Is "Respect" a Toploader? Yes, but only in the sense that it is one of the ten best songs of the twentieth century (and probably the best cover). Everything pales beside it...

Surprisingly (sunny why, tho – no idea why I expected what I was expecting) melodic and enjoyable. The outtakes and extras were a bit...extra. Still

To describe an album as being full of album cuts seems ungenerous (as well as illogical). But there we have it. Lots of noodles and doodling, some esoteric songwriting, but nothing of note, really.

and "Dancing in the Dark", the last to be recorded, on February 14, 1984. The latter was written overnight, after co-producer Jon Landau convinced Springsteen that the album needed a single. According to Dave Marsh in Glory Days, Springsteen was not impressed with Landau's approach. "Look," he snarled, "I've written 70 songs. You want another one, you write it." After blowing off some steam, Springsteen came in the next day with the entire song written. Marsh, Dave. Glory Days. Pantheon. Born in the U.S.A. became the first compact disc manufactured in the United States for commercial release when CBS and Sony opened its CD manufacturing plant in Terre Haute, Indiana in September 1984. Wikipedia

However, the album's best-known track, "Son of a Preacher Man", was not among these, and was originally written with the idea of submitting it to Aretha Franklin. (Franklin cut her own version of the song in 1969 after Springfield's single reached the #10 position in the Billboard Hot 100.) The recording was a challenge for Wexler. In his book Rhythm and the Blues, Wexler wrote that out of all the songs that were initially submitted to Springfield for consideration, "she approved exactly zero." For her, he continued, "to say yes to one song was seen as a lifetime commitment."[9] Springfield disputed this, saying she did choose two: "Son of a Preacher Man" and "Just a Little Lovin'".[10] He was surprised, given Dusty's talent, by her apparent insecurity. Springfield later attributed her initial unease to a very real anxiety about being compared with the soul greats who had recorded in the same studios. Eventually Dusty's final vocals were recorded in New York.[11] Additionally, Springfield stated that she had never before worked with just a rhythm track, and that it was the first time she had worked with outside producers, having self-produced her previous recordings (something for which she never took credit). During the Memphis sessions in November 1968, Springfield suggested to the heads of Atlantic Records that they should sign the newly formed Led Zeppelin group. She knew the band's bass player John Paul Jones, who had backed her in concerts before. Without having ever seen them and largely on Dusty's advice,[12] the record company signed the group with a $143,000 advance. (Mick Wall (2005). "No Way Out": 83.) Despite modest sales, it was the first of a small wave of "in Memphis"-style albums that were recorded by pop singers at American Recording Studios.

Popular music scholar Yuval Taylor described it as "a burning hot prefiguring" of the music that Miles Davis would perform on his 1975 live album Agharta. Other sources say the title is a reference to band leader George Clinton finding his brother's "decomposed dead body, skull cracked, in a Chicago apartment." According to legend, the 10-minute title track was recorded in one take when Clinton, under the influence of LSD, told guitarist Eddie Hazel to play as if he had been told his mother was dead The cover artwork depicts a screaming black woman's head coming out of the earth; it was photographed by Joel Brodsky and features model Barbara Cheeseborough In 2003, Rolling Stone ranked Maggot Brain #486 on the magazine's list of 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, with the magazine raising its rank in 2012 to #479, calling it "the heaviest rock album the P-Funk ever created". In the 2020 reboot of the list, the album's rank shot up to #136.

Shirley Manson had been performing with the Edinburgh-based rock band Goodbye Mr Mackenzie since 1984. In 1993, several of the members, including Manson, formed the side project Angelfish. Their only studio album, the self-titled Angelfish, was as commercially unsuccessful as preceding albums by Goodbye Mr Mackenzie, selling only 10,000 copies. Initial sessions with Vig on vocals and the members' past work with all-male groups led to the band's desire for a woman on lead. Marker was watching 120 Minutes when he saw the one-time airing of the music video for Angelfish's "Suffocate Me". He showed the video to Erikson and Vig while their manager, Shannon O'Shea, tracked Manson down. When Manson was contacted, she didn't know who Vig was and was urged to check the credits on Nirvana's album Nevermind, which Vig had produced. On April 8, 1994, Manson met Erikson, Marker and Vig for the first time in London. Later that evening Vig was informed of Kurt Cobain's suicide Garbage continued to work on the album throughout the start of 1995, delayed by Vig's work producing Soul Asylum's Let Your Dim Light Shine album and the songs being "piecemealed together in the studio". Vig described the composing process as a "dysfunctional democracy" where someone would bring a loop or a sample, which was followed by jam sessions in which the band members would "find one bar that's kind of cool, load that into our samplers, jam on top of that, [and] Shirley will ad-lib", with the process continuing until the song was finished, often with "all of the original ideas gone, and the song had somehow mutated into something completely different." Among the songs that were completely reworked, "As Heaven Is Wide" went from "a big rock track" to a techno-style song with Tom Jones-inspired beats, only keeping Erikson's fuzz bass and Manson's vocals from the original recording

Incendiary!

Not that it is bad per se. But, like, Masters of Puppets covered this territory almost a decade earlier. Underwhelmed.

Choose your own (aural) adventure…

Huh. Bit off piste here. Pleasant surprise

“I want a girl with extensions” (Around the Way Girl). Boy, nothing dates the album like this. (Although, to be fair, the diversity of hair clip use these days could give this line a new lease of life…) The very conservative use of samples and loops makes me realise, belatedly, that this album was pointed directly at the mainstream. Got there just in time too - The Chronic and Gangster Rap reshaped that landscape just a year or so later…) On the whole, a period piece rather than a classic. Mama Said Knock You Out is still banging, tho…

Carrie Snodgrass. That's a blast from the past. Ambulance Blues stands up with the best of Young's work. I got this on CD not long after it had (finally) been re-released. It was already been discounted heavily, which was a surprise. At first. If (a huge counterfactual here) Youtube had been around a decade earlier, would this record have attained a cult status? I think not. It's not quite the digression from the commerciality (bestowed retrospectively) of Harvest, it's a rather middling endeavour. But scarcity created a sense of value.

One to return to. Intriguing, if noisy

Q: what sets Nevermind (and, perhaps, Ten) apart from the rest of the Grunge crowd? A: It’s pretty hard imagining an R n B cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit. This is not a diss of 90s RnB, much of which I liked. The point is that much of it, and 90s HipHop, was producer-driven brilliance. So too Grunge, but lacking the brill bit. The drums on Dirt are fucking fantastic, the guitars intriguing, and Layne Staney’s voice would carry anyone for an age. But it’s at least 60% producer wizardry, isn’t it? (If I were more committed to this task, I’ll search out the demos for this. But there’s only so much time in the world…) Imagine SWV or Aaliyah hitting Would? :)

This is quite frustrating. I've spent my life happily untroubled by the need to justify my dislike for Elvis Costello. And then I get two of his albums in a week. There is an important place for irrational loathing in this world – mainly the fact that one never feels motivated to act on it. Having struggled through this milquetoast offering, I now have the distinct urge to kill an ant or something equally unpleasant. (Note to self.) I generally do not pay attention to lyrics. Too intellectual a response. I need my my music to grab my by the short and curlies, to drag me down to uncharted emotional depths. Searing guitars, plaintive voices (not lyrics, mind: voices), bone-juddering bass lines, ethereal chants: All have done the trick in the past, all will do so in the future. I'm sort of tempted to listen to this again, just to see if there is anything in the word arrangement that justifies the foolishness people express about Mr C. But this may make me even angrier yet. So no.

So-so. Inoffensive, a little dull. The wikipedia entry for the album was more entertaining. (i.e. didn't know that Gladys Knight and the Pips were first on the slate with I Heard It Through the Grapevine. As for the performance shenanigans of the Dennis Edwards era...life is sometimes more scandalous that fiction.)

So...I'm going to have to (at least slightly) revise my opinion on Elvis Costello, given that he produced this album. It is a period piece, true, but a fairly good one. Odd thing about this is that it is easy to be pessimistic about the state of the nation etc. But even it its pessimism, stuff like ska actually pointed out other viable possibilities, an organic reorganisation of the order of the day. The point is to remember this, and not what the naysayers have to say. They always have something to say. Most of it is useless.

Q: What's better, The Bends or OK Computer? A: Kid A Which isn't entirely fair...on OK Computer. But that's by the point What one often forgets is that Radiohead are a *brave* outfit. They're restless, adventurous, and have never been afraid to explore new territory. Which is saying something for a band of five guys who've been making music for 30 years. This is their last *explicitly* commercial album. Not in the sense that they aren't in the business of scoring and retaining a hold on a distinct fanbase (I think every musician wants this – its always a matter of scale, rather than intentions), but rather that they've worked from instinct rather critique ever since. I always think that the transition occurs somewhere between High and Dry and Street Spirit (Fade Out). The former is serviceable, but it's music making by supervision – where are the hit singles, etc. The latter isn't very far away from it, but it's much looser, less constrained, more ... real? It hasn't always been a smooth upwards trajectory ever since (Hail to the Thief and King of Limbs both have notable bad patches). But its been their own journey ever since The Bends

Indifferent, to be honest. Quite excited to *rediscover* Chris Thomas, though. Had no idea that he produced songs on the White Album, for instance. Sounds like quite an affable chap. (I suppose one would have to be to work with Pink Floyd. Writs and all that.)

Did a REM binge a while ago, so this is still relatively fresh in the conscious mind. It's a bit of a bridge album – doesn't have the fresh looseness of their first few albums, and the songwriting feels a bit forced. But it is better than Green, which I (personally) think is the weakest of their pre AFTP albums. Anyway. I only now found out that Jefferson Holt got the boot for what may have been an alleged#MeToo situation. It seems that he got our learned friends to keep the matter nice and quiet. Shows how much my thinking has moved on from them days. I always assumed he'd be fast and loose with the double entry ledger... REM and "College Rock" will always be synonymous in my head. Unwashed, unshaved, reeking of stale beer and cheap aftershave. The audience, that is. I do not say this mockingly. I got to REM at a slightly more advanced stage in my evolution, but I had been that dude. Just with different music.

You know, Comedy is one of my all time favourite singles, and it really breaks my heart that the album doesn't get anywhere close to it. They set the bar too high, they did. So it goes.

Oh this is so joyful.

It’s a good album, it’s different to most stuff of the time. But it kinda sets itself an almost impossible task with the opening track, which is a killer and a half, before becoming distinctly domesticated. It is what it is, I suppose.

Well. Le Cont is Stuart Price. Which makes that shtick an extremely worthwhile proof-of-concept. Still didn’t like it, tho.

I quite like the fact that Ken Norton produced both The Pixies and Busted. (Wikipedia quite charmingly describes Busted a a punk band. O tempora, o mores...)

I guess you had to be there to get it. 'Chains' earns it a lot of goodwill, though. Ok, the second half of chains. The ‘Top Gear’ bit. And that skateboard song too. Laidback and fuck. But otherwise, the album is largely caterwauling for a live studio audience.

The Swedish album. ABBA (who I love) have a lot to answer for. A quick poll of a few teenagers who were in the sweet spot for this album when it was released: they remember nothing. Pop, good Pop at least, must be memorable and enduring. This album fails on the second count. (I’ll pass on the first.) Nobody argues if the new Taylor Swift album is better than the last, because no one remembers the last. (This may be a failing of autobiographical Pop too…)

If I ever needed reminding that I was a teenage Tory, then this is it. In my defence, my location and surroundings made this more or less inevitable. At my school, the furthest left anyone would have been would have been fair bit to the right of, say, Bill Clinton. (Some of us who relocated Stateside would have enthusiastically voted for him in 1992. And I'm not saying that this is (necessarily) a bad thing, but, you know. Youth. Radical politics. etc. Not on our register). it holds up pretty well. Some absolute AOR (to borrow an Americanism) classics here, like The Man's Too Strong. And, I mean, this was more cutting edge than Christopher Cross. And in the somewhat privileged West African milieu I inhabited back in the day, guitar Rock was a fucking radical thing to enjoy. (Note. Yes, I listened to Police, and Prince, and Depeche Mode, and the Pet Shop Boys, and Kraftwerk, in 1985. Favourites then, still favourites now.) (Also in my defence. Brothers in Arms was a gateway drug to Def Leppard, then Metallica, then Anthrax, then Industrial, then Einstürzende Neubaten, then Nick Cave etc etc. No, not a gateway drug to REO Speedwagon and Journey. Anyway, just saying that some good did come out of this album for me, via one of my many make-your-own-adventure musical lifetimes .)

God that was dull

well. You know. Waterloo Sunset.

Is it me, or is Poor Boy the proof-of-concept for Screamadelica?

Circa 1993, it was impossible to read Q and not have a nuanced, often contradictory opinion about Suede. (NME and Select readers, accustomed to being told what to think, had no opinions worth noting.) On the balance, Suede were not the collective Messiah. But they did have a picture of two lesbians kissing on the cover of their album 30 years ago. That’s one in the eye for the young ‘uns who think that history started in 2010. (Yes, I was the same etc etc) (The full image is actually quite interesting. The artists didn’t give them permission to use it. More trouble than it was worth, she thought.)

<yawn> Ok, a bit unfair. However. My introduction to EW&F was thru unscheduled interstitial on NTA2 Channel 5 (if you know, you know) - snippets of a TV Special hosted by Natalie Cole. The costumes. The hair. The unbridled exuberance. Next to that, this is like Protestant church music. My argument is that six albums in or not, they hadn’t quite found their metier. Thank the heavens they did.

Mike Patton is on record saying that he shakes his bottom better than Anthony Kiedis. True or not, he’d have done better if he could sing better than AK. One theory is that this is low on the evolution chain that runs from swamp dwelling to Nu Metal. A competing theory posits that this is pretty far along the chain - just that the genre didn’t go very far. Epic is still fun. Thy said, it’s weird listening to albums like this, a generation after deciding not to spend my pocket money on a whim and the influence of a hot single. Thank goodness for common sense.

Well, you know. Worthy. Indulgent. Sometimes plain dull. (Ok, to be fair, idk how groundbreaking this was in the day itself. But I do know that other groups - Brass Construction, Skyy, Dynasty, the funkier parts of the Solar Records roster, generally - grabbed the ball and ran much further with it. Give the guy a living legend medal and move along, I think.

as first albums go, this is fucking ace. As first singles go (is this right? to lazy to check) Sultans of Swing is neither the best, not the most radio-friendly cut. Embarrassment of riches. When I first heard this (retro-tracking the back catalogue in the wake of Brothers in Arms) I used to imagine the ideal listener of the time. Its late. Co-habitants have buggered off to sleep. Outside, the silence lays thick. Indoors, single lamp by most comfortable armchair. Brushing off the vinyl, pouring out a subtle malt (generous serving), and settling down for 40 minutes of me, myself and I. Subtle malt and vinyl aside (I lack the resources for one, the temperamental inclinations for the other), I did this last night. God, it felt good.

This is the breakup album, right? Not that it should be anthropomorphised to one person's unhappiness, obvs. (Later) No it isn’t. Apropos of nothing, time for a self-clarification of this wretched star system. Five stars. Indispensable. It is a privilege to be (re)acquainted with this masterpiece. Will be downloaded onto my device and listened to regularly. Four Star. A fine album. My impressions may be tainted by subjective memory muscle responses (on the whole, albums released between 1985 and 1999). At the least, a prompt to explore the artist/band’s back catalogue, get a sense of context. Or an excuse to wallow in nostalgia for a bit. Three Star. Serviceable. At the worst inoffensive, at the best well made but ephemeral. Every so often, a song or two give cause for closer consideration, but on the whole nothing here that will change any aspect of my life. Two Star. Poor/cynical/unformed. Like most music, it will mean something g to someone somewhere. I’m not that person One Star. Mum got her church group to buy a copy each. You know the Brian Eno anecdote about the Velvet Underground? Well, whoever made this album went to a Kenny G concert and was similarly moved. Poor us. Blur is a four star, even though objectively I think it might be a three. It was a big break from Britpop. In retrospect, they did a Radiohead before Radiohead. (Alburn, who is one of the most curious people in pop - a compliment) was all over Pavement and Dinosaur Jr. at the time.) Aside from the radio ‘friendly’ unit shifters here, some underrated classics (Strange News from Another Star - Bowie for the 21st cen., anyone?) Blur don’t deserve the opprobrium heaped on them. Yes, they were (are) precious. But never opportunistic.

When Spike Lee came into town to promote The 25th Hour, he had a Q & A at what is now Everyman Islington. Someone had given him an Arsenal shirt; he immediately started playing the hooligan by applying American race relation tropes to the UK situation. Ah, I miss those innocent days… Anyway. Bought this album purely on the basis of the Springsteen song on the Spike Lee Joint’s soundtrack (‘The Fuse’) (I’m just going to say now that, for all sorts of reasons, the record company bloc had downloading and streaming coming for them from a mile away. The saw it, and waited for the catastrophe like a rabbit caught in the headlights. Buying an overpriced album because it’s the only way to enjoy a song at one’s leisure. Sheesh. It wasn’t home taping that killed music, it was EMI) Anyway. It sounded pompous then, and still sounds pompous now. The loathing I had for Springsteen many a year ago has mellowed to a grudging respect (although, tbh, why should anyone give a hoot about what I think about The Boss?) (Murder Inc was the song that forced me to give his back catalogue an honest reappraisal. Anyone who can do that must be half-way to good at the least) Bruce, like Spike, is a prisoner of the hype around him. Because we live in a hyper literal age now, once again, the circle has closed and he fits properly in the zeitgeist. But this album, nevertheless, belongs to a different time. About 20 years past. When fairly or not, not many people were too bothered about what he did, and his main constituency were men who then were about the age I am now. Nostalgia blunts our critical facilities, I fear…

Ok, here’s something odd. Even though the Tupac lost cuts cottage industry continued to roll out albums for donkey’s years after his death (or, if you haunt some seriously unserious corners of the internet, after he removed himself from the fame game and relocated to Peckham) I have never sat and listened to an album of his from start to end. First time for everything… (Afterwards). Great delivery, shame about the production

Spellbound is still lovely. Still an odd mix. Not totally-related observation. In Notes on a Scandal, the Cate Blanchett character puts on a vinyl version of a S+tB song, Dizzy. She says (I think; if I were diligent about this, I'd do a check, but...) that it's an old favourite. This is impossible, tho. Said song didn't exist in this past, not on vinyl or anywhere else...

so-so. Very much of its time. (cf. Fascinating Rhythm, which is much more adventurous.)

There's something contrary about leaving one of the best songs of the 21st century (Mykonos) off your debut album. I've really worked at this album over the years. But, I'm sorry to report, there's much less to it than meets the eye.

Is "Respect" a Toploader? Yes, but only in the sense that it is one of the ten best songs of the twentieth century (and probably the best cover). Everything pales beside it...

Uneventful. Never quite figured why I skew Calexico over Wilco so strongly.

The joke almost goes on too long.

First album I didn’t listen to all the way through. It isn’t bad, it’s just determinedly undistinguished. Brings nothing new to the table. At best, an example of common-or-garden variety Synthpop circa 1982. Fungible to the nth degree.

Ah come on. I don’t need to do this. Anyway, in no particular order: Greg Phillianges; the red zip up jacket in ‘Beat It’; Ola Ray; Eddie Van Halen; Mr Quincy Jones; bunched up jacket sleeves; Paul McC genuinely relevant (even if not genuinely good) post Beatles; tiger print pocket square; Say Na Na Na - Na Na Na; Hot Rod Temperton; etc etc.

Rubbish.

Yes, we can boogie.

A good listen. Older and wiser, the "contrivances" (i.e. this didn't emerge whole from a jam session) are clearer (actually, would it be fair to say the the craft, as opposed to a natural predisposition for aesthetics, is more obvious now?) but still a jolly good listen

Perfectly sound for what it is, but not for me, I fear

Belinda Carlisle on a Specials album. Huh.

I sometimes think (unfairly) that Coldplay was what pushed Radiohead firmly into the leftfield. The chronology doesn't quite work, obviously. But, nonetheless, it is interesting to note that after early material that tracked pre-Kid A Radiohead, A Rush of Blood went headlong after a stadium pleasing bombast that aligned more closely with another big album from the year 2000 – U2's All That You Can't Leave Behind. The best of this album are the songs that bookend it - the 9/11 influenced Politik, and the elegiac Amsterdam. In between, any number of above average, slightly over-polished excursions on a basic theme. I'm not sure whether A Rush of Blood...has aged well, or that it simply stands up well against the hackneyed material Coldplay have served up in recent years. Either way, it's definitely a fan favourite, a pleasant stroll into nostalgia for raging pop-pickers like me, and a perfect introduction for the 15 year old who doesn't understand what Coldplay did to deserve the platform they have today.

You know, it'll be really good to give The Joshua Tree this treatment. Oh, Zooropa is better. Don't care what anyone says. But this is good

Dominion/Mother Russia is a goth masterpiece. The last of the album flags a fair bit, and has aged rather poorly. But still has its time and place intact...

nah. not for me.

There's a charisma to this recording that eases itself across time, space, even the setting for the recording (live albums always capture a different kind of energy, I think. There's an intimacy here that is neither a natural presence on the stage or even in the studio.).

Not quite fun for all the family. I never quite figured out the fuss about JaMC in the "mature" music press back in the day. Older and "mature" myself now, I sort of get it. Sort of.

Long, occasionally tiresome. I'm not at all familiar with the band, but I did listen to the album when it came out and thought much the same thing then. Seems a bit like a proof-of-concept than a work with an internal sense of direction, if you know what I mean...

Ok, so they aren’t one hit wonders. (Boss Drum is a miracle of the electronic age). But this is just a long cliche looking for a beach to happen.

Quite the discovery. I knew a bit about the Byrds, but nothing of Gene Clark, before listening to this. Elegiac, lucid, really lovely album

not for me. Interesting to capture melody as a distinct element of thrash metal. Still, merely a curiosity for me, I don't think I could warm to this. Rating here is purely subjective.

OK. Chain of Fools is a jam, of course. Otherwise, competent but conservative.

"Frat boy" is an over used and (probably) unfair pejorative often used to describe early Beastie Boys. Nonetheless: I still think, many years on, that this album cleaves closer to the philosophy of performed hip hop than to the organic spirit of the genre. I guess someone coming in cold to their oeuvre (unlikely, but bear with me) today might find some retro appeal to production techniques etc, but not much else. Or maybe I'm wrong.

Whimsy fun.

Indulgent fun for (specific) indulgent occasions. No real point in spinning this disc before 11pm, or alone.

I can't really detach this from the halcyon days of XFM etc. Still a good 'un.

Maps is a great song. Album with attitude, which perhaps wins out over the actual music.

Huh. An interesting time capsule. The version of People Everyday isn’t the hit single version which is both surprising and not at once.

Mmm. I see the charm. But not really for me

Singles aside (especially "Sonnet" and "Lucky Man") hasn't aged as well as one might have thought back in the day...

Electro-Punk? Post-New Wave? Neo-Techno? My thinking about LCD Soundystem has always been that you had to be there to get it. And I was a long way away from here... It has that false DIY vibe (cc. Arular), but with none of the charm home made one man shows are supposed to promote. It just seems rather mechanical...

Good contemporary stuff, although a bit too forward for my sensitive ears. Don’t think it has long term staying power though, very much on the disposable end of the pop spectrum (unlike, for example, Solangés album, which is a clear inspiration)

Electro Punk in the wild.

I'm genuine surprised by how much I enjoyed this album. Velvet Rope has sort of smothered the genuine ...well not charm, more like excitement, of 1814. It might be that the mechanised aspect of the lead video and production lumped it, mentally, with the proto-techno of the time (this demands unpacking – another time, another time...). Anyway.

It was a ...not a genre breaker, but certainly thrust Metal into the mainstream. I wonder how the album would have done without Nothing Else Matters. Matters not, we'll never know. That was the gateway to Everywhere I Roam, and for this we shall always be grateful It must be said that it has aged not quite as gracefully as, say, ...And Justice for All. Something about compromising for the zeitgeist?

Is it fair to think of Bad in the same way one (now thinks of Kanye West's 808 and Heartbreaks? An underrated album, belated recognised as the first step in an artist's creative zenith? Yes and no. Bad is underrated. If it were a couple of songs shorter, it might have been a flawed masterpiece (exit stage left, Speed Demon, for example). As it is, it is flawed. But with more than the occasional flash of genius (Smooth Criminal, Liberian Girl, Man in the Mirror). Kanye did MBDF, the first great album of the 10s, next. Michael, unfortunately, became a circus attraction: the good in his subsequent albums (and there was a lot of good) swamped by gossip, eccentricity, and ultimately tragedy. So it goes...

OK. Kashmir is a jam, obvs, but I think it's the drumming that stands out most on this album. Surprised to discover a direct line between this and Jeff Buckley's Grace

not for me in the present frame of mind

Few things, now or ever, like Dusty's voice.

Wagner's voice is like salted caramel chocolate. It shouldn't work but it does. Likewise, Nixon feels too mature an album to be a genuine breakthrough hit, but here we are...

I see the charm but still...it still feels like an album that lots of people like because they have been told that it is a likeable album. I don't feel that it holds enough – whether in the context of its release, or retrospectively – to justify its mythological status. But that may just be me. (cc. Dylan)

She has such a sonorous voice! When the Pawn...tops this, I think. But as debuts go, it is something special

Harmless fun

You know, we have to come to terms with the fact that The Smiths were a pop group. Literate and verbose for the genre, but still a pop group. And extremely good too. How can anyone hear "Stop Me" and not be lost forever? I don't know.

Wow. Still a winner

Surprisingly (sunny why, tho – no idea why I expected what I was expecting) melodic and enjoyable. The outtakes and extras were a bit...extra. Still

Once, on the strength of a gushing profile of Jony Ive's production team at Apple, I went out and bought Interpol's Turn On the Bright Lights. (It's complicated, ok? Let's just accept that I was a shallow and callow young man.) Not entirely surprisingly, the album was not to my liking (I did try bloody hard, I have to say), and I eventually disposed of the evidence of my foolishness in a charity shop. Never thought about Interpol until listening to this, many years on. I didn't buy High Violet at the time (thank you, unnamed music blog. God, those were the days...). I did like the anthemic pomp pf "London" (and, turns out, I still do); and like Turn On...I tried hard to like the cool new alt-rockers on the scene. I failed better with The National. But the point is that I wasn't their constituency, and neither them mine. Sometimes, it is best to accept the natural order of things as it is.

It’s easy – and helpful – to forget that this is the soundtrack to one* of the worst films of the 1980s. I mean, I really worked on liking this film. Really worked. But after a fourth watch, I pretty much lost the will to live. (I was, in a dumb 12 year old kind of way, quite shocked to discover that it is actually ok to like the album but hate the film. Sort of like loving the sinner but hating the sin.) *‘Purple Rain’, believe it or not, is not even the worst film Prince made in the 80s.

Oh. Trevor Horn. Now that makes a lot of sense... Everyone likes "The Look of Love" and "Poison Arrow", but I'd never bothered thinking deeply about ABC beyond this (other than once when Montell Jordan gushed lovingly about them in an interview, which was a bit of a surprise). I want to call this "polished", but I think the appellation unfair. Competent tunes carefully shaped into sums greater than their parts; complicated but never overbearing production; carefully calibrated balance of voices, instruments, and ambience, forming a pleasing whole. In short, Trevor Horn.

This got me thinking (via Kelafa Sanneh's excellent book about genre and music) about shortcuts, approximations, and the slippery slope that ends in shouts of cultural appropriation etc. The temptation is to place an artist in a box – commercial considerations, fear of the unknown, if-you-liked-that-then-you'll-like-this, etc. In this case, my first instinct was to think of Armatrading as proto-Tracy Chapman. Two things about this (1) Astonishingly lazy thinking on my part. They're nothing alike (2) I bet you Armatrading came up in an early marketing meeting for Ms C. it is what it is, I suppose. Creativity and imagination do exist in the sausage factory. My task is to enjoy the former without becoming a hostage to the latter "Love and Affection" is an amazing song, by the way.

Came to King Crimson via a cycling blog on Facebook (‘Epitaph’, scoring Merckx’s last day ever in Yellow, when he broke on Puy-de-Domê. Real pathos. Anyway, groovy jazz funk album, precursor for a decade of the excess and indulgence that is (British) Prog.

(The drummer aside) a triumph of enthusiasm over ability. But that’s what rock and roll should be about, no?

Strewth. Kill me now.

I get the attraction, but something about j. M's voice rubs me the Wrong way

Gentle.

To describe an album as being full of album cuts seems ungenerous (as well as illogical). But there we have it. Lots of noodles and doodling, some esoteric songwriting, but nothing of note, really.

I’ve always thought of the NWOBHM as an authentic precursor for Drum and Bass, Jungle and (for its sins) Gabber - in short, an aesthetic and musical precursor to some of the more interesting (and some of the more appalling) aspects of rave culture of the 90s. Anyway, never listened to anything by IM other than their ‘Straight in at No.1!’ strategically timed single releases. This is actually entertaining, in a slightly overwrought way. (Fun fact - Bruce Dickinson flies planes (commercial jets? I think, but not entirely certain) these days.)

If I must…

The solo in Smoke Over Water excuses a multitude of…well, not sins. But something not good.

Raucous. Unpolished. Summertime is a great cover, though. On a completely unrelated note. This is listed as an “Apple Digital Remaster”. Sounded like it had been filtered through Woodstock mud. Not sure whether noise cancelling headphones have made me a (far) more discriminating hearer, that my hearing is deteriorating, or …

Meh.

Overrated, if you ask me. (So is Swordfishtrombone, but that’s another matter altogether)

As someone said once.: if you are ever disappointed in Morrisey, that’s entirely on you. Anyways. Good, robust melancholia..

We need to talk about headphones culture. Seriously.

A bit rushed, no? Mind you, we spend forever and a day complaining about the perfectionism on Aja, so, you know, dismounting high horses and all that.

Ah - ah. Why do this to me? Didn't know until recently that Martyn Ware produced this album

Gateway drug for Kraftwerk was Africa Bambata, then "Breaking" (the scene where Shrimp dances with a broom, scored to "Tour de France". Nice thing about coming late to the party is that there is so much waiting to be discovered...

An album of its time. In this case, ‘time’ being the aborted sessions of the late 1960s rather that its belated release in 2004. It does have its charm, but it doesn’t add anything to the Beach Boys canon (completists, you can pretend I don’t exist. I’m cool with this)

It took me a *very* long time to warm to this album. On the balance, though, it is the most ... authentic? organic? ... of MA's first three albums. (Mezzanine, which is my favourite, has Del Naja's bleakness hanging over it; Blue Lines is a great album, but a little bumpy win places.) Anyway...

Undistinguished. "Blister in the Sun is fun", but aside from that ...

Huh! That was fun in a subversive way. As for the number of unrequited/rejected/betrayed love songs...

“Hey Siri, what is French Nihilism?” Unfair to rate, as not for me *at all*

Never heard of him (had heard covers of his songs, of course.) Rich, sonorous voice coupled with rather unimaginative arrangements. I’m guessing that there’s something here I’m not seeing - perhaps one had to be there to get it. Anyway, imho a rather undistinguished album…

Playful and self-deprecating, despite the earnestness of the project.

Whoa. Exuberant sonic assault. I mean, I'm pleased for them and all that they were able to have fun, but this just smacked me in the goolies. For half an hour.

I remain impervious to the charms of Mr Zimmerman...

So, the correct answer to this is anchored by whether (or not) you like the second half of “Freebird”. I do, and this will overlook the multiple crimes against creativity that the rest of this album commits.

An album-length reprise of ‘Rocking in the Free World’. Not really worth the trouble, imho.

So, all things considered. It helped that Eminem actually can spit lyrics. And that he kept his nasal whine. And that Dre saw beyond the physicalities and focused on the potential. And that 1999 was not 2019, and we had a more nuanced understanding of 'cultural appropriation'. (Don't get me wrong, there was hot shit on stilts then too. And far fewer people were paying attention to the egregrity of this behaviour. Nevertheless...)

Strictly irrelevant, but still...Motown Records? Possibly a licensing issue... Anyways. Dull.

Soporific. Probably also laxative.

I get the artist's prerogative, but still... For good or for bad (probably bad), my least favourite KB album. It's the one that saddled her with the 'away with the faeries' label. Which is an unfair distraction from her marvellous body of work, and has inspired a generation of lesser beings to (try to) emulate something they don't quite get.

I first heard Frank in a wine shop. Which makes me sad. Not the booze and stuff, but because I was trying to become domesticated at the time (I failed), and for a while this became semiotic cue for all the things I foolishly wanted to be at the age of 30 whatever. I guess it was actively disliking Back to Black (I've gone back somewhat on this over the years) that nudged me into listening to this a little more carefully. Winehouse's voice here was subtle, delicate, abrasive, plaintive, brash...I wonder what a different set of producers might have made of her?

New Wave Emo. tbf, the presence of Julian Cope ought to be warning enough of this...

Meh. "Apache" or not.

Hot 'meh'. Actually, this 'meh' is becoming predictable shorthand, with no thought behind it. So: (1) Sounds like sub-par Dylan. (2) I hate Dylan . (To be fair, this falls under 'meh' criticism. My dislike of Dylan is capricious, untested and quite possibly unsubstatiable.) (3) The production is really weedy. Lots of places where a bit of backbone would have made a big difference. But no banana. (4) Lyrically, absent without leave. I suppose this must strike some person's sweet spot. And it is helpful to remember the subjective element inherent in any ranking and recommendation process (mine included0. Even so...

Sharon Osborne and Billy Corgan. I think about this a lot

Sharon Osborne and Billy Corgan. I think about them a lot sometimes. I mean, how the hell did they think they could work with each other? Never mind. Great album. Still too long. But that’s the distinction between great and magnificent

Is this actually random? 200+ albums and the first DM I get is the day after Fletch dies. Reminds me of the problems Apple had with the shuffle facility on the original iPod (summary: peeps refused to believe that random was random, and so an algorithm was introduced into the software to create randomity. If such a word exists. Which probably mirrors the whole process of creating a random sequence. For people with a very fixed idea of what random should mean.)

The cover of "Because" (Deluxe Edition) is the perfect synthesis of past and present. Pseuds' Corner observation over.

Ayn Rand was once acceptable in polite Canadian society. That, and/or there are a lot of Boomer Bros north of the border...

A hip hip artefact (meant in a positive way). Funny to think that once, there were next to no female MCs. (The conversation about the job specification for female rappers is for people wiser that this writer.) Production credits are a veritable who's who of late 80s hip hop – De La Soul, KRS One, Prince Paul, with Fab Five Freddy lurking in the wings. Happy days...

Sprawl. Good sprawl though.

Noice

The hill I am prepared to die on: Mitch Mitchell is the star of this album

Production -4 Stars Talent - Well, let’s just say that copious use of the word ‘Fuck’ usually indicates a limited contextual vocabulary. ‘Fuck’ is, of course, an important aspect of relationship life - the terrain of Ms Kelala’s album. But (surprise surprise) other things come into the mix too. Not that you’d know it from the patchy lyrics and lavish use of auto tune, pitch shifter and other audio black magic. Not worth the time or the fucking money. And yes, I know it cost me nothing to listen to this album. Still…

First time for everything etc. Actually, I get the appeal. But I don't get the fanaticism. Nor the line in The Boys of Summer. So what if a Deadhead wants to drive a Cadillac? We all succumb to the dark side eventually, one way or the other...

Promoted above its station. (‘Motorcycle Emptiness’, in and of itself, stands as proof of this.) It’s a better-than-ok album, but (1) its primary utility was to introduce me to MSPs back catalogue, which I was only vaguely aware of before then, and (2) I guess is a ‘narrative’ album - the narrative the press latching on to here being Richey Edwards - the REM palaver, ‘For Real’, and finally his disappearance. Lots of people (like me) knew about all this without actually knowing their music.

Jazz rock or post rock? Important question, because then one can determine whether to compare this to - say - Electric Miles and Mahivishnu Orchestra, or to Mogwai and Godspeed! You Black Emperor. Why does this matter? The album is improvison weak, but sonically adventurous. I’m going with Post Rock.

For someone who always associated CTA with Peter Cetera and his works, this was a sharp (and bewildering) shock. My preferred response would have been not to rate this, because I simply don’t get the smorgasbord served up here. But since this isn’t an option…