the tentative world were suddenly getting into partnerships with majors, and they were all closed by the end of the decade -- Waterfront, Redeye, Phantom, Au Go Go and even Shock,all over-leveraged,strip mined and exploited and left to rot. The back catalogs are often uncared for, making good releases from great bands essentially unavailable and forgotten.
This was sad but hardly the fault of The Offspring. I don't begrudge them their success, and hope they all bought really nice houses with the proceeds.
Personally, I find this album a bit uninspiring; I had heard plenty of bands just as good, possibly with generally better tunes, because, let's face it, Dexter Holland can only sing one melody, and at a single volume. The constant shouting works when you're playing in a small club through a crappy vocal PA and you need to be heard over the guitar amps. But the full throated shouting for a whole album (often double tracked for extra heft) just wears me down, especially when all the guitars are constantly loud and fast all the damn time as well. It would be fun in a small punk club, but doesn't make for great listening as a record. It's all a bit same-same.
Except for 'Come Out and Play' -- that is a really awesome single with actual hooks. I rate that. I would buy it on a 7" single if I saw it.
2.5 stars rounding up for having at least one solid gold hit on it.
Kate Bush
5/5
Kate Bush is one of pop music's true auteur geniuses. She proved that you can make smart, ambitious and compelling pop music without bowing to what the industry thinks is appropriate. Especially given that started as a teenage woman in the 1970s, the confidence and integrity to build her artistic vision is extraordinary and incredibly influential on any and every artist since with any ambition to make art pop.
Generally, I respect and admire Kate Bush's oeuvre rather than love it because it borders on prog; literary and classical influences, high concepts, overly clever arrangements, etc. and I don't like prog, just too clever clogs for me. I would much rather listen to Kate Bush that Emerson Lake and Palmer any day of the week, but even so, it is not always to my taste. And side two of this album is an extended conceptual suite that veers into prog territory. Again, I respect and admire the work, but I don't love it.
But side one is one of the most amazing sequences ever committed to vinyl. Five tracks, including four of the best singles of the decade. I love the big rhythms, the melodies, the huge arrangements, and the hooks -- so many hooks! These songs have all of her strengths (musically ambitious, smart, original) and a wild and infectious quality that is not always present in her work. "I will take my shoes off and throw them in the lake" is my favourite of her lyrics and could also be a mission statement for these songs; they are impetuous and joyful and slightly dangerous
Musically, this sounds very strongly of its time -- gated drums, fretless bass, synths, Fairlight -- but it still sounds great, nearly 40 years later. It doesn't surprise me when Running Up That Hill topped the charts again in 2022, because it still sounds awesome. Kate Bush is a great producer and managed to use the technology available to tastefully expand her sound palate, without devolving to using the tech as either an ersatz orchestra or a novelty gimmick.
So, while this album is not always to my taste, I am giving a five star rating for the following reasons:
- successful realisation of outstanding ambition within the pop genre
- undoubted influence on other artists that encouraged them to similar ambitions
- a perfect side of banging songs
(A side note about Young People Today: I have heard some criticism of the sudden resurgence of older songs' popularity based on their placement in a tv show or movie or ad or video game or tiktoks or wherever. "Oh, you only like that because it was in that show blah blah blah" like that is some kind of fake appreciation, less worthy of respect. That is just bullshit gatekeeping.
The thing I noticed about Young People Today is the breadth of their musical taste. In my youth, it was hard to hear a wide variety of music, especially from the past. You were largely limited to what was on the radio, maybe supplemented by what you could borrow from friends or the library. Music in films and tv was generally specially composed or library music rather than needle drops (with some notable exceptions. Look at the effect that the soundtracks of American Graffiti or The Big Chill had on reviving interest in 50s rock and roll and Motown respectively). Record companies used to delete record that they didn't consider relevant any more. It didn't matter if you, the listener, might be interested. They were interested in the longer term legacy of music, and you couldn't have it any more.
Today, nearly everything is available on the interwebs and interesting and varied music is being placed in other mediums. And Young People are responding to the rich feast that is on offer. There is a still a vibrant contemporary popular music scene, but young people are much more likely to also appreciate music from a variety of genres and time periods without prejudice, much more so than when I was young 40 years ago. I applaud it, it's good for music. There is no reason that old songs by Kate Bush or Metallica or The Cramps or whoever can't have another popular moment.
Here endeth the lesson.)
Anita Baker
4/5
I am a big RnB fan, but quiet storm is not a subgenre I listen to much. I prefer a bit of grit in my soul and RnB, and the essence of quiet storm is 'schmick'. And Rapture is probably the Everest of the quiet storm genre. It is super smooth, perfectly played and produced to provide a sophisticated and consistent listen all the way through. I like the balance of real instruments and synthesised; the synthesizers provide a sheen to the proceedings, while maintaining the feel of really great players.
And over it all is the wondrous voice of Anita Baker. Apparently she wanted to make a jazz album, but was talked into to this, and it is perfect. It feels like her vision, what with her vocal control over the song dynamics and co-writing and production credits throughout. Hard to believe se was only in her late 20s when this was recorded; there is a maturity and power to her voice.
I'm pretty sure I have a copy of this album lurking in my vinyl somewhere, I should pull it out to spin more often. Fave track: Sweet Love
Morrissey
1/5
In a 2018 interview, Morrissey said:
"I don't think the word ‘racist’ has any meaning any more, other than to say ‘you don’t agree with me, so you’re a racist.’ People can be utterly, utterly stupid.”
Well, you're wrong, mate. Racism is a thing, and you seem to do it a lot. I am sick of your long-term embrace of ugly nationalist politics and your contempt for everyone around you. It comes through in your public statements and actions (of which there have been so many, I have to believe they are sincerely felt) and it shows in your music.
You Are The Quarry is lyrically clever, as to be expected, but full of contempt for all humanity including the listener. Musically, it's dull.
The ongoing debate about "the artist or the art" asks when and how we can separate the words and actions of the artist from our enjoyment of the art itself. Morrissey makes that easy: he is his art. It is right there in plain sight.
Morrissey keeps threatening to retire. I wish he would.
5/5
I started collecting 70s soul and funk vinyl seriously in the late 1990s. It was a low period for record collecting. Almost no new vinyl was being pressed, the collector market had basically collapsed and nobody was really interested in vinyl. People were giving me their collections; usually a lot crap, but sometimes gems. There was no indication that vinyl would ever come back.
During this time, I did manage to acquire quite a reasonable number of 70s albums. High profile artists like James Brown or Parliament-Funkadelic were still in demand and held their value, as did rare deep cut albums like Baby Huey, Cymande or Betty Davis. But albums by bands that had some commercial success (so they were not too rare) but who were not necessarily critically acclaimed at present were cheap. I acquired lots of records by great bands like the Commodores, the Pointer Sisters, BT Express, the Ohio Players, Ike & Tina Turner, and War. They are often incredible albums, and prices have risen sharply in the last five years, I notice. But I bought 'em cheap. I own a bunch of War albums, and they are all great.
War had that perfect balance of loose and tight that makes for incredible funk. They are always right in the pocket, but they allow space in their arrangement to stretch out a bit and see where the groove takes them. They are a bit more laid back that the JBs, but not as chaotic as P-Funk. They understand how to weave a rhythm (like Sly & the Family Stone) but with more patience to sit in the pocket for a while. Their vocal arrangements are almost as good as Sly's too.
I was kind of surprised to read that this was the highest selling album of 1973 in the US, but why not? It is an easy album to like; it's groovy and you can dance to it, the message of "why can't we all get along?" isn't controversial, and it's got some great tunes. Their biggest hit singles were on other albums (Galaxy or Why Can't We Be Friends? could have just as easily been on this list in place of The World Is A Ghetto ) but I really enjoy this record. War are a band that the world needs to rediscover. Five stars
Keith Jarrett
3/5
It was the worst snow storm in 30 years. The piano was an old packing crate strung with fencing wire that had been dropped out of a third storey window. Keith Jarrett had smallpox, dysentery and one leg amputated below the knee. The crowd rioted because he refused to play The Chicken Dance. It was all recorded to wax cylinder.
This is one of those records where the story is half (more than half?) of the pleasure of the album, and the story seems to get embellished with every telling. Really, this just 65 minutes of pleasantly lyrical improvisation, vamping over a few chords. But people talk about it like it's the Taj Mahal of improvisational jazz (which it ain't). I find this to be pleasant dinner party wallpaper. It's unchallenging piano bar jazz. It's jazz for people who want to tell you how much they like jazz, but don't actually like jazz.
It concerns me that you can get the transcripts (arranged for piano or guitar!) for this album, and that people are learning it note for note. That's missing the whole point, people -- this was a moment in time, now go forth and improvise your own thing! I think that Keith Jarrett would agree.
2.5 stars, rounding up because it really is a great story, truth be told.
Linkin Park
3/5
Nu metal with emo vocals. I can see how this would appeal to angsty 13 year old boys, but I was 30 when it came out, and it just sounded like adolescent white boy whining over repetitive nu metal backing tracks; so many crunchy guitars, so much screaming, so much bad rapping and extraneous scratching.
It's not as bad as the obnoxious misogyny and violent white boy entitlement of your Korns and Bizkits Limp, but I can still live without it. But I get why the young people dug it; Chester Bennington understood your pain, dude.
Some reviews talk about the "innovative musical hybrid" sound of the album. Seriously, hip hop and industrial beats with metal guitars and samples and/or turntables had been done plenty of times before, going back to Tackhead in the 1980s. Hell, here's a really good Australian example from 1992; Peril's s/t album (https://youtu.be/_NjJ7nxJRdA?si=PdS4QzIV0J8c0-Wa)
A lot of the credit/blame for this album's success goes to Andy Wallace, the go-to mixer for 'alternative' hard rock albums in the 90s. He had his process down pat by this stage, and the album has that super compressed gated guitar, loops, and voluminous drum sound (largely created with triggered samples) that pops on radio, but is exhausting to listen to all the way through.
This album is not really my cup of tea, but it has two things in its favour:
1- it's not Limp Bizkit
2- it is appropriately brief. 37 minutes only. I'm so grateful they resisted the urge to fill the whole CD. Great call, gentlemen.
For that, I give 3 stars.
The Smiths
3/5
Tom Ewing in Pitchfork wrote:
"Your reaction to the Morrissey cult of personality is still likely to determine your reaction to the band as a whole-- grotesquely unfair on guitarist Johnny Marr though that is. It's thanks to him that everything the Smiths did is worth hearing, even when his lyricist is having an off day. His range and ambition as a composer widened through the band's life, and his contributions remained consistently stellar."
There certainly are plenty of fawning reviews out there, completely besotted with Morrissey's words of unmatched genius. Personally, I find Morrissey to be a insufferable prat. He always was, and it seems like every year that goes by, he goes even further to prove it. He was always pretentious and contemptuous of everyone around him, and a pretty shit singer to boot. Most of his 'melodies' consistent of loudly shifting back and forth between two or three notes.
Johnny Marr, however, I have a lot of time for. I credit much of The Smiths reputation as classic band to his work.
But this album just doesn't have their best songs. They released a staggering number of strong singles in their four year existence, and none of them are on this album. I know there are critics that sing the praises of songs on the record, but they are only great if your were already convinced that the album is a work of staggering genius-- it's a circular argument.
To quote Scroobius Pip: "The Smiths, just a band". And Meat is Murder is just an album, a pretty average album. With fucking Morrissey on it, so that's a star off.
The Afghan Whigs
3/5
I was 23 when this album came out, and it got quite a lot of play in my friendship circle. It fit our idea of grown up and sophisticated rock that reflected our supposedly grown up and sophisticated lifestyles. In retrospect, we were living in sqalid share houses, working menial jobs, drinking too much, dabbling in bad drugs, and having terrible relationships that inevitably devolved into public screaming matches and somebody throwing a glass or a punch or a bar stool.
And Gentlemen is the perfect soundtrack to that lifestyle. And it too, in retrospect, is squalid and immature. I don't buy the equation that shame and self loathing are moral offsets for bad behaviour, which makes this a little hard to listen to these days, now that I have a few hard won lessons about behaving like a decent human being.
That said, Greg Dulli is a compelling front person. He was also terrific and believable as the voice of John Lennon on the Backbeat soundtrack. I always thought of him like darker, meaner Lloyd Cole. The character he plays is reprehensible, but given Dulli's background in film making, I assume there is a fair amount of role playing here.
The band is terrific, I particularly find the guitar work lacerating and noisy in a way that reflects the thematic content. I can hear that they understand the feeling of old RnB and soul without slavingly imitating.
Checking back, I seem to own quite a few Afghan Whigs albums (including this one). I should play them more often, although they do leave a slightly bad taste in my mouth.
3.5 stars, rounding down for bitter aftertaste.
Devendra Banhart
2/5
Quirky to the point of distraction. His voice occasionally verges into Tiny Tim territory, which is not good. Playing is tasteful, but unvarying. Inoffensive and positive in tone,but feels alight. This feels like a demo for a proper album.
2.5 stars, rounding down for "why is this on the list?"
Deep Purple
5/5
Great rock and roll is always a balance of smart and dumb. For example, the Ramones sound dumb, but are secretly smart. Lou Reed sounds smart, but usually plays musically dumb. The problem with prog rock is that it is trying to be smart all the time, and loses track of the importance of being a bit dumb.
But Deep Purple never forgot. Well, almost never; let us speak not of Concerto for Group and Orchestra. They were all great musicians (Lord and Blackmore in particular0< but never forgot that someitme syou just need to play dumb. Despite their terrific chops, both Lord and Blackmore will sometimes settle back into just playing the groove to keep the song barreling along. Actually, listen out for Blackmore's rhythm playing; it is often just a single note root note chugging along. Bog simple, but rockin'!
I know Ian Gillan sometimes wishes he had done a better job with the lyrics, but frankly I really like to the dumb-as-a-box-of-hammers stupidity of most fo the songs. It doesn't distract from his world class wailing.
There is almost no filler on this record, and it has Smoke of the Water on it. Any list of 'greatest riffs of all time' that doesn't feature Smoke on the Water in the top three isn't worth its salt.
Aimee Mann
4/5
Women in rock have it tough. Aimee Mann's cynicism about the music industry is well earned. As Chris Molanphy of the Hit Parade podcast points out, the alternative/college scene in the 80s had a lot more opportunity for female artists, but the shift in the early 90s when the mainstream industry began strip-mining the alternative music scene heavily favoured male artists. Grunge and post-grunge were very blokey, and many female artists found themselves largely shut out. A token handful of female artists (Sheryl Crow, Alanis Morissette) found support to develop multi-platinum success, some said "fuck it" and forged their own path (riot grrl), and some tried to make it work with the crumbs they were offered, like Aimee Mann.
This is an accomplished rock album with smart lyrics, beautifully crafted melodies and harmonies, a crack band and terrific production from Jon Brion (who subsequently left his creative mark on a bazillion records and soundtracks over the subsequent decades). I particularly like the Beatles references throughout, which never descend to slavish imitation.
But all this was not enough to break through the sexism of the rock industry; support and opportunities demied. It was shameful that,when female artists proved that there was in fact a wealth of female talent and a market for it through the (highly successful) Lilith Fair touring festival, this was used to mock and denegrate female artists even further. The backlash is intense and ongoing; I am ashamed at some of the sexist comments in reviews of this album ("mom rock" -- WTF is that?). This is a smart album of melodic and muscular alternative rock, and deserves respect. In a universe where women get a fair shake, this album could have been huge.
George Michael
3/5
As a teenager, I rejected the world of mainstream pop in search of an edgier and cooler alternative scene. Wham's 'Wake Me Up Before You Go Go' was one of the songs that helped cement that decision for me: it was frothy, ubiquitous and desperately uncool. I didn't really pay much mindto George Michael for the longest time after that. I mean, he had such big hits that I was aware of his work, but didn't pay active attention until nearly twenty years later when I was less concerned with teenage conceptions of 'cool'.
And it was his voice that really captured me. He was a really extraordinary vocalist, and even his most inconsequential songs contain some really outstanding singing. The Netflix documentary showed what a complex, conflicted and often unhappy man he was (but also ambitious, talented, driven, loyal). I have developed an interest in his catalogue, and there is a large body of really strong work across his career.
But I hadn't spent much time with this album. It suffers a bit from from the typical sins of 1990 production: overly polished, digital sheen, a touch too much crispy high frequency and hollow bass, a bit heavy on the quantisation. It's a mellow, sophisticated pop album that shows George's growing maturity. It can, however, make it a bit of a bummer sometimes.
What would have the rumoured Volume 2, a supposed dance album, been like? What if the material had been mixed up a bit more? Hard to tell, given George's ill-fated legal tangling with Sony that put a kibosh on that.
But that voice! While this album is not quite to my taste, I would happily listen to George Michael sing the telephone book. Three stars.
('Freedom 90' is a powerful song, and provides much of the backbone to DJ Earworm's 'No One Takes My Freedom' mashup, which is one of the best examples of that genre. Worth a listen: https://youtu.be/G7U5jpHWzeE?si=Sj7qtG4ep8GfjKsu )
Neil Young
1/5
I'm about 900 albums into this project and I've learnt a few things. Notably, I have learnt that I hold no love for the work of Neil Young, unlike Dimery, who saw fit to include seven albums under his own name plus one each from CSNY and Buffalo Springfield, making Neil Young the most represented artist on this list (tied with Paul McCartney and John Lennon). And Neil sure ain't no Beatle.
This album in particular just seems to be taking the piss. Neil's record company thought he was committing career suicide, and I can see why. These are bad demo quality recordings of done severely undercooked songs, many of which are barely better than drunken jams. The singing and playing is dreadful -- I defy any Neil Young fan to defend his appalling singing on Mellow My Mind. The lyrics are first draft, rhyming dictionary drivel, and largely come down to "being a rock star is hard" and "heroin is really bad, but we sure like tequila and smoking dope!" with a short moment of "my old lady had a baby, it's kind of a drag, but she seems to be into it".
This album actually made me really angry with how bad it is. I know Neil was trying to drive his career into a ditch. Well, mission accomplished, but it didn't stop his acolytes (Dimery and Pitchfork included) from hailing this as a work of unmitigated genius. It's like Brian desperately pleading with the crowd that he is _not_ the Messiah ("only the true Messiah would deny his divinity!"). Don't believe the hype -- this deliberately shit album deserves nothing but a single star.
Sugar
4/5
In a 1983 interview, Bob Mould told interviewer Steve Albini, "We're [Husker Du] going to try to do something bigger than anything like rock & roll and the whole puny touring band idea. I don't know what it's going to be, we have to work that out, but it's going to go beyond the whole idea of 'punk rock' or whatever." And I don't think anybody realised how that change would look, but change things they did.
Husker Du married the noise and aggression of punk rock with the melodicism of classic rock and pop, which became the dominant sound of alternative rock by the early 90s. Their willingness to pour on layers of guitar noise over everything helped pave the way for shoegaze. And most importantly, they showed that an underground band could sign to a major label and maintain a semblance of creative control, which is probably the most seismic shift in the rock music industry at the end of the 1980s.
Despite being one the key bands pioneering these changes, Husker Du didn't have much to show for it. The major label contract didn't bring any significant commercial returns, and they collapsed in penury, addictions and internecine conflict.
I like the two Bob Mould solo albums that followed, which are carefully orchestrated folk rock albums, but very dark in tone. Not many people bought those records, his contract with Viegin collapsed, and I don't think Bob quite knew where he was heading.
But then the success of Nevermind and MBV's Loveless, both of which are indebted to Husker Du, prompted him to form a new band and get a bit more back to basics. And that's what the Copper Blue album is: a distillation of what is great about Bob Mould. He was always been a prolific writer, but this is particularly strong set from him. The melodies are strong, the playing is strong, the production is great, and the lyrics a little sunnier that usual (which helped).
If you wanted a good career summary of Bob Mould in a single album, then this would be it. Is it as good as Zen Arcade or New Day Rising or Candy Apple Grey? Maybe not, but this was his most commercially successful album, which he achieved by leaning into his strengths just at the moment that he rest of the world caught up with what he had been doing for nearly 15 years. It is hard to begrudge Bob some public recognition, a small victory lap, after the years of dues paid.
I confess it had been a long time since I pulled this record off the shelf for a spin, but I'm really glad I have. It's been great to be reminded of what a solid album this is.
Eagles
1/5
The Eagles, eh? Insert Lebowski joke here.
I have already written at length about exactly why I hate the Eagles and what a scourge and baleful influence on music they are. I do not intend to revist those arguments.hwee.
It is (mildly) interesting to hear this album, where they are talented and ambitious wannabes with something to prove, compared to the cocaine-fuelled ego monsters that they would become in the next few years.
The Rolling Stone 500 greatest albums list (2012) stated that this labum "created a new template for laid-back L.A. country-rock style". I think that is wrong; I think the Eagles lifted ideas that plenty of other bands had already developed and codified it into a slickly performed and recorded format that became the template as a result of its commercial success.
Robert Christgau had them pegged as "suave and synthetic -- brilliant, but false". And the History of the Eagles documentary shows he was absolutely right. Despite the lid back, West Coast, country rock image presented, th Eagles were highly ambitious and driven to success. They worked hard, were great players and singers, and they produced a quality record that became ubiquitous (by design). But ubiquity or quality aren't markers of worth. This whole album feels like a cynical marketing exercise to me (with an uncomfortable undertone of misogyny).
Wu-Tang Clan
4/5
There are _so many_ Wu-Tang albums, Clan and solo, that it is hard to get a grip on the whole genre. But, if you are going to listen to one Wu-Tang record, this is the one. I love the lo-fi cinematic (and somewhat wonky) production. The flow is outstanding. There are skits (which I generally don't approve of), but they are few, brief and not too intrusive. And, rare for a 90s CD album, it doesn't outstay its welcome.
If you have any interest in hip hop at all, you need to be aware of the Wu Tang Clan, and this is the most important album they produced.
Bonnie "Prince" Billy
3/5
Fuck me, that is bleak.
Please don't make me listen to that again.
Beatles
4/5
It is a truth universally acknowledged that an edited White Album would make a perfect single LP. But nobody can agree on what the track listing for the perfect single album version of The White Album should include. I had a former band-mate who was obsessed by Savoy Truffle (which I regard as a novelty filler track). Hell, there are even people that champion the Revolution 9, generally regarded as the most unlistenable piece of pretentious rubbish that Beatles ever committed to tape. But those people probably also listen to Metal Machine Music all the way through and should be shunned by polite society.
Personally, my least favorite track is Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da which is a teeth-achingly bad piece of cod reggae from Paul's "Granny music" file.
There is some terrible filler on this record (Rev 9, Ob-La_Di, Piggies, Wild Honey Pie, Bungalow Bill, Rocky Raccoon), and some under-cooked songs that I actually like (Glass Onion, Sexy Sadie, Everybody's Got Something to Hide, Happiness is Warm Gun, Why Don't We Do It In The Road?), along with some dead-set classic tunes (While My Guitar Gently Weeps, I'm So Tired, Helter Skelter). I am particularly fond of the acoustic tracks that were written during their trip to India (Dear Prudence, Blackbird, Martha My Dear, Julia).
But truth be told, the White Album is an inconsistent "Grandma's bag" of one-off songs, off-cuts, experiments and fragments. It has been poured over by music fans for decades like the Talmud looking for the secret codes of pop composition and production. It has a lot to offer to detailed and repeated listening, but possibly over-rated because it is late era Beatles and they were the most culturally important band in the world by that stage.
Four stars. But it would be an even better single album.
Kanye West
2/5
Kanye, Kanye, Kanye.... what do you do with a problem like Kanye?
he is one of the great artists of the 21st Century, without a doubt. And part of the reason for that is his utter commitment to speaking his truth, laying out the full and unvarnished reality of himself as a complex and flawed human being. It's admirable, until it isn't. because part of Kanye's truth is his increasing delusional megalomania, which he happily reveals to everyone through his art.
I think Kanye thinks that the world wants to cancel him; I think a lot of the world just doesn't want to hear what he has to say. He is loudly and repeatedly exercising his freedom of speech, but that freedom to say whatever he wants has consequences; broken commercial deals, reduced sales, increasing irrelevancy. Some of Kanye's outbursts seem to come from unmanaged mental illness, and he has my sympathy there, but there also seems to be a megalomania that I suspect arises from too much money and success too early, leading to a lack of perspective and not enough people around him willing to tell him when he is having a bad idea.
This album feels like a tipping point; the last moment where Kanye had some self-awareness. But the personality he presents is pretty unlikable. High level of artist integrity, but very little personal or moral integrity. It gives me the icks.
Ryan Adams
2/5
Well, Ryan Adams, eh? yet another example of the age-old conundrum: can we enjoy the Art regardless of the behavior of the Artist?
For me, it comes down to ick factor. Does what I know create a feeling of ickiness in me that prevents me from listening to the music? And sorry, Mr Adams, you have crossed that line. Your Mr Sensitive Artist persona feels like wolf-in-sheep's-clothing camouflage that you use to manipulate and exploit young women. And that has a deleterious effect on the music industry, discouraging women from creating art that we might all enjoy, and society as a whole by discouraging women from, you know, enjoying their daily lives. It's just shitty behavior, dude, and you don't really seem that aware or apologetic.
But what, I hear you ask, is the album actually like? Well, I don't care, because I've had it up to here with unrepentant arseholes.
I'm going to have to rate this one pretty low, based on:
1) Ryan Adams seems like an arsehole. I just can't listen to this record without my mind being flooded with distracting thoughts of Ryan Adams manipulating and exploiting women. Which kind of kills the vibe, you know? , and
2) there are plenty of other examples of this type of thing that I can happily listen to instead (for example, let's listen to a Phoebe Bridgers record, that would be cool!).
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
4/5
I like Nick Cave's late 80s, early 90s albums, and I bought this when it first came out. And it's a fine example his oeuvre; the songs are well crafted and the band is tight. But I don't feel like this is a standout Nick Cave album. I don't get why _this_ album is on the list over some that were more commercially successful or had bigger hits or some other more noteworthy feature. Would this be the album you played to anyone to convince them of Nick's worthiness? I'm not sure... I enjoyed it, but I was already a fan.
3.5 stars, rounding up.
David Bowie
3/5
I think the rapturous reception of The Next Day revealed the thirst many music fans had for David Bowie to recapture some of his past glories. We all desperately wanted Bowie to have a late career resurgence, to come back from his creative hiatus with a meaningful and impactful record. The album went to Number 1 and onto Dimery's 1001 albums list, but time has not really been kind. Dimery removed it from the list because, truth be told, this is an OK album, but not special. Its place as the "late career capstone album" was superseded by Black Star, which had an emotional resonance associated our collective mourning for Bowie that The Next Day will never be able to overcome.
I think the cover is the perfect metaphor for this album; a simple, minimal and tasteful design with the iconic past peeking out from behind. it may have been intended to show how the new is replacing and overlaying the past, but really just serves as a constant reminder of his past achievements, and how much more interesting they were.
The record is OK, but forgettable, and not a patch on Bowie's greatest moments.
Muddy Waters
4/5
A muscular outing from Muddy Waters. Johnny Winter records Muddy's touring band a rough immediacy that captures the power and authority of the music. The inclusion of re-recordings of some of Muddy's greatest songs (Mannish Boy especially) make this a terrific capstone of Muddy's career. White boy blues lawyers wish they could play like this.
Peter Gabriel
4/5
So is such an 80s album; the schmickly produced pop, the Fairlight CMI, the synth pads, the fretless bass, the digital reverb sheen are all very much of the time, but it still sounds great.
It's smart, literate pop music that still has a great beat and some banging tunes. Gabriel skirts with the cultural appropriation issue, but I would argue that his work with "world" musicians is much more collaborative than the more exploitative work of, say, Paul Simon or Malcolm McLaren. 'Sledgehammer' cashes in on the nostalgia for 60s black RnB in a way that I am a bit uncomfortable with, but you can't argue that it is a cracking tune with an all-time classic video.
Gabriel weaves a delicate line between his art-rock pretensions (check out the subject matter of many of these songs), with the need to be accessible and enjoyable. It's a fine line, and he dances it perfectly. This fits the criteria for a great album of "three great songs and no bad songs". (Interestingly, I was reading various reviews, and there is little agreement on what the three great songs are, which speaks to the high quality and broad appeal on this record).
Personally, I prefer his earlier 'Melt' album, but that is a bit creepier and unsettling (which is to my taste), but for an example of an album with mass pop appeal that doesn't make you feel dumber for listening to it, this is hard to beat.
Hanoi Rocks
2/5
I'm sure Hanoi Rocks were pretty great live in a small club in 1981; a bit of glam, rock and roll fun. But this album is... just sadly amateurish. The very existence of this album is both a calling card to help the band get live bookings and a souvenir for their live fan base.
But it's not a good record. The songwriting is basic, the lyrics were clearly written by someone with pretty rudimentary English, and it sounds like it was recorded in a cardboard box using a tin can on a string. I can hear their energy, which is commendable. I like an energetic album by an enthusiastic band, and I don't even mind if the recording is a bit shoddy, but this is just paper thin. I can hear how this was the beginning of 80s glam metal, but there are much better examples of that genre (if you really felt like 80s glam metal needed representation).
Really, I suspect the main reason that this band is included on the list is the tragic death of drummer, Razzle, and the way that intersects with the more prominent story of Motley Crue. I am increasingly uncomfortable with the way that the story behind a record becomes an integral part of the status of that album, especially when predicated on the suffering or death of the people involved. I'm sure Razzle would rather be a live drummer (even a live retired drummer) than a dead legend.
2.5 stars, rounding down for the emotional vampirism on the basis of a dead man.
M.I.A.
4/5
I have always been a bit unsure of what to make of MIA. But I think she is the real deal. I find her work exciting and energising, with a fascinating mélange of sounds from around the world, especially South Asia. I really like this record, but (like I said), I'm not sure if it is genius or trash. It could be both! It reminds me of the first time I heard Neneh Cherry; I didn't understand 'Buffalo Girls' and thought it was rubbish. It took me a while to understand what she was doing and realise its true greatness. And I think MIA is the same.
She obviously rubs a lot of people the wrong way and cops a lot of criticism because she doesn't play by the accepted rules. Maybe she's too female, too non-Western, too confident, not deferential enough for those critics' taste.
Some people have describe this as a "world fusion" album, but I think, at heart, it is a pop hip hop album, but with a broad palate of sound sources, including samples and musicians from well outside the usual sources for Western bands. The thematic concerns, similarly, are much more informed by more global concerns.
I love the way she incorporates a wide variety of cultural ephemera like a magpie (Pixies, Jonathon Richmond, lots of world influences that I can't name) into a focused and exciting piece of work. Interestingly, the one song I don't really rate, Jimmy, is largely a cover, and I don't think it plays to her strengths, which are simplicity, directness, confidence, colour, pride and openness.
My Bloody Valentine
5/5
Loveless was a revelation. It took the lessons of the Velvet Underground and descendants (Jesus and Mary Chain, Sonic Youth, et hoc genus omnes) about the use of noise in rock and roll and took it to an extreme. It wasn't pure noise (a la Merzbow) -- there is still melody and a song in there -- but the presentation was so extreme that it threatens to break everything you know about music. Everything is mixed upside down, bathed in distortion and reverb and other effects, with a woozy relationship to pitch and harmony. Vocals to the back! Drums almost inaudible! This is genuinely groundbreaking record, and I have yet to hear anyone who has managed to take this approach any further (including MBV themselves).
And they were loud, by god! I saw them at the Sydney University Refectory in 1991, and the volume was staggering. A friend who was a massive MBV fan smuggled in a tape recorder to bootleg the show. But when we listened back to the tape, it was 90 minutes of white noise. The volume just blew out the poor little condenser mike in his walkman beyond what it could handle.
Personally, I like something that is noisy and difficult and loud (really loud!), but still has a tune, and that it right in MBV's sweet spot, but I understand that many won't find it palatable at all. But everyone should listen to it at least once, just to hear how far you can push the rock music form.
God knows why it cost as much to record as it did. That is a mystery to me.
The Jam
2/5
I just never liked Paul Weller. Don't like the Jam, don't like the Style Council, don't like his solo 'Modfather' work. Lots of people I respect really dig The Jam, and god knows I have tried many, many times over the past 40 years to understand the appeal. But I just don't. I never really understood the cult-like veneration that a certain generation of Anglophiles have for The Jam and Weller's subsequent output.
At the time of its release, Weller said that he considered the album a cross between Off the Wall and Revolver. Well, Sound Affects is no Revolver or Off The Wall.
I've often pegged Weller as trying on musical styles that he digs, but his copies are a bit weak. The only song that I really feel that stands up as original is 'That's Entertainment', where he says he wrote in ten minutes, which suggest he didn't have time to overthink it. 'Start', the other hand, is essentially plagiarized from 'Taxman'.
2.5 stars, rounding down for cribbing from better records to a mediocre standard.
Fleet Foxes
3/5
Yeah, it's pretty nice. Nice melodies, nice harmonies, nice polite playing. Really well recorded, although I believe they needed to bring in NASA engineers to design the digital delays and reverb slathered over all the vocals.
Roxy Music
5/5
I went to a house party with my mate Shawn once where everyone got a raffle ticket on entry, and there was a lucky door prize drawing later in the evening. Shawn won a vinyl copy of this first Roxy Music album. Not being a LP collector himself, he passed it to me. I very gratefully accepted, and I acknowledge his generosity in adding this excellent album to my collection.
I love this first phase of Roxy Music (with and without Eno). Art rock that actually rocks. Everything is just a bit weird and sideways, without being completely off the wall.
This album fits right into the pocket for me. It's amusingly weird without losing sight of the need to actually rock and have a few tunes you can sing along with. Side 1 (especially with inclusion of the Virginia Plain single on the CD and streaming versions) is particularly strong; it's more song-oriented than the more experimental second side. I dig both, although I need to be a bit more in the mood for side 2.
The band is pretty powerful, and they can rock along in an unpredictable way without getting too clever-clogs. It's a got enough Eno in it to be surprising, without having completely disappeared up its own backside. The recording and playing is a bit ropey (they recorded the whole thing in a week), but I think that gives the album an immediacy and energy that really appeals to me. Bryan Ferry hasn't fully developed his lounge lizard persona yet, but his idiosyncratic vocal stylings provide drama and character.
It's a smart record you can dance to, and it's hard to ask for more than that.
Jungle Brothers
3/5
The rise of gangsta just killed my interest in mainstream hip hop, so it is a joy to go back and revisit an album like this that is much more to my tastes. I dig the Native Tongues era hip hop. It's clever and funky and varied and funny and smart. This represents a direction that hip hop _could_ have gone, but didn't (which is a bit sad). The best material is front-loaded on the album; some of side 2 is still very old skool, with some hilariously dated flow. But I can forgive it for being a lot of fun. An enjoyable listen.
Hüsker Dü
5/5
In a 1983 interview, Bob Mould told interviewer Steve Albini, "We're [Husker Du] going to try to do something bigger than anything like rock & roll and the whole puny touring band idea. I don't know what it's going to be, we have to work that out, but it's going to go beyond the whole idea of 'punk rock' or whatever." And I don't think anybody realised what that change would mean, but change things they did.
Husker Du married the noise and aggression of punk rock with the melodicism of classic rock and pop, which became the dominant sound of alternative rock by the early 90s. Their willingness to pour on layers of guitar noise over everything helped pave the way for shoegaze. And most importantly, they showed that an underground band could sign to a major label and maintain creative control, which is probably the most seismic shift in the rock music industry at the end of the 1980s.
Their output was quite extraordinary; 6 albums between 1983 and 1987, two of them doubles, including this, their swan song. The band was imploding at the time, citing nearly every single one of the classic reasons bands split up: egos and control, money, musical differences, drugs, exhaustion, compounded by the stresses of Bob Mould and Grant Hart being closeted in 1980s America (a very conservative society to start with) in the notoriously homophobic American punk scene.
Husker Du's output was prolific and of a consistently high standard, so I'm not quite sure why this album in particular is on the list. The critical reputation of Husker Du's catalogue seems to be in flux and contested; it's hard to get any consensus on what is their best album.
I would argue that Warehouse is a pretty good example of what Husker Du were all about. In the words of Bob Mould, they did "Guitar, bass, drums, melody, aggression, intelligence." And all of that is here in spades. Both Mould and Hart are writing strongly melodic pop songs, but presented with guitar noise and frantic drumming, which was the blueprint for the alternative boom of the 90s.
The major label recording budget helps somewhat, but this is not radically different from the independent label albums from a few years prior, so this is not the seismic shift forward of, say a Goo or Nevermind, where major label budgets and recording techniques were applied to previously underground bands. A combination of timing and a more palatable sound helped those albums break in the mainstream in a way that Husker Du never did. Husker Du opened the door, which allowed other bands to go through, for better or worse. Personally, I mourn the loss of the alternative music industry from the 1980s.
I'm not entirely sure why 1001 Albums doesn't include New Day Rising or Zen Arcade or Flip Your Wig instead of Warehouse, and an argument can be made for any of those records as an alternative to Warehouse. They are not quite as well recorded, but they also don't have some of the weaknesses of Warehouse; too much material (most double albums would make a better single album with judicious editing), clear tensions between Mould and Hart (some argue that this is really two solo albums knitted together with clever sequencing), and a disengaged Greg Norton not playing at his best (you can take a pretty good guess at which songs had his bass parts replaced).
My favourite song here is 'Ice Cold Ice', which has a lot of Husker Du's strengths; ferocious energy, strong melody and vocal harmony arrangement, impassioned vocals, a tearing guitar part that switches between rhythm and lead, ambitious harmonies that alternate between major and minor keys, and possibly the best pick slides in the whole of rock history.
I can't quite bring myself to give a full five stars, because I'm not convinced it is their best record, so 4.5 stars, rounding up.
Alice Cooper
3/5
2WS-FM used to play the riff of 'School's Out' as the bed track for one of their station promos, and every time, every single time, like a Pavlovian response, I would think to myself "Excellent! They're playing School's Out, that's a great song!", swiftly followed by the bitter disappointment of an exhortation to keep my dial tuned for the greatest hits of the 70s, 80s and 90s. Those hits, ironically _never_ included 'School's Out'.
I was first exposed at the age of 7 or 8 to Alice Cooper in his iconic (and super cheesy) appearance on the Muppet Show in 1978. The Muppet Show was the perfect place for him. The big show-stopping final number was 'School's Out', with Alice mugging to the camera in a devilish body suit, jostled by giant monsters. It was awesome, and just the right level of anarchy, danger and dissolution to capture the attention of small child.
This album is a big, cartoonish Bob Ezrin production; fun, technicolor, dramatic. Ezrin was the go-to guy for rock opera production by 70s bands of limited musical ability (see also Kiss, Pink Floyd, Aerosmith, Peter Gabriel. Don't @ me, bro, you know it's the truth).
Bob Ezrin loves a theatrical album with a narrative thread -- he famously sequenced Nine Inch Nail's The Fragile to that end. This album is a very loose retelling of West Side Story (with a few obvious references) and Ezrin takes this band of middling technical ability, but with a ton of charisma and theatrical flair, and plays to their strengths without sacrificing the humor and fun. It's fun and funny, but not an album I NEED to own. I'm giving 2.5 stars, rounding up for 'School's Out' which is the best track on the album by a mile and contains this lyrical moment, which encapsulates the clever/stupid dualism of rock and roll better than anything else ever written:
"We ain't got no class / We ain't got no principles / And we ain't got no innocence / We can't think of a word that rhymes!"
Genius!
M.I.A.
3/5
I was initially unsure of what to make of MIA. Is she an inauthentic poseur of limited talent provoking controversy for the sake of attention (as some of her critics have implied) or an exciting artist voicing important and complex messages about globalisation (as her supporters say)?
I'm not 100% comfortable with her use of lyrics and imagery that refer to terrorism and armed conflict, justified by personal connection via her father's alleged involvement with the Tamil Tigers. I understand her point that there are not clear moral boundaries in a complex world (one person's terrorist is another one's freedom fighter), but it is sometimes hard to tell whether what she says is authentic and where she is courting attention through controversy. And she is certainly not the first pop star to adopt the aesthetics of the freedom fighter and occasionally tone-deaf rhetoric to go with it (hello Joe Strummer, Bono, RATM, and a bunch of other male artists who got away with it). There is something highly performative in MIA; which is not an unforgivable sin in a professional performer.
On reflection, I think she is the real deal, in a very post-modern way that conflates notions of 'authentic' and 'inauthentic'. I find her work exciting and energising, with a fascinating mélange of sounds from around the world, especially South Asia. I like the cheap-as-chips production (an aesthetic she picked up from Peaches). I really like this record, but (like I said), I'm not sure if it is genius or trash. It could be both!
She obviously rubs a lot of people the wrong way and cops a lot of criticism because she doesn't play by the accepted rules. Maybe she's too female, too non-Western, too confident, not deferential enough for those critics' taste. The album plays to her strengths, which are simplicity, directness, confidence, colour, pride and openness.
That said, I can see that Arular has been removed from the latest editions of 1001 Albums, rightly superseded by Kala. Kala is her masterpiece album. Not as many bangers here.
Prefab Sprout
2/5
There's nothing _wrong_ with this record per se, but I like pop music to _pop_, rock music to _rock_. And sophisti-pop like Prefab Sprout's 'Steve McQueen' does neither.
Does the very existence of a 2006 bonus disc re-recording of most of the album arranged acoustically suggest that Paddy McAloon is embarrassed by the 80s sound? It does demonstrate that the songs hold their value independent of the production.
Personally, I don't mind Thomas Dolby's lush and tasteful production, and 'Appetite' is my favourite track because it sounds the most like Thomas Dolby. I think Dolby adding 'banjo' to 'Faron Young' using a Fairlight CMI is the most hilariously 1980s thing ever. But generally, this album just washes over the listener in a haze of beautiful chords and synth pads and smooth vocals and clever but unpretentious lyrics and harmonies and blah blah blah. Is this just wannabe jazz for pseudo-hipsters that can't go the whole way to listen to real jazz? Or even jazz rock? Man up, dude, just buy a copy of Aja, you know you want to. Sophisti-pop like this is a gateway drug for Steely Dan. Just say no, kids.
As Noel Murray, secret Steely Dan (and Al Stewart!) fan, wrote in his AV Club retrospective of 'Steve McQueen' :
"These days, it's hard to sell Prefab Sprout to people who aren't already fans. The music-loving world has mostly forgotten that there was a time when McAloon was considered a songwriter to be reckoned with, for the way he mastered and redefined the breezy jetset soft-rock sound shared by bands like Aztec Camera and Haircut 100. To those not already inclined to appreciate that stuff, Prefab Sprout can sound gooey and sappy–too cloying by half. "
Agreed; this record is so sugary that I feel myself going into diabetic shock.
I can admire than quality, but I am so BOOOOOORED. More than that, I feel a growing urge within me to put on a Stooges record really loud, get loaded and fuck shit up.
That's it, I'm off... you'll find me tomorrow in jail or hospital. Check both.
Pulp
4/5
Jarvis Cocker lays out the thesis of 'This is Hardcore' in the opening song:
"This is the sound of someone losing the plot
Making out they're OK when they're not
You're gonna like it, but not a lot."
Well, mission accomplished, Jarvis (although I secretly like this record). It's an honest and unvarnished (although quite self-deprecatingly funny) recounting of post-success decline. The lights have come on at the nightclub, and suddenly it looks like a shithole, and everyone is wasted, seedy and shell-shocked.
It took Pulp a long time to achieve pop stardom, and Jarvis clearly woke up the day after the party to realize the stain that had left on his soul.
I bought this album not long after it came out, and played it a fair bit, although not obsessively. There are a lot of cracking tunes here (my favourites are The Fear, the title track and Party Hard, which sounds just like it could be a Bowie offcut from the Scary Monsters session), and it hits some anthemic highs when the band really gets cranking.
By their own admission, Pulp were a band of limited technical ability, but Chris Thomas makes them sound awesome. It's grand and dramatic and cinematic and gritty and dynamic, full of light and shade. Lots of shade, which fits the thematic content. But it gets really big when it needs to.
Shout-out to Anne Dudley for additional piano and string arrangements. She is a name I look out for on album credits. Anne always does fine work that adds value to whatever she touches.
This is not a feel-good album. there are quite a few albums that deal with the sordid aftermath of decadence, but I am hard pressed to think of any better than this, especially with the number of cracking tunes on this one.
Paul Simon
2/5
One of the surprising side-effects of this 1001 albums project has been my growing and active dislike of Paul Simon.
Previously, I thought he was OK -- he wrote a bunch of pretty memorable songs both with S&G and solo (showcased on his appearance on the Muppet Show, a formative childhood influence for me), and he did occasional cameos in movies and Graceland was a great album.
Ric Albano in Classic Rock Reviews wrote: "You can say what you will about Simon, you can never call him unoriginal."
Well, actually, I can. I think he is an annoying and pretentious narcissist and unrepentant serial plagiarist, building his career through a form of musical colonialism. Critics may say "Mother and Child Reunion is the first song to bring reggae to America" which almost implies that reggae didn't exist before Paul Simon turned up at the Kingston recording studio. This is clearly bullshit. He made a career out of travelling the world and using local musicians to add colour and life up his own soporific folk numbers. He didn't start with this record, and he certainly didn't stop. It's his modus operandi.
Don't get me wrong, he can craft a pretty tune and a clever lyric. But having sat through half a dozen of his records, I am not inclined to give him a pass based on a few pretty tunes.
Miles Davis
5/5
When Miles Davis died, total worldwide use of the word "m*therf*cker" dropped by 30%.
I don't know what I could say to add to everything that has been said about Kind of Blue. It's all true. It's been so played over the years that it is almost wallpaper, but it still sounds fresh and smart and interesting. It's a jazz album even people who don't like jazz can listen to.
Eleventy billion stars out of five
Janis Joplin
5/5
TIL Janis Joplin (in conjunction with Juanita Greene) paid for a tombstone for Bessie Smith's previously unmarked grave. Bless her.
Janis Joplin really helped set the template for rock singers, male and female alike, in ways that were both positive (big raspy blues-influenced voice, powerful stage presence, wild public persona) and extremely negative (self-destructive consumption of drugs and alcohol, tempestuous relationships, wild private persona).
The vocal affectations can be a little OTT sometimes although generally kept under control by the firm hand of Paul A. Rothschild, a producer with a good track record of managing volatile singers. But Janis' style has been massively influential over the years, often copied but rarely bettered by others. Her live performances can be excessive -- I bet they were awesome if you were there on a good night -- but on record she made more deliberate choices that really are something. It's big and emotive and free, but she has a deceptive amount of control. underneath all that apparent reckless abandon. I wonder whether she might have gone on to use her more 'normal' voice if her career had extended. You can hear moments of it on some of the out-takes on the deluxe version of Pearl, like her snippet of 'Happy Trails' on her birthday message to John Lennon. Or maybe the damage of this full-throttle singing style and hard-living would have aged her voice into something more worn, but beautiful and expressive in its own way.
The band is tight, funky, well-rehearsed and dynamic. A special shout-out to Ken Pearson on Hammond organ; I really dig his contributions. This is Janis at the height of her powers, with great material. Even though it was not entirely finished before her death, this really does feel like a complete album (instrumental track aside).
The legend of Janis Joplin overshadows her actual music these days, which is part of the fetishization of trauma that is part and parcel of rock iconography. Was her personal unhappiness a result of her repressed homosexuality? Her affairs with women were well documented and not secret, but she strongly resisted being labelled a lesbian (understandable given her upbringing in Texas). Did her struggles with self-acceptance lead her to self-destructive behaviour? Janis 'earned' her iconic status with self-harm and an early death, but I am sure she would rather be a happy 80 year old (out and proud, perhaps?) than a famous dead person.
I do pull this record off the shelf from time to time and always enjoy it (especially side 1). I have played 'Move Over' in DJ sets on occasion.
Janis is an essential part of how rock and rock codifies itself (for better and worse), and the music is actually really great.
Marvin Gaye
3/5
So, this wasn't what I expected. I had read about this great "divorce settlement" album, that was supposedly a lost masterpiece. Often, I find that wreaks of hipster-obscurantism (cf. the Beach Boys's Vegetables), where "unrecognised masterpiece" often equates to self-indulgent, un-edited piffle from a flailing artiste. So, my expectations for Marvin Gaye's double album commercial and (contemporaneously) critical flop, meditating on his divorce would be... flabby, self-indulgent and painful.
But, surprisingly, while it has aspects of all those attributes, it does stand up. It is a largely mid-tempo funk/soul album, with touches of disco (unsurprisingly for the era). It is unhurried, with extended soloing (including some, ahem, marginally competent keyboard solos from Mr Gaye himself), but well recorded, with some great playing from his backing band (uncredited. Who ARE they? LA based Motown regulars?). It is certainly not a phoned-in contractual obligation album; Van Morrison could learn a lesson from this.
I could see myself listening to this again. It's not "What's going on?", but a pretty solid album from a great artist. For once, the hipster revisionism has actually winnowed some grain from the chaff.
(The one song that is really out of place was the single, "A Funky Space Reincarnation", which is delightfully bonkers.)
Footnote: how ugly is the cover art? It takes a special effort to produce something this bad. Marvin Gaye was a handsome man, so seriously, all you need to do is put his photograph with the title on the cover, and you're done (cf. What's Going On, and just about everything else in his discography). This seems like a very deliberate choice...
Public Image Ltd.
2/5
The packaging of this album is a metaphor for the record itself; Metal Box is a metal box. It's a clever and unique and attention-grabbing idea that hadn't really been done before, but it's really fucking hard to get into and difficult to play all the way through.
I used to work in a second-hand record store, and physically handling a copy of Metal Box was a pain in the arse. The vinyl platters were only barely smaller than the lip of the container, separated by tissue paper, and at 10 minutes a side, you were constantly having to flip or change a disc.
And to be perfectly frank, the music is equally hard to listen to. This is a document of an interesting band (Levene and Wobble in particular) jamming out improvised grooves with Lydon sneering over the top. Many of the tracks are first takes, made up on the spot. Lydon admits that they spent most of their advance on the packaging, so couldn't afford to produce and mix the album properly. So, this is a record monitor mixes of unedited improvisations, roughly thrown into some pretty attention seeking packaging.
Wobble's dub bass playing, Levene's spiky metallic guitar and the krautrock inspired drumming (by whoever happened to be around) were really influential on post-punk, for which I am grateful, but let's be honest; this record sounds like rubbish. Does anyone listen to this for fun? It could have been so much better; compare to the contemporaneous album by the Pop Group 'Y', which plows the same field to much better effect, or Jah Wobble's 2021 re-recording of Metal Box, which is the same material, but well recorded.
I feel slightly condescended to by John Lydon; he has served up an undercooked, poorly recorded set of rough demos, and expected me to lap it up. And if I don't that is _my_ fault for not being smart enough or hip enough to get it. I _like_ this sort of thing, I really do, but this album leaves me cold and uncomfortable. It's deliberately and uncaringly bad, and I lay most of the blame for that at the feet of John Lydon, who is not nearly as clever as he thinks he is.
Run-D.M.C.
5/5
I was a white suburban Australian teenager in 1986 when Raising Hell was released, and it made immediate sense to me. I saved my pocket money and bought a copy of the LP and a bunch of the 12" singles from the album. I played them grey. I could (and did) recite the album pretty much all the way through. It made immediate and obvious sense; the crunching drums and rock riffs were familiar, and the vocal delivery was new, energetic and exciting.
There had been the occasional rap moment on Australian radio or TV prior to this; 'The Message' made an impact, but most of what we saw in Australia were terrible copies or parodies of hip hop (for example, Blondie's Rapture, Stutter Rap, Mel Brook's Hitler Rap or the execrable Might Big Crime: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV23mHlMzUk&t=1s Interestingly, all of these terrible examples are white artists).
But Run DMC were the real thing. This album broke hip hop as a major new genre of music, and commercially important. I saw them at the Hordern Pavillon (supported by Derek B, and Eric B. & Rakim) in late 1988. And they were awesome; loud and confident and charismatic. But, in many ways, this was a last hurrah for Run DMC.
I love Raising Hell, and it has a bunch of songs that are absolute classics of my youth -- It's Tricky, Walk this Way, My Adidas. The hard rocking sound hooks into my subconscious and just presses the dopamine buttons. And you can't overestimate the impact that this had by breaking hip hop into mainstream consciousness through radio and MTV. But it was, musically, a bit of a dead end. Within two years, the big crunching minimalist drum machine sound with simple rock riffs or scratched in hooks were done. Hip hop evolves fast, and it evolved past Run DMC really quickly. They are the epitome of Old Skool, but if you listen to Golden Age records of just a year or two later (Public Enemy's Nation of Millions, or Eric B. & Rakin's Paid in Full, for example), there was a stylistic leap forward that make Raising Hell sound dated. Gone are drum machines, replaced with loops and samples, and Eric B. has revolutionized flow. Those Golden Age records are much more obvious ancestors of today's hip hop than Raising Hell. You do still occasionally here occasional references to this sound as a brief genuflection to the greatness of groups like Run DMC.
And they are worthy. Run DMCs achievement is extraordinary. They deserve enormous respect as the first great group of hip hop. And I love it. I can still sing along to much of this album.
The Human League
4/5
This is review 945 for my project. I did nearly 200 reviews before I started a group, which re-set the counter, and albums from those first 200 still turn up. The Human League's 'Dare' was the very first record I reviewed on day one. Now that I have refined my approach to reviewing, let's see how my initial thoughts and rating stack up:
"minimal, clean synth sounds, cool production but still warm to hear. Surprisingly good tunes beyond just the singles, especially 'The things that dreams are made of' and 'The Sound of the Crowd' and 'Get Carter/I am the Law'."
Well, I stand by all of that.
The best moments of 'Dare' have a kind of regional nightclub glamour. Don't look too closely or you'll see the grimy reality, but when the music is loud and the lights are flashing, there is a fun, sexy vibe that you can dance to.
My first instinct was to put my rating down to three stars, but I have listened to this album twice through on the trot, and I really dig it. There really are some cracking tunes here, and it wrote the book on synth pop. Great to listen to, lots of fun, and highly influential.
The Young Gods
4/5
I discovered The Young Gods one late night watching Rage, the ABC's all night music video show one night in early 1992. They played Gasoline Man and Skinflowers back-to-back, probably about 2am, as part of the release of the TV Sky album. I was working at a small independent record store, and Dogmeat Dave, my sales rep at Shock, offered me the album a few days later. I quickly ordered a copy for the store, and one for myself. My flatmate Andy and I were both really into industrial music (we were in the process of forming our own terrible industrial band), and we played this record a lot. We went to see them at the Phoenician Club in Sydney in May 1992. They were an awesome show: a crunching metallic sound, but with just a singer, drummer and keyboard player. They had a really simple but effective light show with big washes of white light, as I recall. The use of synths and samples meant that the sound was really crisp and clear, but the live drums gave a visceral intensity. Great show.
The thing I always liked about The Young Gods was their clean, mechanic industrial sound, but the way it incorporated acoustic instrument sounds (orchestras, rock guitars), but by cutting them with samplers, it gave a crisp mechanical edge. This contrasted with other industrial bands that were either highly synthesized (your Front 242 or Nitzer Ebb), using actual guitars (Ministry, Nine Inch Nails) or just a mess of mangled sound (Skinny Puppy, Severed Heads). The use of actual drums gave it a bit of human feel, which contrasted with the highly quantized beat of most 80s and early 90s industrial. I prefer the TV Sky album because it was the first one I was familiar with (and the lyrics are in English), but I also like the way it more explicitly references and recontextualizes classic rock (The Doors, Pink Floyd, and Guns 'n Roses samples all feature prominently). They are well versed in the tropes and history of rock, but their presentation was a fresh and exciting take on the form. And Franz Teichler is a charismatic front man, which goes a long way.
L'Eau Rouge is cited as their 'masterpiece'. I will admit there are some real bangers on here (Longue Route, L'Amourir), but I also really dig the more atmospheric use of orchestral samples to create rising tension and drama.
Not the album I would have picked for this list, but a really great late 80s industrial album.
The Killers
3/5
I'm old enough to remember the 1980s when indie/alternative music was a genuinely alternative industry to mainstream music with independent radio, labels, venues and stores, not just a genre label to create commercial radio playlists. And this album is where "indie" ended up after a decade... the singles are anthemic and the album overall doesn't suck, but I'm not enthused. 2.5 stars.
Hugh Masekela
3/5
Mostly pretty inoffensive light 70s jazz. Much of the material was already sounding a bit dated by 1972. Not as funky and edgy as I would like; kind of early 1960s Miles Davis lite. Very lite.
Inner Crisis is the best of the bulk of the album.
The real highlight in Ingoo Pow-Pow (Children's Song), which is much more like African music with a jazz inflection. If only the rest of the album was more like that.
AC/DC
5/5
Legend has it that the 'A' on Angus Young's schoolboy uniform cap stands not for 'Angus" or 'AC/DC', but for 'Ashfield Boys High', Malcolm and Angus' high school, and the original uniform that they borrowed for Angus to wear on stage. My sons all went to Ashfield Boys, and the uniform includes a baseball cap with a prominent 'A" (https://www.lowes.com.au/schools-online/ashfield-boys-high-school/black-cap-sco-29963) in homage.
Angus Young always referred to AC/DC as "my brother's band", and that is true to the soul of what is going on here. Angus and Bon Scott are charismatic front men, but the backbone of AC/DC is the rhythm section, clearly led by Malcolm Young. It's all in the rhythm guitar.
New producer Mutt Lange cleverly provides polish and punch to AC/DCs sound (which was pretty well defined by this point in their career) without adding too much filigree (beyond a blokey backing chorus) or distracting from the tight power and feel of the band. This is simple rock and roll, and you can easily dilute the power by gussying it too much, and Lange avoids that. He could clearly see that AC/DC knew what they were doing and were hungry to achieve success. They were putting int he work, on the road and in the studio. It's not rocket science, it's not poetry, but it rocks. It rocks hard. It's a simple formula, but it works. They have resisted the urge to muck around with the formula, and it has been really successful for them. It's hard to go wrong with AC/DC albums (because they don't change much), but I reckon this is pretty good example of their core mission. It's got a bunch strong songs on it (title track, If You Want Blood, Walk All Over You, Girls Got Rhythm, Night Prowler), and not a lot of duds (although Angus doesn't like Love Hungry Man, apparently).
Footnote; Bon Scott is at the height of his powers here, and his unfortunate accidental demise shortly after this album's release is one of rock's great tragedies. I am uncomfortable with the way that Bon has become a legend of "hard livin'"; it is wrong to celebrate the man's loss as some kind of symbolic martyrdom to rock and roll. I don't think Bon wanted to die. I don't enjoy the way that legend of some records are inevitably caught up in the suffering of the artists involved. It's a form of trauma porn.
The Stooges
5/5
In 1989, when I was 18, I was singing in a rock band with some mates. Not a good band, but that's not the point. I was studying how to be a front person by sitting up late at night watching Rage, the overnight music video show on Australian ABC television. And the video that caught my attention was Iggy Pop's 'Home'. An OK song, but not Iggy's greatest moment. But the video was the most compelling performance I had seen. It's mostly just black and white footage of Iggy being Iggy in front of the camera with a wind machine. And he is magic to watch. I thought "man, I'd feel like an idiot if I acted like that, but it's soooo great to watch". Now, I don't claim to be anything near Iggy, who should be on anyone's Top Ten Front People of All Time list, but he certainly did encourage me to go more full on in my delivery style.
The Stooges really are one of those bands that are the blueprint for what real rock and roll should be; loud, dangerous and out of control. IT straddles the clever/dumb dichotomy perfectly. It's all energy and sex and humour and violence and volume and you can dance to it.
Side 1 of this album is full of simple but perfect songs, recorded with intensity and a dangerous edge, like it could all go wrong any second. God bless Don Galluci for not polishing all the edges off. It's a perfect side of rock and roll.
Side 2 (1970 excepted) is... inessential. The title track and LA Blues are really just noise-vamps -- essential precedents for whole genres of music yet to come -- but not really great listening experiences.
The Stooges really are foundational to much of the music to come, often imitated, rarely equaled. Just get loaded, play side 1 really loud, and smash shit up. _That's _ rocks and roll.
Jane's Addiction
4/5
I loved Jane's Addiction. I bought Ritual the day it came out. I saw them play live at the Hordern Pavillon in 1989 (one of their last dates before splitting), and I have played this record a thousand times.
The scope and drama of this album is extraordinary. It feels wild and dangerous and bohemian and unconstrained, which is a lot of what rock and roll should be. The rhythm section is powerful and heavy and swinging, but it is Navarro's guitar work that really lifts the record into something special. His lead playing was really unusual for the 80s, in that he doesn't rely on "typing" his way through solos.
I really love the music on this record and have listened to it a lot over the years. But... Perry Farrell is an arsehole. He has a track record of exploiting the artistic input of others (especially younger collaborators) and taking credit for their input (including 62.5% of the royalties for this record, which is seriously unbalanced). It's true of bandmates, collaborators and 'muses' (a term commonly used to belittle women's artistic contributions).
I am increasingly uncomfortable with the appalling behaviour of artists like Perry Farrell. I'm not sure whether it is worse when they celebrate their philosophy openly in their art (Jane's Addiction, Led Zep, Marilyn Manson) or when they hide behind a mask of faux sensitivity (R. Kelly, Ryan Adams). Farrell has moments of "sensitivity" (eg. 'Jane Says') but he is pretty open about his philosophical approach. I am increasingly uncomfortable when he repeatedly yells things like "Sex is violence"; what once seemed like a bohemian embrace of untamed sexuality now seems like it is the mating call of a sexual abuser. I fear people were mistreated.
Christgau thought that Farrell was a poseur, a wannabe Alice Cooper, and history shows that this type of posturing often distorts people's behaviour to the point that they become the character they play (see also: Marilyn Manson). I am hedging my bets here; I fear that Farrell has done really terrible things, and there is certainly enough already in the public domain that indicates that he is a pretty toxic human being, but we haven't seen a full-blown Manson/Diddy/Weinstein moment for Perry yet. But it wouldn't surprise me if we did, and then I might need to reassess my consideration of this album.
So I am still rating this with 4 stars -- 5 stars for the band, and one off for Perry Farrell.
Marianne Faithfull
5/5
I worked for a few years in my early 20s at Scratches Records in Newtown, which was for a long time, the only store in Australia to allocate equal shelf space to female artists as men. This was a pretty radical stance in the 1980s, although I believe there is a store in Tasmania now that only stocks female artists. Peter and Janette, who owned Scratches, introduced me to 'Broken English', as a case in point of a female artist making a strong artistic statement from a female point of view. They also taught me to watch out for Australian pressings that omit the track 'Why'd Ya Do It?'
The story behind 'Broken English' is well documented. I am uncomfortable with the way the legends of some albums are inextricably intertwined with the story of their creation, usually involving the suffering and/or death of the artist. But while 'Broken English' is clearly informed and affected by Marianne Faithful's tumultuous personal history (you can hear it in her voice, so much more worn than her 60s pop voice), the album is not presented as a form of trauma porn. It much more a tone of "I've seen some shit and I have some things to say, and you'd better listen".
I love that Marianne, fully expecting that nobody would ever let her make another record, leaves it all out on the floor. She hides nothing, holds nothing back. But it's not a form of exhibitionism -- The Ballad of Lucy Jordan is clearly the story of a character with a very different life than hers -- but she understands the loss and pain and anger and experience and can express those so eloquently in her singing. The original songs are really strong (including the title track and Why'd Ya Do It?) and they fit well as a coherent body of work with the covers, some obscure and some well-known.
It is a musically fascinating album too, very musically forward at the time. it is clearly strongly informed by post-punk and new wave. It sounds of its time but has aged well. I think a lot of that comes down to the great playing that always keeps Marianne in the spotlight. The music always serves the song and her performance of the song.
I often complain about the under-representation of female artists on the 1001 list, and this is an excellent example of a great work of art that could only have come from a great female artist. More like this, please.
The Beach Boys
5/5
Brian Wilson died today. There is near universal acknowledgement of incredible aptitude for melody and harmony, but really, I think we have been collectively mourning Brian Wilson for decades now. Was Pet Sounds, so beloved by hipsters, both the career zenith and breaking point for Brian Wilson? It feels unkind to suggest that he subsequently disappeared into a miasma of drugs, mental illness, internecine conflicts and his own legend. The Legend of Brain Wilson is one of the foundational myths of popular music, a piece of trauma porn that allows music snobs a visceral thrill on the basis of Brian's suffering. I think Brian's story is a cautionary tale of the dangers of a fucked-up father, too much success too fast, and the exploitative nature of the music industry (and the predators that lurk around it). Personally, I'm glad he seemed to find some stability and peace with his wife, Melinda, whom he credited with making his life possible.
I saw Beach Boys with Brian Wilson live in 2012. They were performing in Central Park, NYC, for Good Morning America, so I got up at 6am to go see them. They only did a few songs (Help Me Rhonda, Good Vibrations, God Made the Radio, and maybe something else). Brian was super cranky, and berated the crowd for bumping around the giant beach balls that the production had provided during the lengthy breaks between performances. And I felt like he has been wheeled out against his will to perform like a curiosity and I could understand his bad mood.
It is my usual (and somewhat) heretical view that Brian Wilson is over-rated and nearly everything he did after Pet Sounds is self-indulgent and unfocussed and often meaningless ('Vegetables', anyone?), the occasional good song excepted. Anyone who claims to truly love the 'Surf's Up' LP is just too pretentious.
But Pet Sounds really is something else. Loathe as I am to admit it, Pet Sounds is really great. It's difficult to hear with fresh ears because so many of these tracks are really important and much played vital pieces of pop music history. I can see why the Beatles felt the need to up their game in response.
Five stars. Vale, Brian, you just weren't made for these times.
The Residents
5/5
I was 15 years old in 1986 and just starting to explore alternative music to the Top 40 radio that I had grown a bit bored with. Back in those days, it was hard to discover things outside the mainstream. I was starting to listen to a lot of Triple J radio (the ABC’s youth station, then Sydney-based),which would play music that was quite out-there, especially late at night. The Residents toured Australia in 1986 for their 13th Anniversary Show, and Triple J played a short radio documentary about the Cryptic Corporation and played their records. I think they played some albums basically all the way through – I certainly remember them playing the Residents-adjacent Snakefinger album ‘Night of Desirable Objects’ in its entirety.
I was too young and baby-faced to get into the shows at the Tivoli or Selinas, but I was really intrigued by these outsider musicians. It gave me the impetus to track down the types of record stores that would actually stock this type of music, which led me to Red Eye Records, a Sydney institution, still open to this day. A lot of the records in Red Eye were obscure imports, eye-wateringly expensive for a teenager like myself. (I still find their prices uncomfortably high – I moved on to other stores that stocked the music I wanted and who would look after me. I ended up working at one of those stores, Scratches Records in Newtown until it closed in the mid 90s. My favourite store these days is Beatdisc at Parramatta, shout out to Tom and Pete). But Red Eye did have a few second-hand Residents’ records, including a 7” EP version of Duck Stab, that I snapped it. A local label, AIM, also briefly released a few Residents’ records locally at reasonable prices, including the 13th Anniversary Tour Live in Japan album, which is probably my favourite Residents’ album to this day. It acts as a bit of a “best of” the early Residents, played with a spooky and spacious intensity.
I intrinsically “got” The Residents – their best records are heavily informed and influenced by pop music, but played with an eerie and unsettling outsider perspective (especially their 70s releases – Meet The Residents, Commercial, Duck Stab, Third Reich’n’Roll). I loved the anti-technique, which appealed to me as someone with a strong interest in making music but little actual technical talent. You didn’t need to be a great musician or have a lot of expensive equipment to play music like this or be a good looking rock star type, you just needed ideas and a point of view. I still find it inspiring. Their interest in multi-media meant they were often at the forefront of musical development. In retrospect, it’s hard to believe their videos were played in MTV, but they were one of the few bands to make videos as short films.
The Residents influenced what I look for in music. I still like music with a strange and sideways approach, especially if that includes a slightly disturbing humour. Their later albums are often too high concept for my taste (I generally don’t like concept albums), and there is now such an enormous body of work that it is hard to know how to approach it all. It’s hard to decide what is a good representational work from their idiosyncratic and diverse oeuvre. But Duck Stab is a good place to start, I think. It is certainly where I started.
I did eventually see the Residents on their 2016 Australian tour. It was a strange and beautiful and funny and disturbing show and just what I wanted from them.
Is Duck Stab (or The Residents in general) to everyone’s taste? Well, probably not -- there’s a reason this is one of the lowest rated albums on the 1001 list. But Duck Stab is special to me. I find The Residents’ creativity inspiring, and especially this record. It demonstrates how far you can push the pop music form. And I do think everyone _should_ try this at least once. The Residents (and Duck Stab in particular) opened my ears to new ways of listening and to the fact that there were whole worlds of music that existed a long way outside the Top 40. I will forever be grateful for that insight. I hope that listening to this will have the same impact on someone else as well.
Tom Waits
4/5
Swordfishtrombones was the beginning of Tom Waits' evolution into the figure he is today. Kathleen Brennan, Waits' most important collaborator (and wife) egged him into produce his own recordings and lean fully into his demented carny persona. Swordfishtrombones is the transitional album between the bar-room balladry of his early albums, with elements of the creepy circus, rubbish-bin-crashing production of his 90s albums.
She describes Waits' songs as being either "grim reapers" (Underground, Swordfishtrombones, 16 Shells from a 30.6, Down Down Down) or "grand weepers" (In the Neighborhood, Soldier's Things, Gin Soaked Boy).
I really dig Tom Waits' 'late' career, which starts here. Later albums are stronger (Rain Dogs, Bone Machine), but it all starts here. Many people under-estimate Ms Brennan's profound influence on Waits' songwriting and production. She exposed him to a range of new influences and possibilities, encouraged him to take control of his own production, and later became a powerful songwriting partner. Without her, it is hard to imagine that we ever would have heard this distinctive oeuvre. I think we have to understand Tom Waits' later career as the career of Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan in partnership. Credit where credit is due, Ms Brennan, I doff my hat to you.
The Charlatans
2/5
Yet more trauma porn. Would anyone remember this album if keyboard player Rob Collins hadn't died drunk driving during the recording sessions? Probably not.
The album overall is, like most Britpop, derivative of 60s pop (most egregious example is the faux-Dylan 'Get On It'). Tim Burgess' vocals are incredibly nasal and annoying.
The only track I really like is 'Rob's Theme', which sounds like an early 90s Beastie Boys instrumental out-take.
(I really love The Charlatans' early single 'The Only One I Know', which I regularly spin when DJing. Nothing on this album is worthy to untie the sandals of 'The Only One I Know').
The Boo Radleys
2/5
It seems like every British musician who achieves a modicum of success thinks that their next record can be their Pet Sounds or White Album. That tendency is encouraged by an over-enthusiastic music press (or in this case, record label press officer) who hype musicians of medium talent to believe they are the next Brian Wilson. I feel like I have reviewed a lot of (mostly British) albums that fall into this trap. The hallmarks of this type of wannabe magnum opus include; genre-mixing, orchestration, 'experimental' noisescapes, neo-psychedelia, and an attempt to embrace 'universal' themes.
And here we have Martin Carr's moment of attempted genius. And I think I have ticked off all the boxes on my 'delusions of grandeur' bingo card.
It's not a bad attempt. He can craft a tune, I like that the guitars get a bit noisy from time to time.
I can see how, if you were 19 and hadn't heard anything quite like this before, it would sound like the Best Thing Ever, especially if you got to see the band live on the tour. But frankly, I am old and jaded and I've heard this type of thing too many times to get excited.
2.5 stars, rounding down for over-egging the pudding.
R.E.M.
3/5
Murmur is exactly what it says on the tin. Critics have fallen over themselves for decades to praise this record, singling out Stipe's lyrics for special attention. I mean listen to this piece of critical onanism from Jonathan Gregg in Record; he describes Murmur as "a splendid little film noir of an album, austere but rich in implication." But, as my mate Dave (hi Dave!) once said: "I used to think Michael Stipe wrote good lyrics until I actually heard what he was singing."
I argue that Stipe's singing is best understood as impressionistic strings of sounds. They aren't cryptic ciphers with great depths of profound meaning. They are a hazy backdrop onto which the listener can project their own meanings and insights (which is why critics all think the lyrics are oh so clever; they are simply preening at their own reflections).
The band, however, are pretty great, channeling the Byrds and Beatles and little bit of folk punk into the absolute template for college rock for the next decade. Special mention to Mike Mills, whose bass and other instruments anchor the arrangements, and whose backing singing is wonderful.
The album is not well recorded, but I like the resulting aesthetic. This record would have been woeful if some cigar-chomping A&R man had dragged them down to Criterion Studios in Miami to spend six months doing bumps of coke, overdubbing synthesizers and polishing their masterpiece. Much better we ended up with this, one of the pivotal documents (no pun intended) of alternative rock.
Personally, I lean more towards Husker Du, but I reckon every share house I lived in during the 1980s and early 90s had a copy of this album.
Derek & The Dominos
2/5
Eric Clapton, Patron Saint of Blues Lawyers.
This album is an inspiration for every middle-aged white guy who wishes he could wail on blues guitar, sleep with witchy women, do heroin and ride a motorcycle. I know quite a few aging finance guys who have bought themselves an expensive guitar and a motorcycle to try to live out the dream (they may also be popping opiate pills in secret, but they don't brag about that quite so much).
Most of this album is filler and indulgence and cultural appropriation. I find it boring and forgettable, just like most amateur "blues" bands made up of middle-class white accountants and dentists, with the exception of the title song. And that is the reason we are all here, really. Its legacy was really cemented because the coda featured in 'Goodfellas', which is, admittedly, an awesome cinematic moment. But I put that down more to Scorsese's terrific marriage of visuals with this well-chosen needle-drop than the inherent value of the song itself (props also to Thelma Schoonmaker, editor supreme). I always secretly felt that Duane Allman's much-revered slide solos were all a bit out of tune. Awesome, but out of tune. And let us not forget that the whole coda was stolen from Rita Coolidge.
Fuck you, Eric Clapton, for being a malign influence on music. You and all your druggie mates.
Nine Inch Nails
4/5
Andy moved into the share house where I was living in early 1992, because we were desperate for someone to pay the rent on the empty room. We didn’t really know anything about him except that he had a job, and that meant he was probably going to be reliable with the rent. I was working in a small alternative record store, so I was bringing home most of my meagre wages in vinyl, although I didn’t have a record player to play any of it. Andy moved in his stuff over the space of a week or so, including his big ass stereo. The night he moved it in, we bought a case of beer and sat up really late spinning records, comparing our musical taste. Turns out that both us were into industrial music. By 3am, we were both pretty drunk, but we formed a close friendship and set plans to form our own industrial band (which was played in wilful obscurity for over a decade, but that is a whole other story). Suffice it to say, ‘Pretty Hate Machine’ was one of the records that we both really loved.
Later that year when 'Broken' came out, we were super psyched – that was the shit! It was heavy and noisy and angsty and fucked up. Everything we really liked! We played it a _lot_. Nine Inch Nails were the perfect band for us angsty, slightly disaffected suburban white middle-class males. Trent Reznor captured it perfectly. I suck, you suck, everything sucks, and I don’t give a shit about anything! Fuck you all! With time, I have come to realize what a privileged position we were in, but at the time we felt entitled to our angry self-loathing and our right to take that out on people around us. Not really acceptable behaviour, and I am sorry to everyone for what an arsehole I was then.
The genius of Trent Reznor was that he took the sound design of Skinny Puppy and wedded it to pop songs. Andy used to joke: what’s the best Skinny Puppy song? The one you are listening to right fucking now! The Skinny Puppy sound is awesome -- noisy and distorted and dense and dance-y and scary – but they couldn’t write a memorable chorus to save themselves. It is energizing and exciting in the moment, but you can't remember what you were listening to as soon as the next song starts. Truth be told, that is the weakness of most industrial music. It’s heavy and it has a great beat that sounds great in a club, but you can’t hum the tunes. Trent Reznor realized that you could have hooks and tunes along with the beats and noise and guitars and yelling. It’s a formula that sold millions of records. And that sound is extraordinary. Apparently, prince loved ‘Broken’ and asked his people to mix his records harder afterwards (which you can hear in some of his mid 90s records).
‘Broken’ is still my favourite NIN record, but I can see why people call ‘The Downward Spiral’ his masterwork. It’s a concept album (critical success) and sold a bajillion copies (commercial success) and influenced the way pop sounds. There are elements of industrial music in most pop music today; fucked up samples, distortion and weird sound design are all commonplace now. I am a bit uncomfortable with Downward Spiral; it takes the self-loathing and extrapolates it to its nihilistic endpoint, which is pretty extreme. I just don’t really want to wallow in that these days. And “Closer” is a terrific song, but massively over-played. I can live without ever hearing it again.
I am also uncomfortable with the way it trades off the legend of being recorded in the Tate/LaBianca house. Years later, Reznor recalls being confronted by Sharon Tate’s sister, who accused him of exploiting Sharon’s story. Reznor confessed he had considered it a part of “American folklore” and hadn’t really given much thought to the tragedy of Sharon Tate’s death and the real effect that had on people around it. I suspect that Trent himself has a more mature and empathetic view of the victims of the Manson clan, but every article I have read about this album mentions that this was recorded in the Tate/LaBianca house. I can’t help but feel that we, as music fans, are complicit in a vicarious thrill of this link to the Manson story. It’s not just “American folklore”; it was horrible and needless suffering. Real people suffered; was that just for our amusement?
I really like this record, and I do feel that it is a brilliant (but uncomfortable) piece of work. It was successful and influential, and you really should listen to it. 4.5 stars, rounding down because the subject matter and legend are problematic. And it’s not quite as good as ‘Broken’.
Barry Adamson
3/5
Cheesy ersatz soundtrack music. The pseudo-noir vibe is cool and brassy, but the music can tend to wander aimlessly a bit. The cheesy 80s production has not always aged well (the synths, especially when used in place of real brass.) The covers of "Alfred Hitchcock presents" and "The Man With The Golden Arm" stand out as a the most compelling tracks, which is an unfortunate point of comparison.
Tortoise
2/5
I have repeatedly dipped my toe into post-rock, honestly trying to like it, but I am left unimpressed. I generally like a steady driving rock and roll beat that I can bug out to, so the stop-start, weird time signature nature of post-rock gives me the irrits. This album verges on being just a collage of semi-ambient fragments.
This has a bunch of influences that I should dig -- krautrock, minimalism, the noisier end of industrial -- but I swear this really just sounds like a gentler, humourless version of Tubular Bells (take that as you will).
Post-rock always struck me as prog for pretentious musos that grew up in the alternative scene. I can appreciate the cleverness of what they are doing and there are moments that I dig, but I can't really hum the tunes or dance to it, you know? I think that if I listened to this about 25 times, I could learn to love it, but can I be bothered to invest the time?
Here's a giveaway of what I thought of this album; I was listening on spotify, not paying much attention, and suddenly thought 'hey, this song is pretty good, I dig this". I looked up to see that 'Millions Now Living..," had actually finished, and the algorithm had moved on to play 'Seeland" by Neu. Which is like Tortoise but better and 20 years earlier.
2.5 stars, rounding down because the cover art seems like it was ripped off from Severed Heads' Hot With Fleas 12" from 1987: (https://www.discogs.com/release/335126-Severed-Heads-Hot-With-Fleas-Canine)
Sebadoh
3/5
I am not normally a fan of the willfully obtuse lo-fi of the 90s. It often fails to rock. The lo-fi thing doesn't concern me; it's the obtuseness for obtuseness' sake. Guided By Voices, I'm looking at you.
But this record I enjoyed (much more than, say, Pavement, who I tend to regard as the emperor's new music). It fairly often rocks (eg. Sacred Ambition), the tunes are memorable (eg. Homemade, or Think (Let Tomorrow Bee)), and the album overall is muscular and thought out (eg Soul and Fire). Sometimes it embraces 'weirdness' in a way that reminds me a little of Primus, a very self-aware 'wackiness' (eg. Fantastic Disaster).
I am OK with the use of dissonance and/or a failure to tune the guitars (eg. Flood). That's OK, that can rock.
A pleasant surprise. Would listen again.
Milton Nascimento
3/5
I found myself looking at my watch, wondering when it would be over.
It's not _bad_. The gentle Latin vibes make this pleasant background music, but the fact that my Portuguese is terrible and so I don't understand any of the lyrics make it hard to engage with the album.
This is hyped as possibly the greatest pop/rock/jazz/insert-genre-here album ever to come out of Brazil, but I reckon it suffers from the same problem as nearly every other double album ever; it would be better as a more tightly edited single LP.
I kept waiting for something to leap out and grab my attention. The big fuzz guitar leads in 'Trem de Doido' stand out, but much of the rest of is just... fine. It's fine, Ok, it's really fine. Nothing wrong with it, but I just can't really click with this.
It's not you, it's me, OK... You're awesome, Clube de Esquina, I'm just not ready for a committed relationship with Brazilian pop.
2.5 stars, rounding up because it's pleasant.
Flamin' Groovies
4/5
According to wikipedia, Teenage Head was released the same year as the Rolling Stones' album Sticky Fingers, and Mick Jagger reportedly noticed the similarities between the albums and thought the Flamin' Groovies did the better take on the theme of classic blues and rock 'n roll revisited in a modern context. I tend to agree.
Teenage Head is like a rougher version of Sticky Fingers (one of my favourite Stones' albums), so this is a revelation. Loved the slide playing, the rough boogie, and the grunt. The handful of covers tacked onto the deluxe reissue are also fun, but the (mostly) original song son the album proper are all strong. I love the immediacy and sweaty energy of the recordings; the wheels could come off at any moment. I dig that, it feels like properly dangerous rock and roll.
Fabbo, and definitively going on my want list.
Kendrick Lamar
5/5
I hate gangsta rap. I find the glorification of violence, misogyny and homophobia just appallingly distasteful. On a surface level, the characters and narrative incidents of 'Good Kid Ma.a.d City' are not dissimilar from many 90s East Coast gangsta albums, and yet they couldn't be more different.
Kendrick embraces complexity, narrative, emotion, and (dare I say it) humanity. I didn't grow up in Compton, but this is a telling of that story and those characters that I can understand and relate to. This is art. This is that album that achieves the promise of hip hop. I have listened to it through three times today, and I am genuinely moved.
I was going to rate this four stars, but the more I listen to it, the better it gets and the more I get out of it. I normally hate skits, but in terms of supporting the narrative, they are almost forgivable here. I think this really is a classic album you need to hear. Five stars.
5/5
I had some friends in high school who were massive U2 fans, but I never got that excited about the band. U2 were _so_ earnest, but I could never quite put my finger on exactly what they were on about (except for their highly controversial “war and poverty are bad” stance). When the Joshua Tree came out, it was ubiquitous. It was a breath of fresh air at the time, quite out of step with the prevailing fashions of the time. There were no drum machines or prominent synthesizers or gated reverbs. It felt organic and spacious and honest and rough in the right ways. The singles cut through most of what was on the radio. This was clearly a big and important record, designed not for the moment but for history. Because it got so much radio play, I did not feel the need to go out and buy a copy. I own one now, but I can’t remember if I acquired that as a hand-me-down or from a bargain bin. I didn’t _love_ it then or now, but I have a grudging respect for this record.
The Joshua Tree really was the defining moment of U2’s career. Everything they have done since is a reaction to the Joshue Tree and its success, ranging from a deliberate rejection through to a loving re-embrace.
The Joshua Tree is U2 at its most U2-ishness. U2 took a huge swing for the boundaries and knocked it out of the park. Is it pompous? Is it self-important? Is it humourless? Well, yes, yes, and yes. And their rhythm section can’t swing. But The Joshua Tree _is_ cinematic and moving and spacious and emotional; lots of really big emotions. That said, part of its wide appeal is the fact that it is not located in a specific person of emotion. Its all very grand scale, abstract and universally vague. The grand gestures are a blank screen where the listener can project their own interpretations and world view.
Side one is front-loaded with three all-time great singles and two other very strong songs, which makes it one of the strongest sides of vinyl ever released (many thanks to Kirsty MacColl for this world-class sequencing. She was a major talent, and her tragic death was a great loss to popular music).
I don’t often choose to play The Joshua Tree, but I have to give it its props. It _is_ a classic album, and one you must hear.
Megadeth
2/5
"Humanity Still Producing New Art As Though Megadeth’s ‘Rust In Peace’ Doesn’t Already Exist "- The Onion (August 2015)
Rust In Peace is probably one of the best examples of thrash metal ever recorded. It is hard to think how they could have improved this within the confines of the genre; the playing is super tight, the lead lines are lightning fast, Mustaine's lyrics are suitably nasty and sung with the appropriate sneer. It really is perfectly done for what it is. The band is clearly incredibly well rehearsed and super-tight...
But it's all a bit mechanical. It has forward momentum, but I wish it would swing a little bit more. I wish it was just a little rougher around the edges. The guitar solos are particular problem for me; they are lightning fast and super technically proficient, but it just seems like typing to me. And Mustaine's sneering vocals wear on me after a while.
I can appreciate it, but I just doesn't move me. And there is no justifiable reason for having TWO Megadeth albums on this list. If you've heard one, you've heard them all.
2.5 stars, rounding down because Dave Mustaine is an obnoxious dick.
Big Star
4/5
Is Big Star #1 Record the greatest album you've never heard? Well, maybe, maybe not.
Stephen Deusner wrote in Pitchfork "For many listeners-- including, for a few years, me-- Big Star were more legend than band. They were the beloved patron saints for struggling musicians: These albums were inspired and inspiring but never found a wide audience, yet the fact that they eventually became so revered offered encouragement to young songwriters with their own dream of big stardom and No. 1 records. Even if you never found an audience in your prime, you could always hope for later cult success. And to some extent, of course, the myth overtook the music"
As William Ruhlmann wrote in AllMusic, "The problem with coming in late on an artwork lauded as 'influential' is that you've probably encountered the work it influenced first, so its truly innovative qualities are lost. Thus, if you are hearing Big Star's debut album for the first time decades after its release (as, inevitably, most people must), you may be reminded of Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers or R.E.M., who came after—that is, if you don't think of The Byrds and The Beatles circa 1965."
It is hard to separate Big Star from their legend, which is inextricably bound to their obscurity and commercial failure. They clearly had the ambition for success (just look at the album title), but it was a big swing and a miss. Sucks to be them, huh?
Ignoring the legend for a moment, this first Big Star album is a pretty great listen; the tunes and harmonies are strong, the playing is muscular and hook-laden, and it rocks. A few filler tracks aside (The India Song, anyone?), this is great power pop.
I can see why this band and this album are cult favourites, highly influential on many alternative artists in the 80s and 90s. Big Star are a bit like the Velvet Underground; nobody heard their record, but everyone who did formed a band. I want to mention This Mortal Coil, Jeff Buckley, REM, The Replacements, and Sparklehorse, off the top of my head. All bands I really enjoy, and this seminal text is worth a listen, almost in spite of its revered status.
Moby Grape
3/5
Jesus, yet another 1960s West Coast psychedelic band, crippled by bad management, legal entanglements and drugs. I feel like we have had a bunch of bands just like this on the list, and many are just rubbish.
Grudgingly, I admit that this is better than most; fair tunes, good harmonies, taut arrangements, and no time wasting.
I suspect this is an OK album that I could learn to like if I spent some time with it. But I am just generally sick of this genre.
Oasis
3/5
My mate Andrew L. has a long-running alternative radio show on 2RDJ, and he would often borrow records from me to spin on his show. In 1994, he started asking if I had any Oasis records. I'd stopped closely following British musical trends, but I was aware of the band and I didn't really get it. I mean, I like rock and roll, and I like Beatlesque pop, and I like a good tune and a bit of attitude. So, why didn't I dig Oasis?
They seemed just like a bunch of really average guys doing nothing special, but with a massive over-confidence that what they were doing was world-shaking, and they didn't have to do anything to prove it. I loathed the way they appeared in videos and live performance footage, standing there, stone-faced, absent-mindedly strumming, while that prat at the front stood there motionless, singing in his flat affect. I felt they were contemptuous of the audience, and they just could not be bothered putting on a performance.
The songs were pretty basic Beatles/Stones rip-offs (it often feels like a game of "spot where Noel ripped this off from"), and the lyrics were emotionally inarticulate doggerel sung by a bored tosser. The medium-paced songs are just like the fast songs, just played a little bit slower. Nearly every song on the album is 2 minutes too long, which speaks to Noel's tendency towards bloat. The album is loud and in-your-face, but reading about it, it seems like Owen Morris saved it in the mix because Noel doesn't really know how to efficiently arrange songs.
So, how to account for the massive success of this kind of mediocre record by a mediocre band? Well, it's got to be something about the songs. They may be derivative and artless, but they are comfortingly familiar, with cracking tunes that sound great when you sing along in a stadium, and they clearly are meaningful to a lot of people. As I write, the much-hyped reunion tour just kicked off a in Cardiff, and reviews describe the show as a two hour singalong for middle-aged blokes in parkas, overcome with lager, nostalgia and a fleeting feeling of immortality, paying four hundred quid each for the privilege. No thanks!
Oasis had an infectious ambition to be the Biggest Band in the World, but they pissed away the chance to be really great on cocaine, booze, and ego. They became the rich dicks they seem to be railing against on this record.
Andrew L. was disappointed when Oasis cancelled out of the 1995 Big Day Out touring festival in Australia, but I wasn't. Regardless of their reputation as the 'hottest band in the world', I don't buy that they were ever a decent live band.
Over-rated. Three stars.
Barry Adamson
2/5
Cheesy ersatz soundtrack music, vibing on the then-fashionable trip-hop style. Cool at its best (Set the Controls, Something Wicked This Way Comes), aimless in middle (Dirty Barry), just pointless jazz-lite noodling at worst (Miles, The Vibes Ain't Nothin' But The Vibes). The closer to "jazz styling" that this album gets, the more unlistenable it becomes, especially that horrible drum programming. The cheesy synth tones don't help either.
Interesting appearance by Atticus Ross, programming the first 6 tracks. You can hear his attention to texture that he later took to his soundtrack collaborations with Trent Reznor.
Nick Cave's cameo stands out as the rare example of an actual song with charisma and presence.
T. Rex
4/5
Meta note: Great to see my mate Glen back online, although he is probably shaking his head at my take on yesterday's Oasis album. But the best song on Definitely Maybe is a cheeky T.Rex lift, so it's great to get back to the source.
I pulled the Electric Warrior album off the shelf and listened straight through a couple of times today. It's pretty ace!
The record sounds like a million bucks and has a strange charm to it. Bolan wasn't much of a guitar player, but as a result he keeps his riffs simple and catchy. The tunes are full of hooks, heightened by the amazing backing vocals by Flo and Eddie. Tony Visconti makes sure everything sounds full and compelling, with tasteful orchestral accentuation. The whole thing has a slinky swagger that carries it all along in a fun way.
Don't get me wrong, it's not rocket science; the lyrics are meaningless drivel. He uses the same stream-of-consciousness, cut-up lyrics writing technique as Bowie, but he clearly hasn't read as many books (credit to Dave Lewis for that insight). At least he has turned away from the fantasy "wizards and fairies" todge of his previous (five!) albums. The words are dumb as a box of hammers, but that is appropriate for a more straight-ahead rock album. Great rock and roll is always a balance of the stupid and clever ("It's a fine line", as David St Hubbins wisely points out). Bolan really taps into the essence of rock on this album, including that mix of clever and dumb, a simple but exciting beat, lyrics that barely qualify as single entendre, and his glammed up and androgynous persona (see also: Bowie, Freddie Mercury, Little Richard, Axl Rose).
T.Rex hasn't really stayed in the public consciousness. Their songs (notably 'Cosmic Dancer') turn up as needle-drops in films and TV to signal "fun 70s single, with some groove and swagger" but I don't hear a lot of their songs in other contexts. I feel like I need to start dropping some T.Rex into my DJ sets.
Besides the hit singles, there are bunch of cracking tunes on Electric Warrior (Mambo Sun, Planet Queen, The Motivator), even if they don't stick in the memory too long. Any one of the numerous Best of T.Rex compilations is probably everything you really need in life, because T.Rex were a world class pop singles band in the early 70s. But if you were going to buy one proper T.Rex album, you would buy this. Or The Slider. You probably don't need both, but you can't go wrong with either.
Iconically great cover art, too.
Four stars for being the perfect Big Mac meal; it's fun and tasty and not particularly nutritious, but every now and then, you just want one. Nothing wrong with that.
George Harrison
2/5
Can we all just admit that all double albums would be much improved by judicious editing down to a single LP?
"Wait, wait," I hear you cry. "But there _are_ great doubles -- The White Album or Blonde on Blonde or Exile on Main St -- which prove that doubles can be mammoth achievements of artistic greatness!"
Well, firstly, I suspect that your favored example is an exception that proves the rule, and secondly, I will bet that part of your argument is "I know people say it's too long, but here is my passionate defense about how every moment of this tumefied piece of artistic self-indulgence is, in fact, gold." Yeah, I'm not buying it, buddy. That double album is too long and, in your heart of hearts, you know it.
It is not the length itself that is the problem per se (although I personally find that anything over 40 minutes tries my patience): it's a sign of the lack of meaningful quality control. The artist has stopped asking themselves what _really_ is up to release standard. It's a failure to "kill your darlings". (https://slate.com/culture/2013/10/kill-your-darlings-writing-advice-what-writer-really-said-to-murder-your-babies.html)
So now we arrive at a consideration of rock's first TRIPLE album. It's a bloated and soporific bore. The end.
David Bowie
4/5
"It was almost like a treading-water album ... but funnily enough, in retrospect, for me it's the more successful album, because it's more informed about rock'n'roll than Ziggy was." —David Bowie discussing Aladdin Sane in the 1990s
Aladdin Sane isn't in my personal top five Bowie albums, and so doesn't get pulled off the shelf particularly often. That doesn't mean it is a bad album, though. The singles, especially The Jean Genie, are really strong and well known, but the album tracks are also pretty strong. I don't like it as much as Ziggy Stardust, but it has the Spiders from mars band lineup, which is a really cracking rock and roll band, here at the height of their powers.
The Bowie-phile critics will rabbit on about how this is the best thing since sliced bread, better than Ziggy Stardust, the ultimate meditation on touring in America. All that over-egged hype aside, it's a pretty damn good Bowie album, especially if you like his rockier 70s output, but let's not go overboard here. It is a bit unfocussed and not as cohesive as his best work. And it has that frankly terrible piano solo on the title track. But it's a good Bowie album and it is worth a good listen just for Mick Ronson and the Spiders band, who are just fabulous.
And the cover art is absolutely iconic.
The Black Keys
4/5
Glenn (with two ‘n’s) introduced me to the Black Keys pretty early in their career. “Try this”, he said, “I reckon you’ll like it”. I did indeed like it, and I subsequently acquired their first couple of albums. I really like the rough and ready minimal bluesy indie rock they served up on those albums, occasionally psychedelic, occasionally soul inflected, drums up front and fuzzy guitars. What’s not to love? But those three albums I owned were enough, and I stopped following them closely.
A few years later, another mate Glen (with one ‘n’, no relation) burned me a CD-R of El Camino and Jack White’s first solo album on a single disc. I was surprised at how much the Black Keys had changed. You could still feel their “funky-garagey-bluesy indie two-piece band” roots, but the whole thing has been buffed up into radio-ready hook-laden pop songs, courtesy of their collaboration with Danger Mouse. It’s not super-polished – there is still plenty of roughness and texture on there – but it is loud and shiny and assertive. The approach on Brothers is basically the same as El Camino, and the two albums are really interchangeable.
The thing I noticed, especially in contrast with Jack White’s Blunderbuss, is how compressed it is. It is consistently loud and in-your-face all the way through. I would argue that every individual song on Brothers (and El Camino) is designed to be the best thing you hear on the radio all day. They are recorded, mixed and mastered to pop out on radio, much like some of the key influences on this record (T.Rex or Gary Glitter spring to mind – there is strong glam pop DNA here).
The problem with that, as an album, is that it is _exhausting_ to listen to all the way through. Don’t get me wrong; there are some excellent songs here, and they do sound absolutely terrific on radio or on a mixtape or in a DJ set; lots of hooks, great tunes, and a loud and gritty texture that sounds amazing. I love it when one of the singles from this album (or El Camino – did I mention these albums are largely interchangeable?) comes on a playlist or the radio or a DJ drops a track. But one or two songs is plenty. The Black Keys should really be regarded as a singles band rather than an album band. They are analogous to T/Rex in many ways; they are (these days) a rock-based pop band who produce amazing singles. And I don’t begrudge them their success -- they are one of the few rock bands who have managed to establish relevance on the pop music scene this century. Good on them for that.
Has the bloom faded from the rose these days? Was the partnership with Danger Mouse an artistic dead-end? Was their commercial success a form of golden handcuffs? Well, you could argue for any of those things. But it’s great pop music you can dance to, and I dig that.
3.5 stars, rounding up for being one of the very few 21st century rock bands I enjoy.
The White Stripes
3/5
There were not a lot of really exciting proper rock and roll bands in the 2000s, and so the White Stripes were a breath of fresh fucking air. You could argue that they are the last twitch of a dying corpse, looking backwards to the roots of rock in blues and country, with their two-piece line up, technical limitations, love of constraint and fetishization of cheap guitars and analogue technology. But it rocked, which is more than can be said of nearly anyone else working the genre in the past 25 years. And I really dug it! I like a ropey band playing as if their lives depend on it, and the rough-edged charm of the White Stripes really did it for me.
But, five albums in and following the massive success of Elephant, they could either crank out a series of carbon copies. Instead, Jack and Meg decided to switch things up a bit by making a largely piano-based album. this seems like a shame, given that Jack White is a pretty exciting guitar player. And I curse the person responsible for leaving a fucking marimba in the studio where he could see it -- that was a terrible idea!
I read that they wanted to keep things "spontaneous" by setting a very short recording sessions and not bringing much in the way of developed material, developing songs on the spot in only a few takes. And it fucking shows; these are like demos of proper songs. But demos that are too long. I mean, tell me honestly, the 2-minute songs here are far more compelling than the 4-minute versions here. I don't think any of these songs have enough in them to support a 4-minute running time. I don't mind the loose playing or the rough sound quality or a quick-and-dirty recording ethos, but the songs need to be a bit more developed.
Don't get me wrong, there are some strong songs here -- Blue Orchid, Mr Doorbell, Denial Twist, Instinct Blues (with a judicious edit), red Rain, I'm Lonely -- but there are a lot of bloated filler tracks and borderline novelty songs, too.
I really like the Stripes, but this feels like their least essential album. I think this is a failed attempt to reinvent their sound. Jack White had backed himself into an artistic corner. This really the beginning of the end for the White Stripes as a unit. I don't think the scale of their success sat well with them; Jack White retreated into playing a character, and Meg just retreated.
But I would still rather listen to this than almost any other album from this list released this century. 3.5 stars, rounding down because it could have been better, with just a bit more thought and work.
Sepultura
2/5
Cookie Monster sings Slayer's Greatest Hits.
Big in Indonesia, apparently.
Genesis
2/5
I am almost rendered speechless by this record. It is the absolute nadir of prog rock. Even its defenders admit it makes no sense.
I am gob-smacked by the following text, from the tour program for the Lamb Lies Down tour:
"Back in the late 60’s progressive music seemed all but dead, barely kept alive by the faint spark of a lingering mellotron. Rock audiences had overdosed on loud psychedelic riffs and gentle acoustic flower-power tunes, wondering all the time if there was anything more to progressive music than strobe lights, incense and the odd synthesizer. Just when adventurous rock seemed forever moving backwards, Genesis began flirting with multi-media concepts. The 60’s had taken rock music through a natural evolution where technical equipment and musical proficiency had been developed to its sophisticated best. The obvious goal for forward moving 70’s rock bands then, was to fuse the two together in a working relationship where music, words, lights, and visuals would ideally come together forming a unified whole. Respected today for albums of surreal musical tales and a striking stage act Genesis began strictly as songwriters determined to sell their pop masterpieces to open ears. ...
From their earliest concerts and records, the group stubbornly insisted on doing everything their own way, an individuality that today seperates them from other ‘progressive’ groups. Genesis were the naive rockers who brought tea and toast to sleazy backstage concerts as Gabriel began miming to some of the more story-book lyrics in a last ditch attempt to reach the audience. Record companies demanded traditional single releases that they refused to create. Genesis headlined before they reached headlining status as a problem quickly evolved, what kind of band could they possibly open for? The same problem was to plague them during their first few American visits, where a relatively unknown group found themselves in the unique position of headlining concerts. Whether there were 400 or 4000 people in the audience, Genesis worked hard, hypnotically pulling the listener into their own formless world. As the lyrics began to take on a more animated form, as the music became a soundtrack for a film that was happening onstage, a clear direction evolved for the group, merging theatrical stage visuals with the music. 70’s rock was at last moving forward. ...
The most common problems revolved around the group’s position in the rock ’n roll hierarch, for both fans and enemies were confused about just where Genesis fitted in the rock family tree. And it came to pass that people wrongly assumed that Genesis bore a strong resemblence to bands like Yes, ELP musically and people like Alice Cooper and David Bowie visually. Musically all that bound those groups together was the keyboard based instruments used to colour different sounds. Time changes, chord structures, song construction, vocals and lyrics differ between them so much so that no obvious similarities exist. Visually Genesis share no bonds with other popular rock posers of our time."
What a bunch of pretentious gits!
This is everything I hate in an album; a double LP prog concept album. It is a deliberate attempt to create a piece of multimedia narrative prog masterpiece blah blah blah bullshit bullshit. And it falls into all the traps off the attempted form -- too long, too pretentious, widdly-widdly clever clogs, nonsensical narrative -- and doesn't match its own ambitions. The band was disunified, distracted and under time pressure. They knew they had three good sides, but stretched it to four.
Loathe as I am to admit it, there is some material on the first album that is often more listenable than Selling England by the Pound because it actually approaches 'rock' on occasion. But this is still unfocussed, bloated, pretentious rubbish that represents the absolute low-water mark of prog, which is a blight on rock and roll. Prog fans just need to wake up to themselves.
Phil Collins, bless him, manages to keep his drumming tastefully restrained and maintain some sense of momentum, which is rare in 70s UK prog,
Dennis Wilson
3/5
I am highly skeptical of "lost masterpieces"; albums whose rarity is fetishized by white male rock snobs. The "well, actually, have you heard of this?" is a form of cultural gatekeeping. The quality of the record is usually inversely correlated to the advocate's lustful frothing. That effect is amplified by Dennis' tragic accidental death before he completed a follow-up album -- rock snobs get even more tumescent if the artist suffered and/or died. It's can get pretty gross.
But I have to admit, Pacific Ocean Blue is a pretty good piece of late 70s yacht rock. The gritty burr on Dennis Wilson's voice adds soul to the schmick production, the playing is solid, and the tunes are harmonies are excellent. It's a good example of yacht rock, if you like that sort of thing.
Common
3/5
I can listen to this. I like the soulful production, which is Kanye at his best, without us having to actually listen to Kanye (too much, at least). And a couple of tracks from Dilla, nice. I like Common's flow better than Kanye, too. Some nice guest spots. - shout-out to the Last Poets in particular.
But it didn't set my world aflame. It's a'ight
Harry Nilsson
4/5
Nilsson Schmilsson is a bargain-bin classic. You can find old vinyl copies of this album in $2 bins and op shops everywhere, and you should totally buy a copy next time you see one, it's an under-rated gem.
While Nilsson himself has been somewhat forgotten, like he disappeared into the cultural aether. But songs from this album keep popping up on soundtracks, not just a background music, but as prominent and meaningful cultural moments. Nilsson Schmillsson isn't prominently remembered in itself, but it keeps coming back. Listening through to it now is a series of "oh wait, I know this song" moments:
- My first exposure was the wonderfully maniacal performance of Coconut on the Muppets. That made a big impression on me as a 7-year-old.
- Without You features in Bridget Jones Diary as a karaoke number but clearly based on Nilsson's version.
- Jump Into the Fire is needle-dropped into a late sequence of Goodfellas
- Gotta Get Up was a pivotal music choice in Russian Doll
- I love the cover of Louis Jordan's Early in the Mornin', although check out the wildly rockin' version by the Gories.
It's a crack band of 1971 studio rats; Jim Gordon, Klaus Voormann, Chris Spedding, Herbie Flowers, Jim Keltner, Bobby Keys, Jim Price, Richard Perry, Jimmy Webb, tastefully produced by Richard Perry. And Nilsson has a great voice.
This album is a terrific and highly under-rated listen, and you should totally buy a copy next time you see it in a bargain bin. Champagne quality at beer prices.
Tina Turner
3/5
I love Tina Turner. Love her. I own many Tina Turner records. But it's the r'n'b and rock-edged funk output of the 60s and 70s that really do it for me. Tina Turner has a long and influential history of rock music that is deeply rooted in black musical forms (funk, soul, R'n'B) but this album is pitched very clearly at a white mainstream audience. I do not in any way begrudge her the massive success she found in the 80s as a solo artist. She wanted to make it as big as Bowie and the Stones, and she did. And she earned it. Because she is awesome.
Tina Turner really wrote the book on female rock performance and is one of the most iconic rock and roll singers of any gender. Full stop. And this is the album that really did it for her, pushing her into success -- multi-million sales, Grammy wins, world tours -- in a way she never had before.
But... those compromises required to achieve mainstream success buffs off many of the edges that made her a really compelling force of nature. Many reviews refer to the slick production (which it surely is, and terribly 80s. Not all of it has dated well) and her raspy voice. But compared with her earlier material, and the rasp is downplayed quite a lot. She never really tears it up although she gets closer on some of the b-sides. It is telling that a lot of the harder edged material from the sessions were clearly held off the album itself.
None of the covers on this record offer any reason to prefer them over the originals unless you have a fetish for 80s drum machines and cheesy synthesizers.
Seven hit singles from one album is a pretty amazing strike-rate, and she makes some otherwise middle-of-the-road material compelling.
I love you, Tina, and I play your records all the time. Just not this one, which is disappointing.
As a side note, I am tired of 1001 albums nominating albums seemingly because they were the commercial breakthrough or big selling (particularly in the UK), but not necessarily the albums that was influential, ground-breaking or representative of what that artist really had to offer. This is a good case in point. Is there a possibility that Dimery wants to avoid having to acknowledge Ike? Or is the music just too black?
D'Angelo
5/5
Ground zero for neo-soul, yes please.
You could make an argument that D'Angelo's subsequent albums are even better (enhanced by top notch collaborators, like Pino Palladino, the Roots, Dilla, etc), but it's hard to complain about this classic soul album. D'Angelo draws heavily on the soul greats (Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, Prince, Sly, Stevie Wonder) without slavishly copying or feeling lightweight in comparison.
This is an album that regularly turns up on my turntable because it is just a really great listening experience. It knows what it wants to do and delivers perfectly.
Chef's kiss, no notes.
Tom Tom Club
4/5
Howard Hawks purportedly once advised John Wayne "“Duke, if you can make two good scenes and not annoy the audience for the rest of the film, you’ll be a star", which is a perfect summary of Tom Tom Club's S/T album.
The album is all about the vibe, which is a breezy white-funk take on Zapp's 'More Bounce to the Ounce'. There is a strong influence of funk and early hip-hop, which then folds back into those same genres; Genius of Love is highly sampled, because it bangs.
The classic singles, conveniently frontloaded at the beginning of the album, are stellar. Fun, funky, clever, and fresh, they still sound like a million bucks and are dancefloor bangers.
The rest of the album could be described as filler, but it is fun filler, and I enjoyed spinning it. Nothing to annoy the audience there.
A big shout out for nice guitar work from Adrian Belew, especially on L'elephant.
I dig it and will play more often (especially Wordy Rappinghood and Genius of Love; "Bohannon! Bohannon! Bohannon! Bohannon! JAMES BROWN!")
Fun fact: Tom Tom Club taped a performance on Soul Train the same day Talking Heads filmed Stop Making Sense. Good day at the office from Chris and Tina, there.
Soft Machine
3/5
Reading about Soft Machine's Third set off a bunch of alerts to me; double album jazz-fusion from 1970. There's a big risk of self-indulgent twaddle there. But, then reading about it further, there were some intriguing ideas --the use of tape editing, drones, minimalism inspired by the likes of Terry Reily -- which are much more to my taste.
An d indeed, it is a very mixed bag. I am not a fan of a lot of so-called jazz-fusion, which can either be overly clever-clogs technique onanism or meaningless free-form noise or both. And this album can verge of committing both of those sins. Facelift is an unstructured noise collage. Don't get me wrong, I like a bit of noise, but it helps if it has a driving rhythm. Some of the other songs are more traditionally "jazz like". Not great jazz, but tolerable. I don't mind the tape edits, and this album appeals to me most when it gets a bit more drone-like, such as the opening to Out-Bloody-Rageous.
But, at its core, this is still double album of self-indulgent jazz rock. 2.5 stars, rounding up because of how badly recorded it is. I really dig the noisy lo-fi crunchiness of the sound. And so badly mixed! It's intriguing and weirdly charming.,
Jefferson Airplane
5/5
Doing this project has inspired in me a strong dislike of 60s West Coast psychedelic rock. Self-indulgent, pseudo-meaningful twaddle for the most part, prone to lengthy and meaningless jamming. Generally, these albums suffer from too much "psychedelia", meaning you need to take a lot of drugs to enjoy them (in which case, why not just do the drugs? amiright?) and not nearly enough "rock".
But Surrealistic Pillow is an exception. I'm pretty sure Peter at Scratches put me onto this record when I was in my late teens, and I listened to it a lot back in the day. I probably haven't spun it all the way through in twenty years, and it was fun to come back to. The tunes are strong, harmonies are great, the band can rock, arrangements don't waste time, and best of all, ladies and gentlemen, Ms Grace Slick! She's a powerful and charismatic front-person and can hold her own on harmonies where required.
Somebody to Love and White Rabbit are classic singles but there are a bunch of other songs here that are really strong.
It doesn't surprise me to read in wikipedia that "As producer, [Rick] Jarrard was under orders by RCA to produce something commercial, so none of the longer covers and psychedelic instrumental jams the group had been featuring on stage... were attempted. " God bless you, Mr Jarrad, saving us from the worst excesses and inclinations of 60s San Francisco bands, instead delivering us a tight, tuneful and listenable album. It sounds strongly of its time but still stands up today because they trimmed the fat and gristle. And it has Whtie Rabbit, which is an all-time classic.
Doves
2/5
'Lost Souls'? More like 'Lost Interest'. I found myself constantly drifting off to sleep while listening to this at 10am.
This album is yet more evidence that Mercury Prize nomination is a strong indicator of dull mediocrity. Contrary to its inclusion on this 1001 albums list, you could (and should) lead a long, happy and fulfilled life without ever hearing this album by these tepid Coldplay-wannabes. You know you're in a charisma-free zone when you find yourself wishing for Chris Martin to turn up and give things a bit of life. Heaven help me.
It made so little impact on me, that I have just finished listening to it and cannot remember anything about it. Forgettable and bland and a bit of a slog, like eating a bowl of cardboard.
Morrissey
1/5
Another fucking Morrissey album.
Vauxhall and I might well be the best of his solo records, but I just can't get past his self-obsession, intolerant arrogance and racism. He may be clever, but he is a world class prick, and listening to his records makes me nauseated. I know he has a famously rusted-on fanbase, but I really worry about people still enthralled by Morrissey; how do you reconcile your conscience against his abhorrent rhetoric?
He threatened to quit the music industry after this record, and the world would arguably have been a better place if he had followed through.
Germs
4/5
I recently went to a show at a small local venue of dubious licensing status. One of the support bands was a hardcore band (probably all 19 years old) playing to a bunch of moshing teenagers (probably closer to average age of 16 years old). It was loud and sweaty and raucous and a bit violent and a lot of fun, and I am really pleased that spaces like that are still around for bands like that to play music like that for teenagers. It's how things should be. And the Germs helped write the book for the genre.
Audio and video recordings of the Germs live are rough, and highlight the chaotic and often confronting live presence. They were clearly a very exciting live band, but you wouldn't want to actually _listen_ to any of those live recordings (believe me, I've tried). It has been a historical blessing for us who weren't there in LA in the late 70s that the GI album is such a great document of what was great about the Germs. It's listenable without sacrificing the energy and abrasiveness of the band. God bless Joan Jett for her excellent work on threading that needle.
MVP is Pat Smear. His playing is to the band and unfussy, but his musicality lifts the songs a bit above the standard of most hardcore. Lexicon Devil and What We Do Is Secret are stand-out songs for the whole genre. Pat Smear turned out to be a bit of a punk-rock Zelig; he turns up in all kinds of surprising places (I didn't previously know he was an extra in Blade Runner and Prince's Raspberry Beret video), including a long and successful musical career.
Personally, I'm more of a Ramones fan myself, but I can dig what the Germs did and I'm really pleased that their legacy lives on.
Cocteau Twins
5/5
I find it a bit hard to pick between Cocteau Twins records (and I own a bunch, including Treasure). The ingredients of this album -- drum machines, digital synths, guitars slathered in effects, indecipherable lyrics -- have no business sounding as spacious and beautiful as they do. You really have to credit Liz Fraser for threading delicate and startling melodies through the atmospheric haze.
The Cocteau Twins are a distinctive oeuvre unto themselves -- kind of post-punk, kind of goth, kind of shoe-gaze, kind of ambient -- but really they are just their own thing, which still is fresh and different even 40 years later. It is debatable which of their albums is best, although Treasure is right up there. Maybe the best Cocteau Twins album is the one you are listening to _right now_.
David Bowie
5/5
The first really Bowie-like Bowie album. Contains some deadset classics (Life on Mars?, Oh You Pretty Things, Changes), plus a few grade-A quality second-string Bowie numbers (Queen Bitch, Andy Warhol). The Spiders from Mars band coming together (augmented by Rick Wakeman, playing at his career best in my opinion), with occasional glimpses of the rock monster that band would become.
This is the first real glimpse of Bowie's full powers, and the beginning of his awesome run of albums through the 1970s. While this album may have a few moments of weakness, this is the real kick-off point of Bowie's extraordinary body of work, laying down many of the themes he would return to throughout his career (changes, chameleons, aliens, gender, the apocalypse, identity).
Nirvana
5/5
I was working at Scratches Record in 1991. It was a grungy little store in Newtown that sold new and secondhand records, with a strong alternative leaning. I was 21 years old, and had just dropped out of university, moved of home, and was hanging around the alternative music scene a lot. This was back when 'alternative' was not just an arbitrary genre label, but a genuinely separate industry with its own set of bands, record labels, stores and media.
Every week, I took home just enough cash to pay the rent and buy a few beers, and the rest of my pay went on vinyl. It was a heady time to be working in a record store, so many great new releases at that time. And Nevermind changed everything. I could tell things were changing fast, and probably not for the best. Suddenly, every store, even the most boring mainstream mega-stores, wanted to stock the hip new alternative bands. While it led to a short period of slightly better music on mainstream radio, major label contracts for bands that you never expected (Butthole Surfers, Melvins, Jesus Lizard, who would have thought?) and an uptick in sales of flannel shirts, ultimately, the capitalist machine chewed up, watered down, and spat out the masticated and lifeless husk of what had previously been a vibrant and interesting scene, yet another victim of the incessant appetite of a consumerist society for fresh meat and new fashion. It was the beginning of the end for Scratches and ultimately for a whole musical scene. I don't blame Nirvana per se -- they seemed equally unhappy about what was going on -- but I find it hard to separate the experience of listening to the record with a sense of cultural loss.
While I have to admit that Nevermind was a pretty damn good record, it was wildly over-played at the time, and all my friends who worked in record stores at the time were heartily sick of listening to it. People would constantly walk into the store asking if we could play it, and it got to the stage where I would refuse, just buy a damn copy, you know it's really good and you want it. It was literally everywhere, all the time. I remember being at a Boxing Day barbeque at the end of 1991 and someone went to pop Nevermind on the ghetto blaster, to howls of protest from all the record store clerks in the room (and there were a few). Great record -- great songs, loud and energetic, sounds huge, iconic covet -- but overplayed. Don't get me wrong; I bought a copy myself (at wholesale; $14.51). .
But I skipped seeing Nirvana when they toured Australia in early 92. I was pretty skint, and was a bit sick of them and all the hype, and preferred Mudhoney anyway. I really regret that decision.
(Postscript; I was in a terrible band that played its first show in March 1992 at the Sydney Uni band competition. We played a waltz time oom-pah-pah version of Teen Spirit in cartoonish German accents. It seemed pretty funny, especially when the very next band played a note-faithful-from the-record cover as their big finale. My band and all our friends moshed and sang along. The other band was not happy about that. Fun times!)
Deep Purple
4/5
"Can we have everything louder than everything else?" has got to be one of the best pieces of stage banter ever. Smart but dumb, which is the essence of great rock and roll, which Deep Purple c.1972 fully understood.
Deep Purple were at the height of their live powers on this tour. Tight, dramatic, occasionally histrionic (Child in Time). Cracking tunes (Smoke on the Water), powerhouse rhythm section (Black Night), loud as hell (Speed King), with a genuine fire. Ritchie Blackmore does some of the best pick-slides in rock and roll history.
This album does feature some unfortunate solos (the drum solo on The Mule, or organ intro to Lazy, both best skipped) and some questionable choices (call and response on Strange Kind of Woman, leading eventually to Gillan's mighty acapella wail), but much of the playing is energetic and inspired as this band stretches out its considerable powers (Space Truckin' or Black Night, for example).
Stevie Wonder
5/5
This is an actual classic album. Stevie Wonder in his imperial period. It is hard to over-praise this record.
The Adverts
3/5
The Adverts are one of those first-generation of English punk bands that one reads about, slightly hagiographically, but the actual experience of listening to is kind of underwhelming. Now, not everyone in the scene could be the Sex Pistols or the Clash or the Slits or the Buzzcocks -- there needed to be some second-string bands to fill out the scene, and the Adverts are clearly one of those bands. Crossing the Red Sea with The Adverts is a perfectly adequate and representative album of English punk in 1978. A few tracks appear on Now That's What I Call Punk (or similarly titled) compilations; Bored Teenagers and One Chord Wonders are almost hilariously cliched examples of what a 1978 punk song should be. Gary Gimore's Eyes is somewhat more interesting, but the rest of the album is filler.
The Adverts should be relegated to appearances on punk compilations, with their albums left to molder at the back of the collection of aging punks across South London. 2.5 stars, rounding up, because Gaye Advert rocked an iconic look.
2/5
... and so is this album. I'm sorry, that is a bit harsh, but these headlines just write themselves.
I never really understood the cult of Blur. Some great singles, but over-rated albums. It's a British thing, isn't it? But it really is just an updated Kinks.
Maybe you had to be doing coke in Camden in the 90s with the Britpop crew to really _get_ it.
In fairness, I'm not British, and so the specific concerns of such an Anglocentric album don't really speak to me. I just want Damon Albarn to stop bleating and go away.
(I do like the cover art, though. That's a cool train.)
Scott Walker
1/5
Overly theatrical voice, schmaltzy arrangements. At best, tracks are like mediocre Bond theme songs ('Best of Both Worlds') or unconvincing country pastiche ('Black Sheep Boy'). While the music is cheesy and cliched, the lyrics are often strange and unfiltered ('Next').
Weirdly honest, yet highly artificial. I did not enjoy this album.
Judas Priest
4/5
Well, this is fucking great heavy rock. It made me go back and re-watch Heavy Metal Parking lot, which is possibly the greatest rock documentary of all time.
Judas Priest learned to dumb it down, keep it short and simple, and it rocks hard. They aren't great musicians (only marginally better than Black Sabbath, in that they can play a bit faster), but it is tight and heavy and dramatic and big dumb rock.
But what lifts this record above a sea of mediocre metal is Rob Halford. He is massively charismatic and incredibly compelling, even when singing frankly ridiculous material. He is always committed to the bit.
Halford is also a reminder that much of what is best about rock and roll is intrinsically queer. Despite not being out at the time, was anyone was under the misapprehension that he was straight? The leather and studs, the spandex, the motorcycles, the homoerotic posturing, the operatic vocals, the camp drama of it all. It's great _because_ it is camp, as is true of much great rock and roll (Fredie Mercury, Bowie, Little Richard, etc). Rob Halford seems like a genuinely nice guy, on top of being a legendary front person.
It's a fun and drama, designed to entertain. And entertain it does. Four stars.
Nitin Sawhney
2/5
Hmm, sorry, just drifted off there for a minute...
This is a really 'tasteful' and 'sophisticated' album, and I'm not sure I mean that in an entirely positive sense. This is at its interesting when he leans into his Indian heritage (although it does feel a little toned down for Western tastes), but often this just comes across as insipid dinner party music. The passionless vamping in the coda of Immigrant was especially egregious.
Amy Winehouse
4/5
Amy herself was not a massive fan of this album. As quoted in the Guardian "Some things on this album make me go to a little place that's fucking bitter. I've never heard the album from start to finish. I don't have it in my house. Well, the marketing was fucked, the promotion was terrible. Everything was a shambles. It's frustrating, because you work with so many idiots - but they're nice idiots. So you can't be like, "You're an idiot." They know that they're idiots... Look ... I know its a terrible thing for someone to come out and say they hate their own music. It's the worst thing you can do. My album isn't shit. If I heard someone else singing like me I would buy it in a heartbeat."
Amy Winehouse has one of the most distinct and awesome voices of the 21st century, and her early passing has me grasping at whatever straws I can, just to enjoy her presence.
Realistically, much of this album is under-baked juvenilia. There are signs of what is (soon) to come; the great voice, the jazz and soul stylings, sometimes shocking lyrical honesty, her confident and fresh persona. Musically mellow, but often lyrically nasty, there are some really strong songs here (Fuck Me Pumps, In My Bed, Amy Amy Amy).
She still hasn't entirely found her own thing yet, relying heavily on cribbed Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan mannerisms and phrasing (not that I am complaining too much; more people should sing like that). But the production is quick and dirty, and certainly without the clear and focused artist vision of Back to Black (which is a staggering work of genius). The "jazz" playing is simplistic and corny, the beats are cheesy and underwhelming. It's like a series of demos and drafts for a better record.
And yet -- and yet -- it is a pleasure to spend some time with a young and playful Amy Winehouse. I would rather listen to this draft of a great record than many of the soul-less, over-polished production pieces on this list.
Girls Against Boys
3/5
Man, I was totally into this type of shit in 1993 and I never heard this album. I swear, Dimery must have a personal soft spot for this record because he was sent a review copy or he found one in a cut-out bin or a copy was left behind after a particularly raucous party, and he played it a lot and developed a fondness for it.
This is a fair example of a certain brand of muscular alternative rock of the period, but I could name a bajillion bands that were doing the same thing to equal or better effect.
For nostalgia's sake, this prompted me to go and spin a 1992 compilation album from my collection called 'Mesomorph Enduros' (https://www.discogs.com/release/1302085-Various-Mesomorph-Enduros) and, sure enough, there are a bunch of songs that sound pretty much exactly like this from Jesus Lizard, Melvins, Cop Shoot Cop, Foetus Inc, Tad, Laughing Hyenas, Unsane, etc etc. Many of those bands have secured a much more rightfully deserved place in alternative music history.
This is a solid but unremarkable example of the genre. I dig it generally and probably would have really loved it if I had chanced upon it in 1993. But, with the benefit of thirty years' perspective, it's just a bit "so what?"
Gotan Project
2/5
Tasteful wallpaper for sophisticated dinner parties.
I don't mean that in a good way.
The Avalanches
5/5
One of my prized posessions is the Avalanches 'Rock City' 7", which I picked up at Au Go Go in Melbounre when it was first out. I bought Since I Left You on CD when it first came out, and then a copy on vinyl about five years ago when reissues became more affordable.
This is one of the great sample collage albums, that rates alongside Three Feet High and Rising, Paul's Boutique, Nation of Millions, Endtroducing, or Donuts. This was a really exciting new approach to music, that has been (unfortunately) stifled by legal restrictions around licensing of samples.
Since I Left You stands out even amongst sampledelic albums by how seamlessly the samples are stitched together to form a cohesive and consistent new thing. There are occasional moments of "stunt" sampling (Holiday appearing in Little Journey, or most of the vocal samples on Frontier Psychiatrist), but, for the most part, the samples are recontextualized to the degree that they really create something entirety new. And that new thing is tuneful and catchy and funky and fun.
I love the way this album celebrates uncool records. As a vinyl collector, I am very familiar with the crappy records that fill discount bins, charity stores and the back waters of old collections -- easy listening, comedy, classical, spoken word and kids' records. While there are a few groovy breaks used here, a lot of the samples are from these unloved records, presented here in a way that breathes new life into them. It is a loving celebration of cheap records.
It's a fantastic listen, rich and tuneful, and you can dance to it! Standout tracks on this listening are the singles (of course), but also Flight tonight and ETOH. Still sounds fresh, 25 years later.
Sparks
2/5
Sparks seem to be everywhere recently -- the Annette soundtrack, the Sparks documentary, that video with Cate Blanchett, playing Glastonbury -- they seem to be having a real late career resurgence.
This is one of those bands that has a real cult following, but I never really 'got' Sparks. And I have tried, believe me. It has been a LONG time since I tried to listen to any of their records. Based on the documentary, I find the Mael brothers quite charming and funny, and I like their approach, but this just doesn't connect for me. This sounds like a weird prog/glam fusion. All the clever-clogs musical arrangement of prog (although not as jazz/classical inflected), which undercuts the tunes. It just doesn't grab me.
Nothing connects. I really want to like it, but I just don't. Maybe if I listened to it a dozen times, it would start to work for me, but I just don't have the time or inclination.
Donovan
2/5
I always felt like Donovan's great talent was making sure he was at the right place at the right time, preferably standing next to someone more famous.
There are a few decent songs on this record; title track, The Trip, Season of the Witch (although I prefer either the Lou Rawls or the Julie Driscoll versions), or Fat Angel (although, again, the live Jefferson Airplane versions are superior). But the filler tracks just drive me bats; overly twee, faux-medieval, semi-folk chamber pop is just so annoying I can't bear it.
Seriously, though, I was looking at the track listing for the Donovan's Greatest Hits compilation, and it's a pretty solid listen and contains everything you could possibly need from Donovan (except for Barabajagal, which is a stomping single with the Jeff Beck band -- highly recommended). I see Greatest Hits from time to time in $2 bins, and will probably pick up a copy next time I see it.
But I do not need a whole studio album of this self-indulgent hippie bullshit.
Carpenters
2/5
I wish I could remember who it was that suggested that really great pop music needs to contain a tiny amount of something gritty or offensive; it might be a discordant sound or a lyric or an idea or something to add a frisson of danger, a little bit of edge, maybe something that your parents don't like. It doesn't have to be a lot, although my own personal tastes allow a high tolerance for grit. I especially like a record that sounds a bit fucked up. I can enjoy a sweet and sugary record, as long as there is that little bit of grit in it that the pearly can form around.
The Carpenters, however, have no grit. I can admire the sweet singing, the syrupy arrangements, the tasteful song choices, the smooth playing, but there is absolutely no edge. I just find it a bit hard to listen to -- it's just _too_ anodyne and shiny.
But in the early 90s there was an appreciatino of Carpenters in alternative circles, driven primarily by Todd Haynes' Superstar: The Karen Carpenter movie (performed by Barbie dolls), Sonic Youth's advocacy (cf. Tunic) and the If I Were A Carpenter compilation (which is a fab listen, highly recommended). While the appreciation began as ironic, I believe that there was a recognition of the darkness and suffering behind Karen's vocal. While the image was mainstream, big smiles and gauzy focus, there was a tragic story of drug addiction (Richard) and anorexic self-destruction (Karen) in the background.
Maybe the sadness of their back-story is the grit that makes this great pop music. But that kind of trauma porn makes me uncomfortable; the fact that Karen starved herself to death makes this record harder to listen to, not more compelling.
The Associates
3/5
My first impression was not good -- tricksy tunes, operatic vocal style, cheesy 80s production, enough digital reverb to sink a battleship.
But under the thin veneer of pop sheen lies a deeply strange record. I found it intriguing and baroque and weird and shiny and fresh and unique. By the third spin, I could actually sing along with some tracks (fave number: No).
2.5 rounding up for uniqueness.
The Mothers Of Invention
2/5
I find Zappa frequently undercuts his ability to rock with being willfully and smugly clever. And it was apparent from this first album. I like that the band is a pretty good 60s garage band, and the garage rock (Motherly Love) or doo-wop (Go Cry On Someone Else's Shoulder) influences are fun. The satirical content is high, although the creeping misogyny sits poorly.
The whole thing could use a tighter edit (even Zappa agreed that The Return of The Son of Monster Magnet is unfinished). I guess it was pretty innovative at the time to include cut-ups and musique concrete, and even satire in rock was a new idea at the time, but I still find it hard to sit through sometimes.
It's hard to dance to, you know? Too much talk, not enough trousers.
Deerhunter
2/5
I read a Brian Eno interview in the 90s where he talked about how many bands sent him demos, wanting him to produce their records. They were almost always dull, but occasionally the demos were badly recorded in a way that was inadvertently interesting, despite the averageness of the songs themselves. (Mind you, Eno went on to work with Coldplay, so take that as you will.)
That sums up Deerhunter's Halcyon Digest for me; a bunch of mediocre songs, lackadaisically played without verve or vigour, but occasionally recorded in a slightly interesting way. As I listen, I find my mind wandering and thinking about their recording techniques, because the songs and playing and singing aren't very engaging. If this was more professionally produced, there wouldn't be much of interest on this record at all.
It's pleasant enough (although the saxophone on Coronado is not good), but I have listened through three times in a row, and I swear I cannot remember a single note after it has played.
This was pretty highly rated when it was released, but I think that speaks more to the parlous state of alternative rock in 2010 -- this album was #3 on Pitchfork's top albums of 2010, which proves what a really dull time it was. You really needed to look elsewhere than alt rock in 2010 to find exciting music.
I do like the cover photo, though.
Metallica
4/5
It is really easy to use Metallica as a cultural punching bag, especially Lars Ulrich. They sold out, they aren't "real metal" anymore, many of their records sound like crap, Lars is a terrible drummer, etc etc.
But there is a reason they became the biggest metal band in history, and this album is it. It has all the things that are best about early Metallica -- breakneck speed, catchy riffs, the occasional melody, incredibly tight rhythm playing, great soloing -- in a record that is actually well recorded compared to the rest of their 80s output, and even some of their later albums *cough cough* St Anger.
There are some genuine all-time classics on this record -- Battery, title track, Damage Inc -- and even the filler tracks are pretty great.
Metallica has always been Hetfield's band -- he is creative leader and certainly most musically gifted, the voice and possibly the greatest metal rhythm guitar player of all time. His leadership is in full effect here, and he runs a tight ship. This is their best album.
A final note about Lars Ulrich. Poor Lars cops a lot of flack for his drumming. And it is true that he struggles with playing with feel, and he can't swing. And he fumbles a lot of fills. And it was a poor decision to turn off the snare on St Anger. But, in fairness, he can play fast and he is tight on the drum hits, which is perfect for this record. His straight-ahead, breakneck playing and ability to stop on a dime is right on the money here.
Ali Farka Touré
4/5
'Talking Timbuktu' by Ali Farka Toure and Ry Cooder was my first exposure to desert blues. That album really emphasized the connections between West African guitar music and American blues; their similarities and differences, their common ancestries and the ways they "rhyme" and sit well together. Discovering that record led me down the whole rabbit hole of guitar music from Mali and West Africa more generally, and I have some familiarity with some of the bigger names form that scene. I am fascinated by the way it often reflects both the origins of Western genres (blues, funk, rock) and is also influenced by those forms. It's a an ouroboros of music reflecting back on itself.
I would happily listen to this all day; I love the interwoven rhythms, the chanting vocals, the spacious playing, the simultaneous simplicity and complexity. I love to just settle into a trancelike groove and let this music carry me away.
Ali Farka Toure thought this was his best album (but really, every musician thinks their most recent record is their best), and I am loathe to argue with the man himself. Myself, I probably would have suggested his Red or Green albums (or even better the CD edition Red & Green that contains both!) as more representative of his oeuvre. I went back and listened to Red & Green today and really enjoyed them. But I also really dig Savane, so I'm splitting hairs here. Four stars.
Klaxons
2/5
It's not _bad_ as such, but I was wondering why this album was on the list until I read.... it won the Mercury Prize in 2007 (beating Amy Winehouse's Back to Black, if you can believe that). And so the Mercury Prizer retains its crown as the most reliable indicator of over-rated music in the UK (wresting the title from the previous champion; a cover story in the NME for a band that hasn't even released a record yet).
I could go into depth about the literary pretentions and the derivative music (check out the wikipedia page for a list of their *ahem* inspirations) and generic presentation of the Klaxons, but is it worth my time? No, it was enough that I listened to this. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. (See, I can be pretentious too!)
4/5
Well, I was expecting a terrible slog with Liars, and what I read about it before I started did not bode for anything promising... a pretentious Brooklyn-based noise band deliberately turning away from the catchy (and niche-ly popular) dance-punk of their first record to produce an experimental concept album on witchcraft. Some ominous comparisons to Kid A (which is when Radiohead lost the plot, in my humble opinion). I got this on a Friday, and actively postponed listening to it for two days, because I was _sure_ this was going to be rubbish -- I mean, just look at those song titles.
But when I actually listened to it, I really dug it. Experimental noise rock, yeah! I can hear the Radiohead comparisons, but this has more spit and venom in it. It reminds me of Swans or Einstürzende Neubauten or Sonic Youth or some of that more rock-based industrial of the 80s. I dig it. It gets real loud when it gets loud. It's brainy and creepy and spacious and noisy and weird, but they don't forget to rock when they need to (Radiohead, please take note. You seem to have forgotten that very important lesson).
I listened to their previous record, They Threw Us All In A Trench and Stuck A Monument On Top, and I dig that too. I even started to find their album and song naming funny and charming. I think I have actually gone over to the dark side with this one. I should _hate_ this, but I really don't.
I am enamoured. 3.5 stars, rounding up for being a surprise.
Throwing Muses
5/5
I heard the Throwing Muses' song "Fish" (from the 4AD 'Lonely is an Eyesore' compilation) in 1987 and was instantly obsessed. I had never heard anything like it. It was like a standard-issue alternative rock band (two guitars, drums, bass, vocals) but _nothing_ like a normal alternative band. Their approach to the usual musical tools of instruments and voice and the song form built something really new and different. They were like The Slits from that point of view. I quickly picked up the Throwing Muses' first album, which was subsequently stolen from a share house I lived in.
I saw the Throwing Muses in 1993 at the Lansdowne Hotel. Kristen Hersh was amazing. She was softly spoken, engaging with the crowd with banter between songs, until the music started. She would then cock her head to the left, stare into the distance and the song would just pour out of her. Powerful, expressive, visceral, intense, and yet controlled. It wasn't a cathartic performance; it was more like she was channeling the music from another time or place. I've not really seen anything like it.
I own a bunch of Throwing Muses records, and there are a bunch that could happily sit on this list ('Red Heaven' would probably be my pick), but this first album is as good a place as any. It was a fresh shot across the bow, a new and distinctive voice. They epitomize Simon Reynold's thesis on post-punk (see 'Rip It Up and Start Again', a book well worth reading) that punk was a re-tread of back-to-basics rock and roll, but post-punk truly burnt everything down and started from scratch. They used the same musical tools available to them to create something fresh, surprising, vibrant and moving. And isn't that we really want from art? I was going to rate this four, but I seem to have talked myself into a 4.5 star rating (rounding up).
Grant Lee Buffalo
2/5
This was one of the first Americana artists that I recall getting some radio play on Triple J (Australian national public alternative-leaning public youth network, then at its influential peak in the early 90s). I know I heard one or more of these songs on regular rotation and I know we used to stock this CD in the alternative record store I worked at in the early 90s.
Admittedly, it's well crafted and played and recorded. But I cannot remember a single track from this album. I just listened to it twice through in a row, and I _still_ can't remember a single song from it. It's like teflon for the ears.
I read in wikipedia that Noel Gallagher credits the influence of the title track on 'Some Might Say' (translation: Noel blatantly ripped it off). But, much as Oasis piss me off , 'Some Might Say' is far more memorable and catchy song. II am loathe to admit it, but I would rather listen to Oasis than this record.
Jethro Tull
3/5
I am writing this review knowing that my good friend David Lewis is going to read this moments after I post it. And he _loves_ Jethro Tull and has been hanging out for a Tull record on this list...
But I just never got Tull. I have tried many times, but I don't get it.
Ian Anderson just knows he is sooooo clever, and he wants you to know it too. And 'clever' is, to my mind, the anthesis of rock and roll. This album comes across like Christopher Hitchens fronting Led Zeppelin.
2.5 stars rounding up for not being too ridiculously proggy.
Fairport Convention
3/5
As a rule of thumb, I don't have time for English folk rock. I find it tends to be overly mannered, uptight and a bit bloodless. This album is better than most of the genre (Pentangle was particularly disappointing), but not as much to my taste as Unhalfbricking, which I really dig.
Maybe it's the lean back towards traditional material instead of originals. Richard Thompson seems to be more in the background, and I'm not sure I really rate the new drummer.
Sandy Denny, though, really is the focus of this album (her third that year), although I'm not entirely convinced her heart was always in it. Not surprising given the massive workload and tragic events of that year.
Giant Sand
2/5
All chore and no enchantment. It's nice that Howe Gelb has a hobby, I guess.
Minutemen
2/5
I have travelled in alternative music circles since back in the day when alternative music really was an alternative. And the Minutemen were one of those bands that you read about a lot, but didn't hear much in Australia, at least, where SST albums were cursed with terrible distribution and were expensive. There are things I admire about the Minutemen; short punchy songs, a refusal to be bound by genre limitations, the whole "we jam econo" thing.
But I have tried to listen to Double Nickels before, and gave it another good attempt today. And the listening experience just ain't great for me. the singing is pretty mediocre, the songs repetitious, it often veers into being too clever-clogs. In fact, it has many of the worst features of prog -- jazz influences, "clever" playing, lots of time signature changes -- all packaged up in a bloated double album.
I can't help wonder if, had this been a 15 song album of around 30 minutes, I would love it to death. But I just can't do the self-indulgent sprawl. It tries my patience after about one side.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
4/5
"Essentially, Murder Ballads is a comedy record. It’s not supposed to be a serious look at murder and its social ramifications. It really ended up being a record about storytelling more than anything else. The murder side of it is treated quite lightly. Overall it’s quite funny, I think." -- Nick Cave in interview with the LA Times.
Nick Cave takes his "dark" tendencies to their ultimate conclusion, and ends up with an album that is cartoonishly violent, morbidly funny, and above all wildly entertaining. I particularly like his take on Stagger Lee. Great guest appearances from PJ Harvey and Kylie Minogue. Band is in top form. Heaps of fun.
Snoop Dogg
1/5
Snoop is a charismatic rapper with an engaging a laid-back style. The beats are funky (although essentially a tribute to George Clinton).
But this leaves a terrible taste in my mouth. The ugly and distasteful cover art is a warning of what is within. The writers of Enculturation, Steven Best and Douglas Kellner, have noted that Snoop Doggy Dogg and other rappers only condemn violence when it is directed against them, otherwise "they celebrate it, internalize it, and embrace it as an ethos and means of self expression." Glorification of rape and murder as self-expression is repugnant. I feel sick listening to this.
New Order
2/5
It's the emperor's new album. The sound of a band indulgently reveling in past glories, with a halo effect of too many nights in Ibizan dance clubs giving it an accidental glow of summery dance-ability and a shimmer of MDMA buzz, polished off with some expensive production at Real World studios. The glossy production papers over some pretty ordinary songwriting, weak singing and generally lackluster musicianship.
Scattered throughout New Order's lengthy career are a handful of banging singles; Bizarre Love Triangle, Blue Monday, True Faith. But none of those songs appear on this album, which is completely inessential in my opinion.
Pretenders
5/5
Chrissie Hynde is a major rock talent who had a surprisingly hard time breaking into the industry. She clearly had the brains, drive, ambition, talent and charisma who seemed to be constantly shut out of opportunities. She made sure she was in the right spot with the right people (she has an incredible eye for talent), but it just didn't come together for five years before The Pretenders finally came together. I suspect a lot of the reason is that she was a woman. Woman have often been excluded from rock music based purely on prejudice. This 1001 albums list has a massive over-representation of straight white males, and woman are probably the most obviously under-represented cohort on the list. This is both a result of the long-standing sexism of the rock industry, but also a symptom of the fact that that sexism has seeped into the cultural fabric of rock history. I am always glad when a female artist turns up on the list, because they have to work twice as hard for half the credit. And Chrissie Hynde deserves every accolade.
The subsequent history of The Pretenders has become the Chrissie Hynde Show and often veers a bit closer to the mainstream than fits my personal taste, but I really love this first record. The Pretenders are playing like a real band (James Honeyman-Scott is a particular standout - his lead playing is really great), but it is Chrissie's voice (both literal and in the songwriting sense) that gives this record all of its soul and character.
This is loud, fast, hungry rock and roll with a slight punk edge (without being behoven to generic restrictions). The songs are outstanding, and the whole thing is played with an exciting verve. Tight, but with a dangerous edge. This record knows what it wants to do and lands it perfectly. Favourite song: Precious.
There weren't many prior examples of female front-people doing this before 1980, and Chrissie Hynde absolutely nails the brief. We need more female artist on this 1001 albums list. Also, today I learned that Chrissie Hynde co-wrote 'Smelly Cat' for the Friends TV show. 4.5 stars, rounding up.
Astrud Gilberto
2/5
Pleasant, Latin-flavoured jazz-pop-lite. I like her voice, but this is hardly the most inspired thing she ever did. Why did they choose THIS album? It doesn't really have anything to particularly recommend it.
It's pleasant, but a bit soporific and not even distinctively bossa nova - more a watered-down version for the American mass market. The duet with child (You Didn't Have to Be So Nice) was cute, but I'm not sure I would want to listen to it too many times.
I feel like only the final track, Nao Bate O Corocao, worked up a bit of energy. Why isn't the whole album like that?
Did not hate, but seems like a pointless inclusion on this list.
Sonic Youth
3/5
I can essentially re-run my review from EVOL, although I enjoyed this marginally more.
Sonic Youth are starting to learn to write songs, rather than just making a helluva noise. Now, don't get me wrong; I enjoy a helluva noise as much as the next man, possibly more. But, seriously, how many Sonic Youth albums do you need? There are five (five!) on this list, and I would argue that they don't really hit their straps until Daydream Nation.
John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers
3/5
It's the fucking Bible for white boy blues lawyers, and you can hear middle aged men playing copies of these copies of Chicago blues in small bars worldwide to this very day.
It's better than the Yardbirds (whose records are all incredibly shit), but it is still a gross act of appropriation, spearheaded by noted arsehole Eric Clapton. The covers are generally well chosen, but I could nearly always think of a version I prefer. Have You Heard, however, is an embarrassing cliché and should never have been heard.
It is generally well played (appalling drum solo in What'd I Say aside) and massively influential (how many have tried to copy that guitar tone?), but influence is not always a good thing. It's blues for people who don't like black people.
Three stars, reluctantly.
Frankie Goes To Hollywood
4/5
I remember when Frankie GTH first appeared. Those singles were just amazing! They leapt off the radio like they were the future. they were bright and shiny and ornate and over-the-top and sexy and amazing. It really is a paean to Trevor Horn and the ZTT team of crack studio-rats (special shout-out to Anne Dudley, whose name on album credits is always a sign of great work, especially her orchestrations). I was also a big fan of The Art of Noise, which was the same production team working a little more out on the fringes on semi-instrumental work. God knows who else played on it; the Blockheads certainly recorded some demo versions, and only Trevor Horn really knows who and what made the final edit. But that DOES NOT MATTER! Did anyone know who played everything on a Phil Spector production or early Monkees records? Pop music has always relied on session musos and production impresarios.
Frankie GTH was... amazing. It had the advantage of the ZTT production style matched with an amazingly charismatic frontman (see also Grace Jones' Slave to the Rhythm, which similarly paired an iconic frontperson with that amazing production). Holly Johnson's unapologetic homosexuality gave the Frankie singles a frisson of danger that is still surprising for a time when even the most camp acts still tended to remain officially closeted (Boy George, Marc Almond, etc)
As an album, however, this is bloated and full of filler. The covers are nearly all terrible. I assume this was a double album because someone thought that "nothing exceeds like excess".
But those singles -- Relax, Two Tribes, Power of Love, Pleasuredome -- are towering monuments of pop. They foreshadow what pop is today -- the remixes, the multiple releases, the multimedia hype, the complex digital production, it's all there. The singles are five star classics, but really need to heard in their natural environment -- on a 12" single, preferable booming through an enormous PA on the dancefloor.
I own this album, but I _never_ play it, because it is all about the singles. 5 stars for the singles, 2 stars for the rest of the album. let's call that 4 overall.
Donald Fagen
2/5
Just too clever clogs for me. I know it is not peak jazz-bo Steely Dan, but it is still pretty self-consciously clever and smooth and ultra-polished which is just not a thing for me.
I don't really get the obsession with Steely Dan. I understand the inclusion of this solo album on the 1001 list even less, burdened as it is with Donald Fagan's singing. This seems like completely inessential listening.
More power to ya, if this floats your boat, but I don't know why _I_ have to listen to it.
The Specials
3/5
...in which Jerry Dammers, grasping for artistic growth, destroys the band.
It's a cautionary tale, and as old as the music industry itself. After a fantastic first album, cut essentially live in the studio highlighting the band's amazing live chemistry and energy, and a whirlwind of touring, they rush back into the studio to self-produce a more 'experimental' record. The band can't agree on a new direction. They ditch playing live in the studio for extensive over-dubbing. They take wild swings at new styles (rockabilly, northern soul, lounge music!) but the different songwriters are going in different directions. Is it an eclectic album or just disjointed? The exhaustion and infighting comes through in a cynical and often weary sounding record. The album is released to some acclaim, but the band splits on the subsequent tour. The end.
Dammers himself later said that the band tried to go from Meet the Beatles to Sgt Peppers without any of the steps in between. I honour and respect their desire not to become trapped in a genre pigeonhole (a la Bad Manners). And this is by no means a Dexy's Midnight Runners-scale disaster -- the singles (including the non-album singles, like Rat Race and Ghost Town) are wonderful, and the creepy, cynical vibe was influential on trip hop. There are terrific moments here, even if the album as a whole is inconsistent and fragmented.
Really, you can see that the record company needed to give the band a bit more time. With some rest and a more considered approach, this could have been a masterpiece, rather than a divisive experience that ultimately broke up the band.
The xx
2/5
It's schmick but dull. It's well produced and their voices are nice and it's smooth and sophisticated, but the songs don't really "pop" and the whole thing isn't memorable.
I couldn't work out what was really wrong with it until I read Mark Richardson's review in Pitchfork: "As an album, I See You has the eerily seamless wholeness of the self-titled debut, a smooth and polished object with no visible edges. If it came apart, you would almost certainly never be able to put it back together again."
That review suggest that this is a good thing, but I think that is _exactly_ what is wrong with this album.
Umberto Eco, in his Paris Review Article 'The Cult of the Imperfect' writes: "In order to transform a work into a cult object, you must be able to take it to pieces, disassemble it, and unhinge it in such a way that only parts of it are remembered, regardless of their original relationship with the whole. ... A perfect film [or album] ... remains imprinted in our memory as a whole, in the form of an idea or a principal emotion; but only a ramshackle film survives in a disjointed series of images and visual high points. It should show not one central idea, but many. It should not reveal a coherent 'philosophy of composition,' but it should live on, and by virtue of, its magnificent instability."
And there, ladies and gentlemen, is exactly why I See You by The xx is in many ways a perfect and coherent album, but incapable of sustaining my ongoing love and attention as a cult object.
Jeez, that is possibly my most pretentious review ever....
The Lemonheads
5/5
I have a real nostalgic fondness for this record. In 1991, I moved out of home in the suburbs and into share houses in the inner city of Sydney, hanging around Glebe and Newtown and seeing gigs at the Annandale Hotel, working in a grungy record store. As it so happens, Evan Dando was also hanging around Glebe and Newtown and the Annandale Hotel (I would see him there pretty regularly around that time) and hanging out with local musos and people who worked in record stores. and he wrote this album about that.
The sound, the songs, the people in it, the videos, all reflect that time and place. The video for 'Rocking stroll' was filmed on Glebe Point Rd, and is a wonderful time capsule of the look and feel of that moment.
Evan Dando certainly parlayed his (at the time) minor celebrity to cadge drinks and mooch his way into afterparties. The joke at the time was to sing "Evan's in the back seat of my Cadillac", based on the frequency of discovering a drunk Evan Dando in the back of someone's car on the way some post-gig party. Subsequent success seemed to introduce him to a different class of inebriants, which made things worse. Celebrity never did Evan any favours, and he never hit this peak again.
I love this record, because it is a cracking listen and because it reminds me of a special time in my youth. The tunes are catchy, all the songs are really short and leave you wanting more. I also had a crush on the real Alison, immortalized in the song 'Alison's starting to happen'. She worked at another hip record store in Sydney and played drums in a band. She was really cool.
Television
5/5
Marquee Moon has inspired more pretentious, overblown, rock criticism than nearly any other album in history. Every Greil Marcus or Robert Christgau wannabe sharpens their pencil to crank out a pretentious think piece, crammed with metaphors about the guitar playing, jazz-like structures and the poetry of the lyrics that counterpoint the surrealism of the underlying similes yada yada bullshit.
It's this kind of writing that has made me largely avoid this album for 40 years; it just comes across like it is going to be all talk and no trousers, and absolutely no rock and roll fun. And I am familiar with the title track, which can come across like an intellectual exercise rather than, you know, _rock_ music.
But I have to confess, this is a pretty fucking great record, especially side 1. The band is quite muscular and Andy John's bone-dry production gives it an urgent immediacy, like you are there in the rehearsal room with the band. Verlaine's singing can be annoying after a while and his lyrics are not nearly as clever as his devotees think it is. Richards Lloyd's playing is particularly great, although (again) maybe not as clever as he thinks it is. But the record genuinely rocks and you can listen to it without feeling dumb. Favourite track: Friction.
The critical praised heaped upon this record is _so_ pretentious that I really want mark this down, but I grudgingly have to give it 4.5 stars (half off for Verlaine's annoying vocals) and rounding up because it really is a classic.
I also love the deliberately dodgy cover. Having Robert Mapplethorpe take your cover photo, and then using a crappy photocopy - I can't work out whether that is hubristic pretention or dry humour. It is a perfect metaphor for the album as a whole.
Miles Davis
4/5
There are many people who still consider this the apex and ultimate form of jazz (*cough cough* Wynton Marsalis *cough*). And there are plenty of jazz combos still playing essentially this, 75 years later. I certainly spent many an evening at Soup Plus, chugging down carafes of house red while listening to an interchangeable roster of middle age (mostly white) guys playing their take on Birth of the Cool. And don't get me wrong; this is smooth and sophisticated and fucking cool. You can see why people want to play and listen to this.
Miles himself wasn't content to rest on these laurels and went on to change his style radically more than once after this. But the influence lives on. This isn't my favourite era of Miles, it's become almost cliche, but you can't _blame_ Miles for writing the textbook on cool jazz, even as he himself moved on. By the metric of lasting influence, this album is certainly a five-star record -- it created a genre, it wrote a new rulebook that lasted for decades, and it still sounds pretty cool. Miles is not responsible for the thousands of slavish imitators who followed. That's the danger of recording something this groundbreaking and important. It really is a "must hear", even if it doesn't surprise (or delight?) in the same way it once did.
Bee Gees
1/5
I hated this overblown, pretentious piece of over-long wannabe concept album garbage. I could enumerate the ways, but I just want the bitter taste of this record out of my mouth.
The Last Shadow Puppets
3/5
This sentence in the wikipedia article for this album caught my attention: "The band lived in the studio while recording, in their free time Turner and Kane would ride their bikes through the countryside, listen to old records, watch The Pink Panther film series, and have dance parties." It sounds like they were living in a Wes Anderson film.
Actually, that's _exactly_ what this album is like -- a Wes Anderson film. It is a self-consciously cinematic and highly designed simulacrum of 60s French orchestral pop. And, like a Wes Anderson film, it can feel like an exquisite and expensively crafted genre exercise but emotionally distant.
I can't believe they talked their record company into funding this flight-of-fancy-slash-bohemian-lifestyle project. Man, record companies really did have plenty of money to throw away in the early 2000s....
Wildly inessential, but pretty good at what it is trying to be. Personally, I quite enjoy a Wes Anderson film on occasion.
Belle & Sebastian
3/5
Belle & Sebastain have been described as "the most sensitive band in indie rock, patron saints for daydreaming boys and girls". And there is a place for that, and they do it well. It's a cozy album, even if the cover is a little disconcerting.
But is the unique selling point of this album the legend of its creation and its obscurity (at least initially). Is there really any reason that both this album and 'If You're Feeling Sinister' are on the list? Everyone seems to agree that Sinister is their masterpiece, but the story of Tigermilk is compelling. Personally, I find the listening experience basically interchangeable.
Pixies
5/5
Peter from Scratches Records put me onto the Pixies when Doolittle came out. It was exciting and powerful and it was like the distilled apogee of the previous decade or so of alternative music. I immediately became obsessed and hunted down Surfer Rosa, Come on Pilgrim and the Breeders' Pod, and I then bought Bossanova and Trompe Le Monde as soon as they came out. And all those records were staples on the turntable of all the share houses I lived in during the early 90s. I don't really distinguish between any of the records from the Pixies first phase -- we played them all frequently and indiscriminatory, and so I tend to think of the whole corpus of work as "Pixies". I know the consensus is that Doolittle is their best album and Trompe is the weakest of their initial period, but I just can't differentiate between them. It's all terrific, and I will happily listen to any of those records any day of the week. Great tunes, surprising lyrics, sounds great, rocks hard.
As I was thinking about my kids' musical education, I included the Pixies as 'must hear'. My 17-year old son has a strong taste for alternative rock, and he loves the Pixies. Next month, he and my wife and I are going to see them play at the Hordern Pavillion, a classic Sydney venue. We are very excited.
The Thrills
2/5
"The Thrills" is a terrible name for this band. Maybe "The Laid Backs" would be more appropriate? Frankly, this could almost be a Blue Jean Committee tribute act.
The Thrills' genre pilfering is generally competent performed, even if occasionally bordering on plagiarism. They wear the influences proudly like badges, but this is a genre exercise and a pretty pale imitation of many much better albums. (I will leave the exact list of those influences and sources as an exercise for the reader)
I initially thought this was Jason Lytle of Granddaddy singing, so closely does the vocal styling and accent copy his. I'll bet anything the Irish singer of The Thrills doesn't _speak_ with that accent
The California place-name dropping in seemingly every song is shorthand for 'sunny pop', which feels lazy and unearned. Did I mention that they are Irish?
It's not a _bad_ album per se, but why was this slight concoction ever even considered for this list? Oh, it was nominated for the fucking Mercury Prize you say? Well, that explains everything! There is no better indicator of over-praised yet insubstantial rubbish than a Mercury Prize nom.
David Bowie
5/5
I love this transitional album from soul/funk Bowie to krautrock Bowie, which rate as my two favourite Bowie eras. The band is tight and funky, the songs intriguing, although some of Bowie's vocal affectations are a bit strange and the cocaine-induce emotional coldness persists.
I enjoy listening to this album, although I do believe Station-era Bowie was likely a terrible human being (funny how cocaine addiction can spark flirtation with fascism).
4.5 stars, rounding up
Love
4/5
Theer are more than a few "sophisticated" psychedelic albums on the 1001 list, but I feel that this is the only one that really, truly lives up to the sobriquet. Beautifully arranged and recorded (with occasionally support from Wrecking Crew session musicians), the song-writing is a little more folky than Love's previous efforts. This is definitely a 1967 album, but with an eye towards the inevitable come-down that was lurking around the corner.
My favorite section, and probably most emblematic of the album's tone, is the coda of The Red Telephone, with the creep chanting of "they're locking them up today, they're throwing away the key, I wonder who it will be tomorrow, you or me?" The paranoia of the late 60s is perfectly encapsulated right there.
The Libertines
1/5
I was an avid and regular reader of the NME in the early 90s when I worked in a record store. Mind you, I was in Australia, so the NME was about 8 weeks old by the time the sea-freight copies made their way to me. It did allow a perspective of both time and distance on the UK's weekly music press and their tendency to hype new and "exciting" bands. Sometimes, nay often, they turned out to be crap. I hold the NME most culpable for this trend, of whom The Libertines are only the most dramatic example.
I had lost interest and close following of new bands by the 2000s, but even I was aware of the Libertines' reputation and the tabloid frenzy around their lives. High drama indeed! But I cannot say that I have ever knowingly heard one of their songs until today.
This from the NME's self-congratulatory review of this album:
"NME put them on the cover before their first single had even been released (and The Libertines have returned the compliment, using one of our shots on the sleeve of ‘The Libertines). Excuse us for gloating but it’s important to note how many other people didn’t get it. ... The only problem was the danger the drama would overshadow the music, but, for a band like The Libertines, the two are bound together inextricably."
They had clearly lost perspective; this music is tossed-off rubbish, completely overwhelmed by the drama, that the NME themselves had hyped up from the very beginning. !
And, man, this is a pretty crap record. It's underwritten, poorly played and sung, and largely uninspired. Mick Jones' production makes their hazy sloppiness sound vaguely intentional, but this is just really bad. Clearly, the Libertines' artistic medium was their celebrity, not their music. This was the way culture was going, but eventually celebs could become famous simply for being famous without the pretense of some other medium (in this case, music) as a vehicle for their expression. I think the world would be a better place if Pete Doherty and Carl Barât had eschewed releasing records and just stuck to tabloid fame; that would be easier for me to ignore.
What a turgid and morally bankrupt industry, selling us shit and telling us it is caviar. You can fuck right off
Bauhaus
3/5
In the late 80s/early 90s, I was more into industrial music than goth, but there is a fair crossover between those scenes, considering their shared love of all black wardrobes, extreme hairstyles and harsh yet surprisingly club-friendly beats. I had plenty of goth friends and couple of goth girlfriends, so Bauhaus was on the lounge room playing roster.
I would occasionally go to Sanctuary, Sydney's long-standing goth nightclub. And Bauhaus is awesome to dance to at 2am, played really loud under the flashing lights on a playlist between Front 242 and Wolfgang Press or whatever, especially when one is chemically enhanced... I was a young man at the time.
But now I am old and tired, and listening in the cold sober light of day. I always felt that Bauhaus were more of a posture than a band. It is, in fairness, a pretty cool pose -- they look like rock star vampires. I dig the Bowie stylings, the spacious noise and cold funk of it all. Particular shout-out to Daniel Ash and his generous use of the pick slide, one of my favourite guitar techniques -- simple and exciting. But I couldn't hum any of their songs except for Bela Lugosi's Dead, and that ain't on this record.
And what is with that terrible cover art?
Stephen Stills
2/5
Stephen Stills, eh? Just today, I was trawling through one of the better second-hand record stores in Sydney (shout-out to Papa Disquo in Enmore), and there in the New Arrivals section, was a copy of this very record for a mere $10. That made it pretty much the cheapest record in the store outside of a bargain bins on the floor.
Stephen Stills was a big fucking star in 1970, hanging out with the biggest music stars in the world, with a who's who of rock royalty guesting on his solo record -- Hendrix! Clapton! Booker T. Jones! Priscilla Jones! Graham Nash! David Crosby! (maybe those two aren't really a surprise) Rita Coolidge! Cass Elliot! John Sebastian! Ringo Starr!
And, unsurprisingly, given the panoply of talent and the copious production budget, it is a competently good album, even if none of those players are at their most inspired. This album could be Exhibit A in the court case of Rich White Guys v. The Blues. I remember my mate Peter playing me 'Old Times Good Times' as one of the very few examples of post-fame Jimi Hendrix playing on someone else's record, and, as a massive Jimi Hendrix fan, I have to say that it is nothing to write home about. The less said about Clapton the better. And what is the story with Stills' vocal affectation where he does his 'gruff blues voice', such as 'Go Back Home' or the racially insensitive 'Black Queen'?
The reality is that this record has no cultural legs. Think about all the landmark albums from 1970 that people still listen to today -- and I'm sure you could name a half dozen without trying to hard -- and is Stephen Still's S/T record on that list? Truly? People may vaguely remember 'Love The One You're With', but when was the last time you actually heard Still's version played? Well, exactly! There are better covers (Rufus featuring Chaka Khan, the Isley Brothers, Aretha Franklin, Luther Vandross!), mostly by black artists who lean into the gospel flavour of the backing vocals. But this Stephen Stills record is increasingly irrelevant as time goes by.
I don't hate this as much as some of his other work (Manassas is just shit, god save me), but I can live a long and happy life without this album.
Did I buy that $10 copy I found today? Fuck, no!
The Byrds
3/5
There are five (five!) Byrds albums on the 1001 albums list. Which seems, to me, three too many. I would accept the argument for the inclusion of Sweethearts of the Rodeo and maybe one other, possibly this album, but possibly one of their other pre-country records.
Some stray observations:
- David Crosby; he's talented, but he is band poison. He is an evil troll who will fuck up your band dynamics with the Four Horsemen of Band Apocalypse: ego, drugs, arguing about song-writing credit, and trying the shag your girlfriend.
- Chris Hillman, on the other hand, takes his moment to shine with four terrific original songs, a co-write on the first single, and a bunch of quality lead vocals. Who knew?
- I never realized that the Charlatan's lifted the chorus of 'The Only One I Know' from 'Everybody's Been Burned'. You learn something every day
- 'Renaissance Fair' is embarrassingly bad hippie rubbish
- 'Mind Games' is worse -- just because you got stoned at Monterey Pop listening to Ravi Shankar does not mean that you should try to write a raga, white boy
- I quite like the backwards guitar solo on 'Thoughts and Words'
- The singles are really great, which is to be expected.
- I have read this described as The Byrds' Revolver, but seriously, this ain't no Revolver
Robert Wyatt
2/5
Under-baked demos for an album. Unfocussed with "jazz" pretentions and terrible lyrics. I feel like much of the playing on this album is trying to "jazz", and the players really aren't up to it. Simon Reynolds, whose opinions I generally respect, described the live performance of this album as a type of "Anglicised Bitche's Brew" -- which is really drawing a long bow. Bitches Brew this ain't. Wyatt himself should not be allowed near instruments frankly. Wyatt has a nice voice, but he is in desperate search of an actual song. 'Little Red Riding Hood Hit The Road' (both parts) are not too bad, because of its more rhythmical nature and Mike Oldfield doing his uniquely Mike Oldfield thing.
Actually, my attitude has softened a bit on a second listening. But I still can't see myself really liking this no matter how many times I listen through.
The Damned
4/5
The very personality traits that made The Damned a compelling and exciting live act made them absolutely insufferable in the tour van. The doc 'The Damned: Don't You Wish We Were Dead' makes clear how personality clashes, bad behaviour, poor business acumen and the ongoing ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory accumulated over the space of 40 years into an underserved legacy of inconsistent recordings, middling success and acrimony.
I knew them from a hodge-podge of sources; 'Eloise' was a massive radio hit when I was a teenager listening to pop radio, 'Sick of Being Sick' was covered by the Hard-Ons on a giveaway 7" back when I used to see them on the all-ages circuit a lot, their seminal punk singles (including Smash It Up) appear on a lot of compilations. But their albums seemed patchy and unpredictable and often hard to find, and the compilation albums all seemed like poorly curated cash-ins based on whoever held the rights to what at the time, so I have never really delved into their catalogue. My initial thought was "why not Damned Damned Damned, which is an important early punk record?" But I listened to it today to compare to Machine Gun Etiquette, and while Damnedx3 has its charms and a few killer singles, it really is just another slightly better than average early UK punk album.
Machine Gun Etiquette, however, is a revelation -- why have I never heard this before? I find myself in the rare situation of actually agreeing with Dimery's selection. This is a fast and raucous rock and roll record. The energy is great, it's got tunes you can sing along to, and the recording sounds great without smoothing off the edges. I really dig this! It has a dangerous vibe, like the band could go off the rails at any moment, which they did shortly after release. It was a miracle that they managed to hold it together long enough to produce a record this great all the way through without exploding in the studio. But I'm glad they did keep it together for long enough to produce this excellent record. This is going on my want list.
Small Faces
4/5
I haven't listened to this album in many years.
I bought it in my late teens, during a psychedelic phase. I preferred (then) side 2, with its interstitial tale of Happiness Stan and more whimsical songs. Listening to it now, I prefer the tougher side 1, which is (I think) a more transitional piece between the Small Faces and the bands to follow (Faces, and Humble Pie). The opening title track is a banger, and Lazy Sunday is a really fun single.
Many of the late 60s English psychedelic bands border on being insufferably twee and anaemic, but I like the Small Faces muscular soul-based sound. They aren't afraid to play loud, and they can swing. I also dig Glyn John's reliably crunchy and unfussy recording. This will definitely be getting more play from me.
Talking Heads
5/5
I remember exactly when and where I first heard Remain In Light. I was on a year 9 Australian history excursion to Elizabeth Farm (of which I remember very little) in 1985. Afterwards some school mates and I were walking back to Granville Station to catch the train home, and Michael J. gave me his Walkman and said “here, listen to this” and hit play on side one of Remain In Light. I was shocked. Stop Making Sense had been a big release the previous year, so I knew who Talking Heads were, but _this_ was a revelation. I had never heard anything like it before; I had certainly not been exposed to Afrobeat before. The interlocking polyrhythms and layered sounds just fit into a niche in my brain like very little has before or since. I didn’t have much money to buy albums, but I found a copy in the bargain bin of the Ashfield K-Mart, and I bought it and played it a million times.
I still find this whole album fresh and funky and surprising, and it still fits the grooves in my brain perfectly. I can’t even begin to think about how many times I have played this record, and I still find it perfect. Clearly strongly influenced by Fela Kuti (who I didn’t discover until decades later), I think this manages to sit on the right side of the “inspired by/”appropriated from” boundary. It brings something new and different that is respectful of African music and musicians without simply copying and cashing in.
It is also interesting to see what Talking Heads could achieve when Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth were leading the direction in a more collaborative fashion (instead of David Byrne’s more controlling mode, aided and abetted by Brian Eno). I understand why they were pissed when Byrne claimed credit for the songwriting – their fingerprints are all over this record.
How do you measure your favourite album ever? The record that moves you most, the record that changed your life, the one that you could happily play every day without getting sick of it? Well, Remain in Light ticks all those boxes for me. While some records might come in and out of favour, Remain In Light has been a Top Five All-Time record for me on any day of the past forty years. (I also enjoy Angelique Kidjo’s more recent cover of the entire album for fresh perspective on the material.) Fifty bazillion stars.
Iron Maiden
2/5
There was a boombox in the weights room of my school's gym. At the end of PE classes, we could play "our own music" while we worked out. But a faction of bullying dude-bros monopolized the boombox, and the only tape I ever remember getting played was Number of the Beast. I hated PE, I especially hated doing weights, I hated those dude-bros, and I learned to hate Iron Maiden.
Listening to this forty years later, I can appreciate the technical achievement and high drama of it all, and it really does set the highwater mark for 80s metal; the galloping riffs, the lightning-fast 'typing' solos, the histrionic vocals. But it really comes down to whether you like that sort of shit or not.
LCD Soundsystem
3/5
I am a long-time fan of LCD Soundsystem singles. James Murphy is almost exactly the same age as me, and, as an aged-out former music scene guy, I really related to "Losing My Edge". LCD Soundsystem draw on the same grab bag of influences that makes up my record collection; krautrock, Berlin-era Bowie, Suicide, Remain in Light, Eno, Gang of Four, acid house, disco, Steve Reich, etc. And they generally intercept those influences into something new and compelling, without simply rehashing the past. And you can dance to it.
But I am completely unenthralled by this record, their big "reunion" record. It was their highest charting album and biggest seller, and they leveraged the reunion hype to headline many of the world's highest-profile festivals. But the cover art really encapsulates this album for me; a stock photo with generic font and possibly the most boring album title ever. The album is schmick but largely forgettable. It's got a beat and a well-produced dance-rock sound, but the songs are really bland.
I agree with Chris Stannard in The Wire: "This record is no cause for celebration. It's a slab of nothing, a media spectacle for the terminally impressed." OMG, that is totally what is going on here! The wikipedia article for this album is clearly padded with extraneous detail from the record company's EPK, and reads as the step-by-step instruction manual for the roll-out of a high-profile major-label album release in the 2010s. Multiple release platforms, festival appearances, online presence, high profile TV appearances, the street team, the push for virality and earned media. And it worked, at least in the immediate term; the record got great reviews, sold enough copies to chart highly, and appeared on many "best of 2017" lists (which means that either lots of people fell for the hype, or 2017 was a pretty weak year for music, or both).
But I don't think this album has cultural legs. It's LCD Soundsystem's weakest and most forgettable album, with a chronic shortage of bangers. I think there is a place on this list for LCD Soundsystem, but this record ain't it. This is still a better listening experience than many contemporaneous albums, but it isn't their legacy.
John Coltrane
4/5
I was really expecting this to be homework, but I found it really easy to listen to. A few too many bass and drum solos, perhaps, but it is largely fairly succinct and coherent, even for someone not as sophisticated in their jazz appreciation as I am. (Hal understands this better. It seems fairly straightforward to him, I suspect). I can understand the stretches. It's a bit more challenging than wallpaper jazz, but not so free as to be incomprehensible. Would listen again. It probably should be a five star record, and I appreciate the art behind it, but it just isn't really my bag, you know?
Prince
5/5
I owned a VHS copy of the Sign O' The Times concert film back in my first share house in 1991, and my flatmates and I watched it often. All of us went to see Prince at the Sydney Entertainment Centre in 1992. We were all big Prince fans, and especially those amazing 80s and early 90s albums.
My VHS tape disappeared somewhere in my youthful travels, but day after Prince passed away, I went for a haircut at my barber. Bruce the Barber is a black American guy (noteworthy here in Australia) of a similar age to me. As I walked in, he was playing the Sign O' The Times concert film on the shop TV, and we watched it through together, comparing our memories of being Prince fans. It felt like a fitting memorial to remember and celebrate him at the height of his powers.
This album is an absolute masterpiece, probably Prince's greatest record. A solo collection from his most fertile period at the height of his powers. Funky, fresh, profane, reflective, funny, sad, profound, silly. Ivy Nelson in Pitchfork wrote "it might be helpful to think of ... Sign o’ the Times as more of a network than an album—a small reservoir of music filled from many disparate sources. No wonder listening to it has always sort of felt like walking through the rooms of a house inside of Prince’s dream." And there is so much here; it is an encyclopedia of influences and styles, curated into a kaleidoscopic vision, varied and colorful, but surprisingly lean, with hardly an extraneous note.
A brief aside on the nature of double albums: I normally do not truck with double albums (and don't even get me started on triples). I believe that, nearly universally, they should be trimmed to a succinct and more consistent quality single (this is sometimes known as The White Album Rule). But I was recently listening to Brian Dunne on the 'My Favorite Album with Jeremy Dylan' podcast (ep.451 for reference), and he made the case that he _prefers_ double albums because the space allows for experiments and weird shit that allows a whole added layer of context and artistic expression. And my immediate reaction was that this was a bullshit argument, and most doubles are still self-indulgent, poorly edited time wasting. And yet, the idea has been rattling around in the back of my mind, and the few doubles that I will concede are terrific (Electric Ladyland, Songs in the Key Of Life, and Sign O' The Times) are all great for exactly that reason. The experiments, blind alleys, and weird shit make this a rich and extraordinary album. I mean, a single album would never have space for a 9 minute live funk workout like 'It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night'. After an hour of solo studio virtuosity, he caps the album with demonstrable proof that he was the baddest bandleader of the funkiest band alive. And seeing him tear the roof off the Entertainment Centre in 92, I can personally attest that he was, indeed, the baddest.
his output at this time was extraordinary. One of my favourite Prince tracks is the 10 minute version of 'La, La, La, He, He, Hee' on the b-side of the 'Sign O' The Times' 12" single. It's starts out as a minimal drum machine groove, but grows and builds into a full-band jazz-funk freakout by the end. It's amazing! And he relegated it to a goddamn b-side!
Sign O' The Times is probably the last of the great, true double albums. IF you only listen to one Prince album, this is the one.
Animal Collective
3/5
This was released with much hype in 2009, a time that was a bit of a low-point in 'alternative' music, IMHO. Lots of publications had this high on their albums of the year list, which surprises me. I think the fact that Pitchfork listed My Girls as their #1 song of the year tells you much about 1) the standard of music released that year, and 2) the pretensions of Pitchfork.
Has this aged as a classic, where people sing along to the songs when heard? I think not. But this is more enjoyable than I had expected. It's better than most post-rock, which I generally find a bit too prog-like, clever clogs for me. Unlike much post-rock, which tends to be dour and tuneless (thanks for that, all you angst-filled middle-class white boys), this album trades in joy and Beach Boys-like tunes. Not great tunes, but pleasant enough.
I like the analogue feel of the recording. By that, I mean the way that the samples (which make up most of the tracks) have been degraded into a warm, fuzzy wash of eccentric loops and weird rhythms. This is electronic-based music designed to be played at summer festival and get the audience dancing. I'm sure this album was blast live but is only OK on record.
I pleasantly enjoyed listening to it 3 or 4 times through, although no songs really stuck in my mind. And you could handily trim 1-2 minutes off every track. It's OK.
Talking Heads
3/5
Talking Heads are one of my favourite bands and I own nearly all of their albums, but I never play this one. Psycho Killer is a banger, but the rest of this album only hints at where Talking Heads would eventually go. It's Ok, but unremarkable compared to their later output. 2.5 stars, rounding up for Psycho Killer.
Supertramp
1/5
Supertramp is a shiny amalgam of Floyd, Steely Dan, ELO and bunch of other slightly pretentious middle-of-the-road 70s bands blended into a bland slurry and garnished with saxophone.
1.5 stars, rounding down because I am so fucking bored.
Violent Femmes
5/5
When I was at uni in 1990, my friend Kate and I skipped lectures one afternoon to go see the Femmes busking at Circular Quay (filmed for the Noise on SBS TV). That sunny afternoon next to Sydney Harbour, singing along to the band, is one of my favourite live music memories. You see snippets of that day here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2J6d0EVEJE
This record is an unequivocal and absolutely unique masterpiece. Raw and immediate, with unsophisticated recording style and (almost) no embellishment, this is probably the best expression of teenage frustration and anxiety ever recorded. It feels _so_ real. The bare arrangements mean that the songs seem completely unfiltered. This album is so honest that it feels like a secret every time you listen to it; I can't believe they are saying what they are saying!
And yet, this obviously hit a nerve with many, many people; sales estimates to date are around 3 million copies sold (and, one has to think, a handful of furtively taped copies for each disc sold). Nearly every member of my generation (at least in the more alternative circles I moved in) can sing Add it Up, Blister on the Sun, or Gone Daddy Gone from memory at the drop of a hat.
The basic recording means this never sounds old, and, interestingly, my 16-year-old son has this album on his want list, so it clearly still speaks to young people today.
Crowd pleasing arena rock. It has been said that U2's whole career is a reaction to The Joshua Tree, either rejecting it to try something new or re-embracing the vision. This album is a return to a more classic U2 in the mode of Joshua Tree, purpose-engineered to play in front of 30,000 people a night.
The Eno-Lanois production is glossy, spacious and cinematic. I swear that Daniel Lanois never met a digital reverb he didn't immediately slather all over everything in arms reach. The Edge, as usual, is carrying the show, musically. Front loaded like crazy (the first four songs are the four singles), it drags in the back half. But those first four songs are pretty strong -- catchy and memorable -- and there aren't any real stinkers on the record. I don't think I would ever _choose_ to put this album on the turntable, but if someone dropped the needle on side 1, I wouldn't be upset.
But I can't forgive a line as hilariously bad as "A mole, digging in a hole, digging up my soul now". Bono's lyrics at their best can project a kind of wide-screen faux-profundity (fauxfundity? profauxndity?), but here they often feel ham-fisted, clumsy and quotidian. We have pulled the curtain back to reveal that the Wizard of Rock really is just a moderately talented chancer with a rhyming dictionary. Good voice, but not a lot to say on this record.
It's a very U2-y album but feels a shallow and superficial compared to Joshua Tree or Achtung Baby, which an inevitable side-effect of being designed to play big live. I saw them in Sydney in 2010 (I think, or it might have been the 2006 tour) and they played a bunch of songs from this album, and they did sound great in an arena. But I find it hard to love as an album.
I like my rock to be a bit _dangerous_, dare I say it, a bit _edgy_, which 2000-era U2 were not. The ongoing presence of The Edge does not necessarily deliver any edge.
Leonard Cohen
4/5
Wow, darker it is. This is the sound of a man close to the end of his life, and he knows it. Clearly, he was in a lot of pain, but there is joy and quiet celebration here too. The production is understated and sympathetic (not universal amongst Cohen's albums, so very welcome here).
I hear a lot of metaphors about war and conflict in here, but often with a quiet resolution through diplomacy, treaty, spycraft and quiet agency. It is impossible to separate this from the circumstances of its recording and release, 17 days before his death, putting it with Warren Zevon's The Wind, Bowie's Black Star, and Johnny Cash's final albums in a small group of albums that face imminent mortality with acceptance and grace.
Queen Latifah
4/5
It's hard enough for women to get a fair shake against the systemic sexism of the music industry, and hip hop was a particularly unfriendly genre for female artists. And there are plenty of big acts from the Golden Age of Hip Hop that effectively disappeared. Fortunately, Queen Latifah is not one of them. Rapper, singer, actor; she's a major talent with a substantial and varied body of work under her belt.
The record store I worked at in the late 80s,/early 90s, Scratches in Newtown, championed female artists, and All hail the Queen was an album we kept in stock, as one of the best example of female rappers out there. And with the rise of gangsta rap, this was a rap album you could listen to without feeling like you needed a shower from all the violence and misogyny. Conscious, confident, charismatic and authoritative, this is a terrific album of its vintage. The production and flow are of their time, which took me a listen to settle into again, but once I did, I really enjoyed revisiting this record.
3.5 stars, rounding up in recognition of Queen Latifah's multi-talented career.
Talk Talk
3/5
I hear the words "sophisticated art-pop with jazz influences" and I reach for my vomit bucket.
Actually, I don't mind 'Life's What You Make It' -- that's a pretty good tune. And I appreciate the use of 'real' instruments, which makes it more listenable than many records of the era. Steve Winwood's organ playing is reliably strong.
But a lot of this is just a wash.
The Velvet Underground
5/5
When I was in first year uni, a girl I had a crush on (unrequited, sadly) introduced me to the banana album. What a revelation that was! As a result, I played this first VU album constantly -- the noise, the power, the abrasiveness, the lyrics that explored the edges of society. It was properly dangerous rock and roll.
I am nearly at the end of this project; this is review 1061, and this is one of the albums I have most been looking forward to reviewing. A quick search shows that I have mentioned the Velvet Underground more than 50 times in my reviews so far. As noted in Lou Reed's obituary in the NY Times, the Velvet Underground "wrought gradual but profound impact on the high-I.Q., low-virtuosity stratum of punk, alternative and underground rock around the world." As Eno said "everyone who bought one [banana album]... started a band". This album is the blueprint for multiple branches of alternative rock. Almost every song here could be seen as the starting point for different sub-genres of rock. They really were patient zero for much of alternative rock.
The Velvet Underground, especially this first record, were the ur-text for so much of the music that I loved. I hear something surprising and compelling every time I listen to this record. This record is on my All Time Top Five Albums Ever! list and has been there for 35 years. I still can't quite understand why this album isn't universally acclaimed (I know critics love it, but realistically, most real listeners don't. I'll bet that, even as part of this project, there are plenty of "what is this shit" reviews )
Fifty bazillion stars
Gil Scott-Heron
4/5
I like this record; it's quickly recorded jazz-funk/soul, mostly sung and pretty right-on. I'm not sure what makes this specific album the one you must listen to (other than The Bottle, which is, admittedly, a classic), but why wasn't it any of his other early albums? I would argue that The Revolution Will Not Be Televised or Whitey's On The Moon are more influential songs. But maybe too political, too racially explicit for this list?
3.5 stars, rounding up, because I don't mind a bit of 70s jazz-funk/soul.
Dr. John
5/5
I was introduced to this album by Straussy in his run-down flat in Stanmore some time in the early 90s. The flat had previously operated as a small brothel. This did have certain advantages -- discrete entrance, a full bar in the lounge room, and an ensuite in every bedroom -- as long as you could tolerate the occasional gentleman caller turning up in the late evening asking "if Chantelle was working". A firm but polite "no" from Straussy would usually turn them apologetically away. The former use of the apartment lent a slightly disreputable atmosphere, which was a really fitting place to hear Gris Gris for the first time. The record was weird and atmospheric and disreputable and funky and spaced out, and I really dug it instantly.
It is oddly recorded and mixed, especially when compared to everything else coming out of Gold Star Studios in that period, but the playing has a lot of feel. I have subsequently developed a strong taste for New Orleans funk, although you wouldn't necessarily describe this record as typical of the form. Many of the players are of that scene and tradition and play with that feel, but this record is much more informed by Californian psychedelic culture.
I sometimes wonder if record is to New Orleans soul as Captain Beefheart is to blues; a wild and druggy reinterpretation. I really don't like Beefheart, but I dig this.
Back when I first heard this in the early 90s, this album was largely out of print and hard to find, and it felt like being introduced to some arcane and obscure knowledge. I searched for a long time to find an affordable copy, which I eventually found in the aptly named Mojo Records (yet another long gone vinyl emporium in Sydney). It is now one of my most treasured albums. Five stars.
Sarah Vaughan
4/5
Super smooth. Sarah Vaughan is up there in my favourite jazz vocalists, and I think this is the album of hers that I have most enjoyed. Stripped of her usual highly orchestrated, string-heavy arrangements to a bare trio backing, intimately recorded, you get to hear her beautiful tone and phrasing without distraction. There is a touch more breathiness and slight husk in the quieter moments that sounds close and real. Her ability to deliver a real emotional content is wonderful.
Probably my favourite Sarah Vaughan record, and I will probably pick a copy up when I see one around. Love the versions of Just a Gigolo and How High the Moon that close out this album.
Update: Just last month I found a copy of this in the $2 bin at The Vintage Record in Annandale. I'll take that, thank you. Cover is beaten up, but it's a bargain at twice the price!
Afrika Bambaataa
4/5
This album skirts pretty close to the bone on Dimery's "no compilations" rule., but I don't mind that. Many innovative forms, and especially black innovators, work mostly in the singles medium and are underserved by the "albums only" format of this list. That is true of early hip hop, which was definitely a singles format, but you could also say of many black artists (see also Little Richard, James Brown, Chuck Berry, etc). I looked at the album and presumed this would be a few previously released singles, padded out with a few filler tracks. Not strictly a compilation, but a way for Afrika Bambaataa to squeak onto the list through a technicality, but I'm not upset by that.
I was 16 in 1986 and living in Australia. We didn't get to hear a lot of hip hop, but I was entranced by what I did. I was aware of 'Planet Rock' and, if I had been able to source a copy of this album, I totally would have dug it at the time. I loved the heavy drum machine and electro sound that 'Planet Rock' established in 1982 and set the template for much of hip hop for the next five years or so. I listened to exactly this kind of music wherever I could get it around 1986, and this was right up my alley (although my tastes have progressed a bit since then). It was fun to revisit this sound, which I haven't really listened to in decades, but I got back into it.
And I got halfway through the album and suddenly my ears pricked up; what the hell is that? it sounds like.... Tackhead. I _loved_ the industrial funk band Tackhead in the late 80s. I memorably saw them play at Base Nightclub in Sydney in 1989. I knew that some members had been in the Sugarhill label house band, but this sounds like Tackhead proper. And, checking the credits, sure enough 'Who You Funkin' With?' and 'They Made A Mistake' were produced and played by Fats Comet a.k.a. Tackhead! Well, what a joy to hear new tracks by one of my all-time favourite bands, otherwise unrepresented on this list.
That pushes this album from a 3 to a solid 4. It's going on my want list.
Michael Kiwanuka
2/5
"Ooh, we really need some recent releases on the must hear list. This one is recent and won an award! Better stick it on the list."
I don't think many people will remember this record in 10 years time. It's ok, but is it a must listen? I mean, he's got a great voice, and can write a song, and play guitar well enough.
The Danger Mouse production leaves me a little non-plussed. It just sounds like... a Danger Mouse production.
This is an OK album that provides yet another data point to support my hypothesis that Mercury Prize winners are over-rated with little cultural staying power.
Arcade Fire
2/5
I lost interest in so-called 'alternative' music in 2000s. I had kids (who liked pop music), and a busy life, and I thought it was just that I was getting old and irrelevant that I wasn't particularly interested in a lot of the new alternative music coming out. I read enough to be aware of the bands that were getting critical acclaim (The National, Arcade Fire, Wilco, Neutral Milk Hotel, Ryan Adams, etc, etc), but I just thought I was getting old and just didn't get it.
These days I am less inclined to blame myself. I really try with these records, but they are all so pretentious and dull! It's the emperor's new concept album, I swear. How did The Arcade Fire get THREE dull albums onto this list at various times? (Although I note that two have subsequently been removed, including this one)
This is yet another example of critics falling over each other to praise the latest serving of pretentious and earnest literary blancmange.
But really, this kind of music is just a testament to pretentious white middle-class straight male indie rock stars expecting that their creative output will bestow public adulation upon them while simultaneously exonerating their terrible private behaviour. Time has revealed that Win Butler is an arsehole that nobody can stand -- even his wife and brother keep their distance these days. And he's not nearly as clever as he thinks he is. Pretentious white middle-class straight male critics are particularly susceptible to lapping up this conceit -- a form of wish fulfilment fantasy, perhaps? But I think a lot of people are getting sick of the paradigm. I certainly am.
It's literary and worthy, emotional and poetic and profound and tasteful and ambitious and blah blah blah blah blah, I am so bored and slightly appalled. Over-rated.
Herbie Hancock
5/5
Headhunters, hell yeah! One of my measures of whether an album is a classic for me is "could I listen to it every day?" Yes. Yes, I could listen to this every day.
My friend Kate introduced me to this album when we were in high school, and it has been a favourite ever since. I have limited love for most jazz fusion, but this I love. It's funky as hell and a lot of fun; it lives in the damn pocket and the band is playing the hell out of everything. Favourite moment; about 7 minutes into 'Chameleon', the lead synthesizer oscillator goes wildly out of tune, and Herbie wrangles it back into key, landing the plane with both engines on fire.
Herbie Hancock has done many great things over his career, and one of greatest achievements (in my opinion) is to make music that is accessible without dumbing down. This is likeable and catchy without being stupid or pandering. And you can dance to it!
Five stars, no notes.
Stevie Wonder
5/5
Is it heretical to say that this is possibly one of the weaker albums during Stevie Wonder's classic run?
But that is by the standard of STEVIE freaking WONDER in the middle of his imperial period! This still won Album of the Year at the Grammys and is better than 99.99% of releases by everybody else ever.
The singles are bangers (although I have often mused on what 'You Haven't Done Nothing' would have been like with a real drummer).
Deep cuts I liked best: the gospel 'Please Don't Go' and hymn-like 'They Won't Go When I Go'. 'They Won't Go' has a lot of cultural legs; covers by George Michael and Chance the Rapper (check out the performance at NPR Tiny Desk) amongst others, and Stevie movingly played it at Michael Jackson's memorial.
Stevie Wonder is a genius and a treasure. Five stars, no notes.
David Bowie
4/5
I am a big Bowie fan, and will happily listen to any album from Hunky Dory through Let's Dance. I have favourites, but there is always something interesting and worthwhile and usually a couple of really strong songs. In my record collecting in the 90s, I bought a lot of Bowie albums. Many, many albums. Because they were cheap and around. People were dumping their collections and I was happy to pick them up. I particularly like Bowie from about 1975 through 1980, and so particularly hunted those. But sometimes weird things happen, especially when your collection reaches a certain size and you start losing track of what you own. I could have sworn up and down that I owned all of the Berlin trilogy, because of course I did! I live that period of Bowie!
But, it turned out, I didn't own Low. I did, however, own four copies of Lodger, but not Low. How did this happen? I still can't explain it.
As a result, Low is the Bowie album I am least familiar with from his late 70s period. That makes it an enjoyable listen for me because it sounds fresh to me. I like the rough and ready production which gives it an energy and immediacy. The more ambient tracks at the end of the record are more structured than the equivalent tracks on Heroes, and it's an enjoyable and interesting listen. Probably doesn't make my Top Five Bowie albums, but still pretty damn great.
I told my wife the story about not owning Low, and she bought me a coloured vinyl reissue as a Christmas gift. That's real love.
The Doors
3/5
God, I totally don't know what to do with the Doors... Morrison is a total pretentious prat and not nearly as deep as he think she is, the band are a glorified lounge act... and yet, and yet, THIS record is surprisingly listenable.
Most songs are 3 minutes or under, not enough time to outstay their welcome, and the tunes are catchy, the band can swing a little bit, and their dynamic interplay is not too bad. The lyrics are not TOO dumb (for the most part). Light My Fire and The End have a tendency to drag on a bit.
I often think about the way Danny Sugerman describes the impact of seeing the early Doors as a 13-year-old boy with ADHD, which is probably the core audience for this record.
I really want to hate The Doors, but this album is kinda fun. I can forgive the band for this record.
(Footnote: Alfie did point out that the opening of Soul Kitchen sounds a lot like Walking on the Sun by Smashmouth. Just sayin')