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Mon Jan 24 2022
The Fat Of The Land
The Prodigy
A trio of unmatchable singles, some decent album tracks but there is filler and tracks are stretched out. While the heights are greater than previous album Jilted Generation it's not as consistent.
4
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Tue Jan 25 2022
Exile On Main Street
The Rolling Stones
Perhaps the Stones most consistent album across 18 tracks, so a very solid four stars. But there's no track here that would get in a Stones top tent. So four stars.
4
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Wed Jan 26 2022
Veckatimest
Grizzly Bear
Just passed by without really touching the sides, there are occasional flashes of something more interesting but it's Fleet Foxes style stuff all the way really.
2
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Thu Jan 27 2022
Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim
Frank Sinatra
First album I've never heard before. After the initial Frank resistance (AKA oh gawd the 'My Way' guy), this is very listenable. All about phrasing and being on, ahead or behind the beat. Subtle and seductive.
3
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Fri Jan 28 2022
Aqualung
Jethro Tull
Not a band I would listen to, and their reputation is not inviting. Surprisingly sprightly and concise, mostly, with some excellent tunes. Solid 3, but the amount of flute will prevent more.
3
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Sat Jan 29 2022
Mermaid Avenue
Billy Bragg
a real curates egg - some seem like proper songs (Minor Key) others like a mess of lyrics and jams (Ingrid Bergman). Overall the feel of a high class album where the albums gets everyone to cover an artists tracks, rather than a proper album.
3
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Sun Jan 30 2022
Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo
Devo
Hard to imagine the shock this would have had on release. Still utterly bonkers in places, the best ever Satisfaction cover, and in Mongoloid a song that could never have been written today (I remember the lyrics being printed in Smash Hits). Only not a 5 as one too many song follows the same template.
4
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Mon Jan 31 2022
Let England Shake
PJ Harvey
Great sound and lyrics slightly lacking at times in the tunes dept hence 4 stars. Dipped a bit on re-listening from when I remember it last.
4
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Tue Feb 01 2022
Metallica
Metallica
Riff rehabilitation. As important an album as Nevermind in showing the way ahead for rock in the 90s. Cunning to include a couple of lighters-in-the-air ballads along with all the crunching. Very consistent and though not an album I could ever love, it stands up to repeated listening.
3
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Wed Feb 02 2022
Hysteria
Def Leppard
The ultra-80s production, the - at best - dated lyrics. This album was either singles I already knew - difficult to escape if you were around in 1987 - and hated, or album tracks not as good as the singles. Not everything that sells tens of millions of copies then needs to be listened to now - wonder if Englebert Humperdink, famously outselling the Beatles, will be on the list. As he can't be worse than Def Leppard.
1
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Thu Feb 03 2022
Sticky Fingers
The Rolling Stones
This album gets better every time, unlike other vaunted Stones albums where the highs remain high and the not-so-highs flatten out (BB, LIB). This is just a miracle of songwriting and tight playing from start to finish.
5
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Fri Feb 04 2022
Shaft
Isaac Hayes
Three cracking singles, one of which is just amazing. The soundtrack itself, revolutionary at the time, is a series of funky and slow jams, great to work to and great in a movie, but not a compelling listen.
3
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Sat Feb 05 2022
Franz Ferdinand
Franz Ferdinand
A shining light in the indie landfill era. I will never get over the fact that what sounds like the greatest song Josef K never wrote ends after a minute of Take Me Out, and becomes another fine but not quite so brilliant song. But sharp suits, tight guitar lines. Good work.
4
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Sun Feb 06 2022
S&M
Metallica
Hey guys feel like doing a live album with a symphony orchestra? It'll be real classy.
Sure. My mum said all her friends who only listen to Mozart will buy the album if there's a symphony orchestra on it.
Double bubble!
Really though. Not an album anyone could describe as essential. Some good songs, but they gain nothing much by this.
2
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Mon Feb 07 2022
Street Signs
Ozomatli
Not on Spotify so listening cobbled together from youtube and live albums. The good tracks are really good, with predictably the bass and percussion the standout elements. I can leave the 90s/early 00s staple of 'oh third verse time for a rap' element.
3
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Tue Feb 08 2022
Aja
Steely Dan
One of the best-sounding records ever made. Even if lush 70s jazz-rock is not your thing you can marvel at the playing and production. Wayne Shorter's solo, the chorus to Deacon Blues...it's pleasures are endless.
5
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Wed Feb 09 2022
Music From The Penguin Cafe
Penguin Cafe Orchestra
I love this band, and there's no better working music. Enough going on to get you through a large spreadsheet, slowly changing enough to not distract.
4
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Thu Feb 10 2022
Court And Spark
Joni Mitchell
No-one bears - needs- repeated listening like Joni Mitchell. Even if it's on Youtube as she's pulled this from Spotify over the Joe Rogan spat. On first listen the tunes, even the song structure, are difficult to make out. Each listen, as the songs become familiar, gets better and better.
4
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Fri Feb 11 2022
Van Halen
Van Halen
This is great fun. The precise point at which you can hear metal pivoting from the Sabbath era to the eighties. Of course down the line it would beget the horrific hair metal bands, but this is sharp, tight and both heavy and pop at the same time. Terrific. Can't forgive them for Jump though.
4
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Sat Feb 12 2022
Different Class
Pulp
Is this a flawless album? Well how about this. I listened to the album without Common People, Sorted for Es and Whizz, Disco 2000 and Mis-Shapes. And you know what? It is - Feeling Called Love, Bar Italia and Underwear would be the singles in any other album. Every track has its own story and sound while also sounding part of a coherent whole.
5
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Sun Feb 13 2022
Selected Ambient Works 85-92
Aphex Twin
Ambient - it's a doddle eh? Some relaxed beats, a bass line and a few chords on the synth. Aphex Twin shows how difficult it is to make great 'ambient', if such a thing exists, by showing its all about the details. Without lyrics or vocals or anything like a verse/chorus stucture to grab the listener, these tracks are a masterclass in detail: detail in how each track unfolds in time, and the textures employed to keep simple elements always evolving.
4
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Mon Feb 14 2022
Fear Of Music
Talking Heads
5
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Tue Feb 15 2022
Rain Dogs
Tom Waits
I now know how people who go 'Bob Dylan - great songs but unlistenable' feel. I've tried with Tom, I really have. There are some good songs here, hence the 2. But that voice. Like someone gargling gravel. And - my bad for thinking this - there's a bit of me that feels that offstage he speaks like Niles Crane.
2
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Wed Feb 16 2022
Tommy
The Who
Not their best album, not even their best double album (Quadrophenia is more consistent), but completely with the zeitgeist in the late sixties, hence it's the one Who album everyone has head of.
3
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Thu Feb 17 2022
Cut
The Slits
One of the first and best post-punk punk-funk punk-dub albums. Dennis Bovell's production is great, the lyrics are witty and subversive and in Typical Girls there's an irresistible single. Absolutely of its time, very listenable.
3
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Fri Feb 18 2022
The Age Of The Understatement
The Last Shadow Puppets
Alex Turner side project, not by any means unenjoyable and AM fans will get lots of enjoyment out of his usual droll delivery and lyrics, with a sixties flavoured backing. Without quite the crunch and thrill of the Monkeys though.
3
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Sat Feb 19 2022
A Rush Of Blood To The Head
Coldplay
Nobody must hear Coldplay. They're just there. Like magnolia walls. As an experiment if I have heard an album before I'll listen to it without the singles. Different Class by Pulp would be great album without the singles. This, well without the singles it's one star.
2
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Sun Feb 20 2022
Emperor Tomato Ketchup
Stereolab
I like the idea of Stereolab, I like the sound of Stereolab. But 60 mins of Stereolab is just a bit too much. Better in shorter sharper doses.
2
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Mon Feb 21 2022
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Fantastic. Only not 5 because I'm not a great fan of goofy Bob, evident on a couple of tracks, and he's made several other albums that are 5.
4
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Tue Feb 22 2022
American IV: The Man Comes Around
Johnny Cash
Hurt is a 6 out of 5 and another 4/5 tracks (Personal Jesus, I Hung My Head) are fives, but there's some stuff that doesn't work, like Bridge Over Troubled Water and In My Life, and even Cash can't make Danny Boy seem essential again. So a four.
4
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Wed Feb 23 2022
The Contino Sessions
Death In Vegas
From the era where dance-due producer bands ruled supreme (Underworld, Chemicals, Leftfield etc) slightly less exalted Death In Vegas stake a very credible claim to be at the top table. There's some quality vocals (not singing) from Bobby Gillespie, Dot Allison and Iggy Pop and an overall vibe of the Velvet Underground meets big beat. A slight reliance on the riff over melody stops this being a 4, but a solid solid 3.
3
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Thu Feb 24 2022
Eli And The Thirteenth Confession
Laura Nyro
There's only so many times you can listen to Tapestry, no matter how perfect it is. So when you want a bit of that but also something different there's this. Like King Nyro wrote lots of stuff that were initially made famous by other people. Unlike King her voice is a lot more distinctive, bordering on Joni Mitchell at times. I liked this on listening, and wouldn't have come across it otherwise.
3
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Fri Feb 25 2022
Fear and Whiskey
Mekons
Some nice ideas, the Mekons are really an idea band - as in I like the idea of the Mekons more than I like their music. Was it really the first alt-country album? Anyway, not much distinguished music.
2
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Sat Feb 26 2022
Wish You Were Here
Pink Floyd
Not much to add here. It's a very good album.
4
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Sun Feb 27 2022
Chemtrails Over The Country Club
Lana Del Rey
This (apart from the title track) seemed a lesser effort. But with each play the subtlety of the writing and production stand out more. And on the last track she's trailing a future as the Gen Z Joni Mitchell.
4
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Mon Feb 28 2022
A Hard Day's Night
Beatles
Bulletproof. A couple of sentimental slowies hence not the full five.
4
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Tue Mar 01 2022
Surfer Rosa
Pixies
What a sound.
5
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Wed Mar 02 2022
Oedipus Schmoedipus
Barry Adamson
Enjoyable, hugely varied. Standout tracks featuring Jarvis and Nick Cave. Need to listen to a couple more times really.
3
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Thu Mar 03 2022
Orbital 2
Orbital
The first wholly great dance album of the rave era - 91 is pretty early to make a complete masterpiece. Halcyon is a thing of wonder.
5
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Fri Mar 04 2022
White Ladder
David Gray
You know what, on the first side I wasn't completely revolted and though strictly background music was prepared to give it two stars. The second side is dreary though and culminates in the -5 stars for Say hello Wave Goodbye which is unlistenable to, by me at least. Was it the buskers fave which got him a deal. What goes on on Grafton Street should stay there.
1
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Sat Mar 05 2022
Bayou Country
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Sturdy swampy rock. Not much fat on this.
4
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Sun Mar 06 2022
Born To Run
Bruce Springsteen
It's not the biggest-selling Bruce album, or the best. But it made him a superstar, and it contains three all-time classics in BTR, Jungleland and Thunder Road. A relisten reveals how much it's about Roy Bittan's piano and Clarence Clemons' sax. Possibly the most 'E Street' record of them all. Favourite bit ' the 1-2-3-4 count in during the middle 8 of BTR.
5
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Mon Mar 07 2022
The La's
The La's
Ah. What a talent was there. Near the top of the list of 'what would a second album have sounded like'. Hard to take that we got Cast instead.
4
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Tue Mar 08 2022
Sea Change
Beck
No hip-hop, samples, funk, falsettos, just a ruminative downbeat selection of gorgeous acoustic ballads. If ever you doubted he was hiding a lack of songwriting behind over-complex arrangements, this should set you straight.
4
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Wed Mar 09 2022
Private Dancer
Tina Turner
I was considering two stars, 80s awful production notwithstanding, as her performance is great, until Help and 1984. Help indeed. Imagine a loop of Tina's 1984 in your ears forever. Far scarier than anything Orwell could come up with.
1
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Thu Mar 10 2022
Dare!
The Human League
Phil Oakey's voice is perhaps the bit that's aged least well.but the songs are bulletproof.
4
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Fri Mar 11 2022
1999
Prince
As a single album four stars. As the first two tracks 5 stars. There are longeurs and his first 5-star piece would arrive next.
3
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Sat Mar 12 2022
Ritual De Lo Habitual
Jane's Addiction
3
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Sun Mar 13 2022
Space Ritual
Hawkwind
3
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Mon Mar 14 2022
KE*A*H** (Psalm 69)
Ministry
A bit all over the shop, that type of metal/industrial that really does very little for me.
2
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Tue Mar 15 2022
Chirping Crickets
Buddy Holly & The Crickets
Some eternal singles, but the slow numbers are 'dreamboats and petticoats' mush and he's not really that good a vocalist to make them speak now. Still, only 25 minutes. Shortest album so far.
3
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Wed Mar 16 2022
Vol. 4
Black Sabbath
Just about their best and a high-water mark for the first heavy metal era.
5
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Thu Mar 17 2022
Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret
Soft Cell
Unmatched in its descriptions of seedy Soho, bedsitter life, sex clubs - all set to what was at the time amazingly new music. Still holds up very well, and surprisingly the original songs have dated far less than the covers.
4
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Fri Mar 18 2022
The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter
The Incredible String Band
Holy mary mother of God. Pyschedelic folk. Flutes, hurdy gurdies and lyrics about wizards and green crowns. Not incredible and surely indigestible without smoking a load of weed.
1
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Sat Mar 19 2022
Tigermilk
Belle & Sebastian
Solid debut, though the production I always feel with B and S is a little thin and twee, the songs are well-written.
3
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Sun Mar 20 2022
Unhalfbricking
Fairport Convention
Was OK, Who knows? is a banger but there's a bit too much folky stuff for me. Like the track that sounds like Pink Floyd.
3
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Mon Mar 21 2022
Sound Affects
The Jam
Their most consistent.
5
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Tue Mar 22 2022
Odessey And Oracle
The Zombies
Pleasant, can appreciate the songwriting. Not quite as amazing as all that and a lot of the sixties stylings grate. But half a dozen really good songs.
3
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Wed Mar 23 2022
Let's Get Killed
David Holmes
A bit dull, nice background for working but some of his other albums are better.
2
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Thu Mar 24 2022
Greetings From L.A.
Tim Buckley
Dull as dishwater meat and potatoes early 70s songwriter-rock.
1
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Fri Mar 25 2022
Heroes
David Bowie
Stellar. Improves if such a thing were possible by listening to the second side first, which contains more of the ambient tracks. The more uptempo krautrock tracks are just unbelievably good.
5
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Sat Mar 26 2022
Paul's Boutique
Beastie Boys
Was a good listen but not the revelations promised quite.
3
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Sun Mar 27 2022
Live At Leeds
The Who
3
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Mon Mar 28 2022
Kilimanjaro
The Teardrop Explodes
Hard to see why this wouldn't be 5 stars as it's pretty perfect from start to finish. Only the horns sound occasionally dated.
5
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Tue Mar 29 2022
Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire)
The Kinks
Very pleasant listen with some high points, but not going to change my overall view of the Kinks as the fourth-best British band of the sixties. Which is not a bad position to be in.
3
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Wed Mar 30 2022
American Pie
Don McLean
AP is a tune, Vincent is very annoying and the rest is pretty anonymous singer-songwriter 70s stuff. So a 2 for the greatness of AP chiefly.
2
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Thu Mar 31 2022
In It For The Money
Supergrass
Always a good sign when every track sounds like a single. A quantum leap from the caffeine rush of the first album.
4
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Fri Apr 01 2022
Siamese Dream
The Smashing Pumpkins
Just played the 'weaker' second half of the album and it's fantastic, every track a potential hit. Nirvana have the cool, the zeitgeist, the amazing live events, and the aura of tragic glamour - and the songs that defined a generation. But they never made an album as strong as this.
5
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Sat Apr 02 2022
Unknown Pleasures
Joy Division
5
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Sun Apr 03 2022
Cross
Justice
2
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Mon Apr 04 2022
Music for the Masses
Depeche Mode
Pretty essential, they're nearly there re-inventing themselves from synthpoppers to epic synthpopper gloom gothers. Three stellar singles and a strong set of album tracks.
3
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Tue Apr 05 2022
The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady
Charles Mingus
Pretty dense but pretty good.
3
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Wed Apr 06 2022
Underwater Moonlight
The Soft Boys
Glad to hear this, the title track is great and the rest a solid slice of early 80s powerpop/psychedelia.
3
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Thu Apr 07 2022
Caetano Veloso
Caetano Veloso
An ok listen, but the nuances of this perhaps passed me.
2
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Fri Apr 08 2022
Shake Your Money Maker
The Black Crowes
Solid southern rock with a cleaner 80s production, nothing groundbreaking here.
3
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Sat Apr 09 2022
The Yes Album
Yes
Not a prog fan at all but this is just a fantastic combination of great tunes - something most prog appears to leave out - and twiddly widdly arrangements that have just enough sixties still about them. Great.
4
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Sun Apr 10 2022
Searching For The Young Soul Rebels
Dexys Midnight Runners
The first side of this is just astonishing - six, even seven stars. A fully formed sound from nowhere. If the second half can't quite sustain the extra-ordinary first five tracks (of which Geno is perhaps the weakest. Think about that.) then its just by comparison. An album so in love with a form of music it seems entirely natural to have a cover from that genre that fits perfectly.
ps fun fact Burn It Down was called Dance Stance on original release, as I have the 45.
5
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Mon Apr 11 2022
Snivilisation
Orbital
Very consistent without hitting the high points of the 'brown' album.
3
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Tue Apr 12 2022
Frank
Amy Winehouse
The idea of Amy Whitehouse - a noughties update on the torch singer mixing jazz and soul is great, and her voice is amazing here too, but the songs don't quite nail it. Next one would.
2
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Wed Apr 13 2022
Out Of The Blue
Electric Light Orchestra
This was the first record I can recall buying. When I was still too young to go to second hand shops. Many of the other early purchases - Parallel Lines, Setting Sons - I listen to this day. This not so much. Not at all. Re-listening it is not really the songs. No-one can deny Lynne's songwriting. But there's a general sense of mid-70s ennui that the Eagles turned into gold, but here is just a sense of everything being just a little too laid back. Then there's Jeff Lynne's voice. Just don't like it - because he sounds completely without conviction. Not every vocalist is Iggy Pop, but there's a feeling for me he's doing the guide vocals for someone else. Finally, there's the odd novelty hit/pastiche vibe (Jungle could be a bad 10cc b-side) that a band at the very height of their commercial powers really shouldn't be doing. Want to hear the Quo with a string section? Birmingham Blues. Positives: Mr Blue Sky is still a pocket pop symphony, and the Whale is the bastard son of The Love Unlimited Orchestra and The Orb - bizarre and by far the most interesting track here. But for me the pop energy that fizzed through A New World Record has been traded away for something much lesser.
1
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Thu Apr 14 2022
Emergency On Planet Earth
Jamiroquai
Aged like a fine wine. No more like rotting fish found at the bottom of the bin.
1
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Fri Apr 15 2022
The Clash
The Clash
Hard to find any faults, a pretty perfect debut. Perhaps only a 9 out of 10 for their somewhat clodhoppy reggae cover.
5
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Sat Apr 16 2022
Raw Power
The Stooges
Great sound, everything turned up to 11
4
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Sun Apr 17 2022
Smokers Delight
Nightmares On Wax
Great 'relaxing' music.
4
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Mon Apr 18 2022
Like A Prayer
Madonna
Madonna - even Imperial Period - is the master of the '4 bangers so banging the fact the rest of the album is just okay-ish doesn't matter' - viz True Blue, like a Virgin etc. This is the exception that proves the rule, a Madonna album you can listen to like, an album as the bangers still bang, but the variety and quality of the album tracks are a cut above.
4
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Tue Apr 19 2022
GREY Area
Little Simz
A grower and the beats are great.
3
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Wed Apr 20 2022
The Low End Theory
A Tribe Called Quest
Solid effort from one the best rap groups of the early 90s.
3
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Thu Apr 21 2022
Golden Hour
Kacey Musgraves
The perfect pop album is a mythical beast and this album goes as close to nailing it as many. The first half is pretty flawless, and her simple but slyly hooky melodies are outstanding. A few more obvious tracks on the B - side let the quality down slightly, (Happy and Sad, Velvet Elvis) and I for one can leave the piano ballad.
4
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Fri Apr 22 2022
Bone Machine
Tom Waits
Really strong songs, and I like industrial junk Tom so much better than crooner tom.
4
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Sat Apr 23 2022
The Blueprint
JAY Z
Pleasantly surprised by this, though he's a name of course. Not just the flow, which is listenable, but the beats and hooks are great.
3
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Sun Apr 24 2022
Head Hunters
Herbie Hancock
Side 1 5 stars, side 2 3.5.
4
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Mon Apr 25 2022
There's No Place Like America Today
Curtis Mayfield
A real discovery, a brilliant album and none of his big hits.
4
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Tue Apr 26 2022
Bad Company
Bad Company
If you had to come up with a reference album for 70s rock it would be this - a bit heavy, a bit hard, a bit FM. All tunes, but without a shred of originality. Guess that's what you get when you mix Free, King Crimson and Mott The Hoople. 1 and 1 and 1 make 3 here.
3
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Wed Apr 27 2022
Basket of Light
Pentangle
Occasionally you can admire the musicianship, craft and artistry while finding the entire thing unlistenable to.
1
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Thu Apr 28 2022
Only Built 4 Cuban Linx
Raekwon
Yeah the beats and flow are pretty good, almost like another Wu album as so many end up on here. Solid rap album.
3
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Fri Apr 29 2022
Bitches Brew
Miles Davis
Almost too much going on for too long here. A great vibe, but feel that In A Silent Way and Jack Johnson benefit from a touch more focus while still being loose.
3
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Sat Apr 30 2022
John Barleycorn Must Die
Traffic
Prog folk not my scene.
2
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Sun May 01 2022
Pink Flag
Wire
Amazing to think they were making this as punk was also about The Damned and The Pistols.
4
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Mon May 02 2022
Drunk
Thundercat
Pleasant, funky, surprisingly gentle at times, would listen to again without consciously opting for it over other stuff.
3
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Tue May 03 2022
Joan Armatrading
Joan Armatrading
I want to like this: Brummie ikon and all that, but really it's fairly dull seventies singer-songwriter stuff. Sorry Joan.
2
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Wed May 04 2022
Good Old Boys
Randy Newman
I like the idea of Randy Newman, but ultimately his a bit ragtime a bit singer songwriter approach, and his dolorous voice, are a bit much over a whole album, however clever and insightful the lyrics.
2
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Thu May 05 2022
Penthouse And Pavement
Heaven 17
Provocation: this has aged much better than Dare. Just saying.
4
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Fri May 06 2022
Darklands
The Jesus And Mary Chain
In which the JAMC showed that under the pyros they had a sturdy songwriting chassis and (squabbling aside) were in it for the long haul. Flawless collection different from the amazing debut.
5
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Sat May 07 2022
Back At The Chicken Shack
Jimmy Smith
Jimmy Smith is probably the most laid-back person on the planet. This sounds pretty good on a summer day, today. Not five because the Hammond all the way through is a little one-dimensional.
4
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Sun May 08 2022
Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde
The Pharcyde
This is very enjoyable, in a TTQ way, the beats are great the samples interesting and the whole air is pretty agreabl(y)thick with weed.
3
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Mon May 09 2022
Calenture
The Triffids
I thought about giving this four stars and then thought 'I'm only not giving it five BECAUSE of Bury Me Deep In Love' which is really punishing them for Neighbours. So, for the songs, the playing, the vocals. 5 stars. A high-water mark of eighties Australian music.
5
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Tue May 10 2022
The Gershwin Songbook
Ella Fitzgerald
Purely because lush strings and jazz vocals are not my thing, but I can appreciate how brilliantly it is done here.
3
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Wed May 11 2022
Solid Air
John Martyn
I can applaud the craft and there are a couple of great songs, but his voice just doesn't vibe with me, like he's singing while swallowing at the same time.
2
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Thu May 12 2022
It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back
Public Enemy
The best - perhaps the only rap album without a second of filler. No skits, and even Flavor Flav is kept on a tight leash. The samples are brilliant and the beats unforgiving. A high water mark.
5
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Fri May 13 2022
The Man Machine
Kraftwerk
Nothing more to be said other than five stars. My favourite Kraftwerk album.
5
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Sat May 14 2022
1989
Taylor Swift
Pretty good pop album, maybe a track or two too long
3
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Sun May 15 2022
Teenage Head
Flamin' Groovies
So side one I am there for this, strong vibes of the Stones of the same period which is a good thing and good songs. But the covers that dominate the second half are inessential and Dr Feelgood would come along soon and do this kind of stuff much better.
2
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Mon May 16 2022
Tubular Bells
Mike Oldfield
Yeah ok the first 10 mins and the bit with Viv Stanishall are great, but you're not telling me there's not filler on side 2. And the hornpipe. Grrr.
2
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Tue May 17 2022
Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols
Sex Pistols
Nothing much to add. A band who said EVERYTHING they had to say in one pretty perfect album.
5
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Wed May 18 2022
Bryter Layter
Nick Drake
Well that slipped down very pleasantly. Feel the first side is stronger than the second, but very listenable.
3
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Thu May 19 2022
Chelsea Girl
Nico
It's all pretty good stuff...until Nico starts to sing.
2
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Fri May 20 2022
Daydream Nation
Sonic Youth
Not quite singalong, but the first album of theirs where noise and melody is in balance.
4
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Sat May 21 2022
good kid, m.A.A.d city
Kendrick Lamar
I like the melodies and his flow, but again why oh why do rap albums have to be soooooooo long.
3
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Sun May 22 2022
A Northern Soul
The Verve
3
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Mon May 23 2022
The Stone Roses
The Stone Roses
the sheer brilliance of the music overcomes the fact no album with Ian Brown singing should be five stars, or even three.
4
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Tue May 24 2022
Blue Lines
Massive Attack
Flawless. The singing alone on Hymn of the Big Wheel...
5
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Wed May 25 2022
Melodrama
Lorde
She's got a way with a sly melody as well as bangers (Green Light). State of the art pop. 3.5 if they did half-stars.
3
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Fri May 27 2022
Suicide
Suicide
Minimal magic, and the prototype for all the synth duos to come, though few would be as confrontational. Every time I play this it gets better and easier to listen to.
4
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Sat May 28 2022
Actually
Pet Shop Boys
Flawless. By far their most consistent album, passing the acid test that listening to the album tracks without the singles shows no drop in quality.
5
View Album
Sun May 29 2022
Songs From A Room
Leonard Cohen
You know this was not so bad, better than I thought. He can sing (after a fashion) and the songs are pretty strong.
3
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Mon May 30 2022
Groovin'
The Young Rascals
The fabulous sound of the Golden Hour from Wonderful Radio One. There was landfill before indie and this was it.
1
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Tue May 31 2022
London Calling
The Clash
Bands were travelling at the speed of light in the late 70s early 80s. The distance from The Clash is phenomenal. Again, the pivot album of their catalogue with everything in perfect balance. Amazing.
5
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Wed Jun 01 2022
Come Find Yourself
Fun Lovin' Criminals
This has not aged well, if there was anything to age in the first place. I remember Scooby Snacks being everywhere that summer, and it's much the best track on here. Apart from that, it's a desperately thin concoction of trying-too-hard samples, trying-too-hard lyrics and the odd funky bassline. Telling they were never big in the States, as this feels like some NY theme-park experience got up strictly for the tourists. Two starts strictly for the Snacks, and a gimmicky cover of What a Wonderful World showed how short of actual musical ideas they really were.
2
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Thu Jun 02 2022
Spy Vs. Spy: The Music Of Ornette Coleman
John Zorn
You know what this isn't that bad once you lean into it. Not on Spootify but there's some good youtube playlists with the full album, and making it to the end is definitely an achievement. Kinda like reading Ulysses, but with more squonking.
3
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Fri Jun 03 2022
Pieces Of The Sky
Emmylou Harris
I can go a little country, but this is just a bit too country. Can appreciate the artistry, and Boulder to Birmingham is a tune, but it's a bit full-on Nashville for me.
2
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Sat Jun 04 2022
That's The Way Of The World
Earth, Wind & Fire
Well you know the singles sparkle, but this amiable album of pop-funk is let down by some familiar weaknesses: the plodding ballads which make you realise what an achievement Easy by the Commodores was, and the noodly jazz-funk odyssey (Americano). So a pretty mixed bag, more mixed than my bag, and on this evidence a band best served by a generous greatest hits.
2
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Sun Jun 05 2022
Bright Flight
Silver Jews
Heard of them before but never listened, pleasant lo-fi American indie with some good songs rather undersold by singing that may be an acquired tastes.
3
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Mon Jun 06 2022
Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Country Joe & The Fish
Passed me by a bit. Not as annoying as I thought it would be, but nothing standing out.
2
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Tue Jun 07 2022
Marcus Garvey
Burning Spear
A great reggae album, from my favourite era of reggae music. Also - love an album that's 10 songs, 3 minutes each.
4
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Wed Jun 08 2022
Achtung Baby
U2
Acid test for a five-star album laden with hits. What does it sound like when you don't play any of the singles? A 30 minute album with 'Zoo Station' 'Waiting for the end of the world' 'Love is Blindness' 'trying to throw your arms around the world' and so on would still be in my top three of U2 albums ever. So yes, all the accolades and more.
5
View Album
Thu Jun 09 2022
All That You Can't Leave Behind
U2
My tried and trusted 'no singles listen' for albums I'm very familiar with is dead easy as they put the singles on tracks 1-4. The 1001 randomizer threw up Achtung Baby yesterday, and just as this album's singles are not as strong as Achtung Baby.. so the album tracks aren't either. Probably their last really strong all-the-way through effort, with 4 great singles, so four stars.
4
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Fri Jun 10 2022
Vincebus Eruptum
Blue Cheer
Enjoyable in a Cream/Allman Brothers vein.
3
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Sat Jun 11 2022
Here Are the Sonics
The Sonics
Proto-garage, almost all covers. Insanely good fun and very listenable to.
3
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Sun Jun 12 2022
Supa Dupa Fly
Missy Elliott
Liked this, definitely one of her stronger albums.
3
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Mon Jun 13 2022
If You're Feeling Sinister
Belle & Sebastian
Their best, the strength of the tunes overcoming familiar weaknesses.
4
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Sat Jun 25 2022
Moondance
Van Morrison
I prefer this to Astral Weeks, controversial I know.
5
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Sun Jun 26 2022
The Specials
The Specials
Flawless debut.
5
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Mon Jun 27 2022
Headquarters
The Monkees
I know we're supposed to say that they were actually as good as the Beach Boys and the Kinks. but they weren't were they? A stellar greatest hits, but their albums? No.
2
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Tue Jun 28 2022
Nothing's Shocking
Jane's Addiction
Actually their choppy funky rock is growing on me, sort of like the Red hot Chilli Peppers but complicated and arty. Didn't mind this at all.
3
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Wed Jun 29 2022
I’m a Lonesome Fugitive
Merle Haggard
An entirely unexpected treat. A few country albums have already popped up on my list and so far, whatever the reputation, I've not gelled with them. This however, lean and spare, is a great listen. Most songs a little over 2 minutes, very few ballads, almost punktry.
4
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Thu Jun 30 2022
Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite
Maxwell
So 90s it needs cargo pants. It's not my thing at all, but he's got a nice voice and some of the songs are well-written.
3
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Fri Jul 01 2022
You're Living All Over Me
Dinosaur Jr.
Yes this is pretty good. At the point where they dialled back the pure noise and started to really foreground songwriting and melodies, the first of a five or so album Imperial Period. It's that good that the cover of the Cure feels like an afterthought rather than a commercial imperative, a bit like It's a Shame About Ray has no need of Mrs Robinson. Was clearly a thing at the time though, unlikely grunge covers.
3
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Sat Jul 02 2022
Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)
Wu-Tang Clan
4
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Sun Jul 03 2022
B-52's
The B-52's
A sound mashed up from fifties rock and roll, easy listening and punk. I think that Wild Planet is a better album but it's a great debut.
4
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Mon Jul 04 2022
Disraeli Gears
Cream
Solid mid-sixties blues rock. Not my thing, but very listenable.
3
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Tue Jul 05 2022
Vespertine
Björk
Bjork in perhaps the mellowest album of her career, and the last one that could really be called pop. Last song is an absolute tune.
3
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Wed Jul 06 2022
Hot Rats
Frank Zappa
Amazingly as he has such an off-putting vibe, this is a good album.
3
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Thu Jul 07 2022
Birth Of The Cool
Miles Davis
Five stars. Tempted to deduct a quarter of a point for the vocal jazz on track 12, but really can't complain.
5
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Fri Jul 08 2022
The Joshua Tree
U2
Why is it only four stars? Play it without the first three tracks and it's a good enough album. But overly reliant on the brilliance of the first three tracks, in contrast with Achtung Baby that is five stars all the way through.
4
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Sat Jul 09 2022
Cosmo's Factory
Creedence Clearwater Revival
One of five they recorded in less than two years. From this Stakhavonite approach this is high-quality blues rock. Several great songs (Who'll Stop the Rain) and an epic cover of Heard it Through The Grapevine.
4
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Sun Jul 10 2022
Truth
Jeff Beck
Though I can vibe with several of the late-sixties blues rock this list has thrown up, this is too far. Not only is their plank-spanking of the worst order, there's Rod and a novelty version of Greensleeves. Too much.
2
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Mon Jul 11 2022
Five Leaves Left
Nick Drake
Solid singer-songwriter album with enough melodic and arrangement twists to keep you listening. Never going to be the biggest fan of his 'hushed me' vocals though.
3
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Tue Jul 12 2022
21
Adele
This is possibly the most machine-tooled bid for pop stardom since Like A Virgin. Don't play the big singles and it still sounds unstoppable. Not actually an album I feel a great deal of affection for, perhaps the only album I can actually like of hers is 19, but respect.
2
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Wed Jul 13 2022
Lam Toro
Baaba Maal
Not bad if to my ears a bit backgroundy (as often happens when singers sing in another language than English), two or three very strong tracks.
2
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Thu Jul 14 2022
The Marshall Mathers LP
Eminem
Why oh why oh why do rap albums have to be sooooo long. Anyway, the big singles everyone knows, but the relentless dissing gets a bit wearying and the beats aren't as interesting as say Wu Tang. So by the end its all a bit samey.
2
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Fri Jul 15 2022
One Nation Under A Groove
Funkadelic
Too funky for Spotify it would seem, but there's an individual track version under George Clinton's account on youtube. Damn this is funky, rocky and for Funkadelic pretty focused. Good stuff.
3
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Sat Jul 16 2022
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Wilco
What would REM sound like with a slightly less charismatic singer, a touch more Americana? I've never quite clicked with Wilco, and this has not really changed my mind. On the two big 'singles' they connect with unanswerable tunes, but elsewhere it does always threaten to drift.
3
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Sun Jul 17 2022
Phrenology
The Roots
Listenable to, but not really anything I could latch onto as above the norm.
2
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Mon Jul 18 2022
Bubble And Scrape
Sebadoh
This grew on me, and need to give it another couple of listens. Some real songwriting charm, and the variety is great.
3
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Tue Jul 19 2022
British Steel
Judas Priest
Two monster hit singles, and barely a bad track on this. A bridge between Sabbath and 70s metal and the NWOBHM, with its poppy concision. Can see why they were huge.
3
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Wed Jul 20 2022
Brown Sugar
D'Angelo
Is mid-90s neo-soul the hardest genre to listen to now? Beware of any artist who has his/her top off in their photos as a USP. One star for the first track, but boy this is inconsequential.
1
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Thu Jul 21 2022
The Beach Boys Today!
The Beach Boys
can you make (about) 11 albums in 4 years without stretching stuff a little thin? I'm no Beach Boy devotee and understand all the critical stuff about this being the start of their studio golden period, but its 26 minutes plus skit, two covers...
2
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Fri Jul 22 2022
This Year's Model
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
One of the greatest image/attitude/music look at me launches in music history. The Attractions replace Clover and the music is instantly more varied, textured and interesting - still anchored by Costello's brutal lyrics and sneer, and brilliant way with a melody. Two albums into his Imperial Period.
5
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Sat Jul 23 2022
If You Can Believe Your Eyes & Ears
The Mamas & The Papas
Beyond the two smash hits this is pretty thin stuff, very standard for mid-sixties LPs that were merely means to extract more money from fans. Five cover versions in 12 tracks...
2
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Sun Jul 24 2022
Darkness on the Edge of Town
Bruce Springsteen
Apart from possibly Adam Raised A Cain, this is Springsteen's most brilliant album and there is not a weak track. Amazing to think now it was seen as a disappointment after Born To Run.
5
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Mon Jul 25 2022
I'm Your Man
Leonard Cohen
Hey Len. I've got good news and better news.
Let's go with the good first.
The record company love your new songs.
And the better?
They feel inside the Laughing Len persona (so passe) there's a modern MTV star just waiting to be unleashed.
They do.
They do so much they've put it in your new contract. You do want a new record contract don't you?
I guess so.
Excellent. So sign here for gated drums. Here for over-assertive backing singers. Here for casio tone synths. Here for fretless bass. And here - very exciting this - for what they're calling 'Paul Hardcastle style' for Jazz Police.
What's that I hear? It's the sound of MTV Heavy Rotation Baby.
You know the wierdest part of the whole thing? Cohen produced the album himself. Listen to Jazz Police and wonder if the whole thing isn't a satire on the 80s music industry. Four stars for the songs, 0 for the production.
2
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Tue Jul 26 2022
Eliminator
ZZ Top
Take out the four singles, play the other tracks. How many stars? 3. 3.5 if they did half-stars. So add four singles back in, and difficult to argue with at least 4 stars. Why not five? What is done is done brilliantly, but it is only the one thing that is done.
4
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Wed Jul 27 2022
Harvest
Neil Young
Not much to say here other than a fantastic album.
5
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Thu Jul 28 2022
Dr. Octagonecologyst
Dr. Octagon
If this list has one criticism, it's at times too tasteful. Not something that can be levelled at this completely-new-to-me slice of 90s hip-hop. It is absolutely mental, chiefly based around an alter ego who is an alien sex-obsessed gynacologist from Saturn, the eponymous Doctor. The beats are fantastic, sparse, melodic and spooky in an early Wu-Tang way. The rhymes are ridiculously misogynistic, pornographic (one track appears to be a sampled soundtrack to a porn film) but so lurid and OTT it's difficult to be outraged. Is it any good? I don't know, but glad it's on the list and three stars.
3
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Fri Jul 29 2022
Third
Portishead
Not as even an album as the first two, but after a near decade's gap still a remarkable return.
4
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Sat Jul 30 2022
Lady Soul
Aretha Franklin
The first album of 160 or so that after listening I went 'I need to buy this album.'
5
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Sun Jul 31 2022
Songs Of Love And Hate
Leonard Cohen
the songs are great, the voice is fine. Just 70s singer-songwriter is not my vibe.
3
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Mon Aug 01 2022
Revolver
Beatles
5
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Tue Aug 02 2022
Cheap Thrills
Big Brother & The Holding Company
I can understand why this made a splash at the time, and the Janis-ites love it, but not for me.
2
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Wed Aug 03 2022
The Idiot
Iggy Pop
The second album, after Lady Soul by Aretha Franklin, I've been motivated to buy after listening to this. Really its the fourth of Bowie's Berlin trilogy, or rather the first, and that's reason enough.
5
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Thu Aug 04 2022
Bongo Rock
Incredible Bongo Band
Somewhat one-note, but a good note. Or beat. Horns plus bongos plus covers equals sample heaven.
3
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Fri Aug 05 2022
Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)
Eurythmics
Dave and Annie. They bestrode top of the pops like mid-80s colossi, making the most of that new MTV thang to the max. Received wisdom: she had a great voice and presence. He wrote snappy pop songs. My wisdom: cynical industry chancers who were so in the middle of the road they've got white lines all down their faces. Inescapable at the time, irrelevant now. Two stars only for the last track which hints at what they could have done with a little less slavery to the machine.
2
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Sat Aug 06 2022
Urban Hymns
The Verve
Remove the 4 big singles and you are still leaft with a consistently good album, the final refinement of the Verve sound (mid-paced winding and wistful with the occasional outburst of pissed off vocals and angry guitars). Only four stars because it is only one song, a great song, done in 10 slightly different versions.
4
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Sun Aug 07 2022
Odelay
Beck
Some long albums drag (most rap albums). This one is almost like a radio station being flipped from channel to channel, held together by Beck's voice and his marriage of hip-hop beats and blues guitar. His best album still and doesn't drag a bit.
4
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Mon Aug 08 2022
Amnesiac
Radiohead
this is a great album, and as well as the noise/electronica there are some more conventional and very beautiful songs that would fit into Ok Computer or In Rainbows. Definitely start here for the 'difficult Radiohead' rather than Kid A.
4
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Tue Aug 09 2022
Hunting High And Low
a-ha
My tried and tested formula for any album where I know the singles by heart (Achtung Baby or Eliminator for example) of not playing the singles and seeing how strong the rest of the album is has badly let me down here. I deeply dislike the singles and the album tracks do nothing to change my mind. Saving grace: at least it's quite a short album. But still shockingly mediocre (And You Tell Me is shockingly awful) and a model for everything that was bad about 80s production. There's no end of the badness here. (Not even started on the lyrics). Is this really the thousand and first best album ever made?
1
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Wed Aug 10 2022
Tea for the Tillerman
Cat Stevens
Gosh Father and Son, Sad Lisa and Wild World are irritating aren't they? A bit like American Pie there is surely no need to ever listen to them again, so whether they're any good or not is beside the point. Apart from these monsters there is a well-arranged set of 70s singer-songwriter tunes. He could craft a song alright, but not my scene at all.
2
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Thu Aug 11 2022
L.A. Woman
The Doors
Got to be a candidate with Abbey Road for best final albums. Not five stars because of a couple of slight treading water tracks, L'America in particular but the highs are spectacular.
4
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Fri Aug 12 2022
Low-Life
New Order
The debate will always rage about New Order's 80s albums vs the singles, possibly the last group where this a genuine discussion. The Perfect Kiss 12" is better than the album version, they recorded a 17 minute version of Elegia and put out another 12" version of Sub-culture.
But it's a pretty perfect album nevertheless.
5
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Sat Aug 13 2022
The Downward Spiral
Nine Inch Nails
It is long. And the first half is fairly monotonous industrial - but the songwriting improves a lot in the second half. Ending of course with Hurt, a song just about anyone from the past 60 years would give their eye teeth to have written.
3
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Sun Aug 14 2022
Slipknot
Slipknot
I'd wear a mask if I'd made this album, though there is one point where the drum intro threates to go drum and bass. So one point for that.
1
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Mon Aug 15 2022
Mama Said Knock You Out
LL Cool J
Historical artefact this, from I guess when major labels still wanted rappers to produce MTV-friendly fodder rather than controversy. LL is an engaging enough presence, but NWA were about to blow this kind of rap completely away. Only one track with an explicit warning! Bless.
3
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Tue Aug 16 2022
Suede
Suede
Rarely has a debut set a template for a band so solidly from the start: pop bangers (Metal Mickey, Animal Nitrate) and epic ballads (Breakdown, Next Life) pitting Brett's Bowie-esque vocals against the nagging guitar of Bernard - for the first two albums at least. Thirty years later it's still working. Listening to it again the debt to Bowie makes it much more singular than the Britpop landfill that came along shortly after in debt to the Beatles, Kinks, Traffic etc.
4
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Wed Aug 17 2022
There's A Riot Goin' On
Sly & The Family Stone
I hear what many people say about this being quite a challenging listen, with pop soul highs only really there on the singles and some quite angry grooves forming the bulk of the album.
3
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Thu Aug 18 2022
Peter Gabriel
Peter Gabriel
The very definition of curate's egg - Here Comes The Flood is magnificent, probably his greatest solo song (whether overproduced or not), Solsbury Hill a pop banger, and Humdrum a great track. But Moribund the Burgomeister, the cocktail jazz/blues of Waiting for the One and so on are perhap more like a rich 70s rocker struggling to work out what to say when going solo. Three stars but not evenly distributed.
3
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Fri Aug 19 2022
Under Construction
Missy Elliott
This was not unpleasant but kind of passed me by.
2
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Sat Aug 20 2022
Femi Kuti
Femi Kuti
Good working music. To dip in and out of.
3
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Sun Aug 21 2022
Group Sex
Circle Jerks
The shortest album on the list, kind of like the Clash if their songs were only 60s long. The kind of album being always cited as incredibly influential rather than listened to and enjoyed. Bet they were great live.
3
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Mon Aug 22 2022
The Holy Bible
Manic Street Preachers
Boy this is tough going. Too long, as many 90s albums were. And suffers massively from each song being about a minute too long, and way too similar to the others around it. I like them better when they go for tunes over riffing.
2
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Tue Aug 23 2022
The Slider
T. Rex
Just such a great album, anyone who thinks he was only about singles (which he was chiefly) should listen to this. Fantastic pop.
4
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Wed Aug 24 2022
Debut
Björk
Lots of 'artists going dance' albums from the early 90s don't stand up that well, but this is still very listenable to. Lots of thoughts about whether the 12" mixes of Violently Happy and Big Time Sensuality are the best tracks (they are) and not on this, but this is the case with a lot of albums around this time.
4
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Thu Aug 25 2022
Crooked Rain Crooked Rain
Pavement
Did I like this? Not expecting too, with their wacky vibe and 'American Fall' billing. But it was full of melody and well-built songs. Maybe one of the very select albums I buy following hearing it here, but need to give it a couple more listens.
4
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Fri Aug 26 2022
Eagles
Eagles
Not much here beyond the singles, and as I don't like Witchy Woman that is two tracks. Two stars is generous. The stars aligned as a singles band got it together for one terrific album. This is not that album.
2
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Sat Aug 27 2022
Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea
PJ Harvey
One of the best female songwriters of the 90s, along with Bjork. Possibly her high-water mark.
1
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Sun Aug 28 2022
Picture Book
Simply Red
Jesus wept. The singles are enough to go no further.
1
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Mon Aug 29 2022
Blood On The Tracks
Bob Dylan
Is this five or four stars? Most of the tracks are unquestionably a straight five. Is it a perfect album? No because Meet Me In the Morning is pretty throway. Is it great enough for five stars, yes.
5
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Tue Aug 30 2022
The Last Broadcast
Doves
One of my favourite bands, I love them perhaps more than strictly their music warrants (ie inordinately). But I listen to this again and think who else can blend the anthemic, the melancholy, power and reflection quite as well as they do. Yes the two singles (Pounding and Fear) are peerless, but Sulfur Man, Caught By The River and Words reveal themselves this time as their equal.
5
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Wed Aug 31 2022
Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
The Flaming Lips
An album which perhaps got a bit thinner on a relisten. Yes the melodies are stuck on wistful and yearning, and the vocals on falsetto - and over a track or two the Lips formula here is great, over a whole album it becomes a little samey. I prefer (don't shoot me) the albums which precede and follow (Soft Bulletin and Mystics) as though they were never lovelier than here, in the other albums there is more variety.
3
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Thu Sep 01 2022
Gasoline Alley
Rod Stewart
1
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Fri Sep 02 2022
Berlin
Lou Reed
Here's my Rod theory. It's always easier to forgive the later lapses of an act you got to know when they were great, than work backwards from an act you first had to hear on the radio when they were awful and put that aside when considering their earlier and clearly superior work. And so it is here. While I can appreciate this is a good album, I can never disassociate that voice from the crimes of the late 70s and 80s. Do You Think I'm Sexy, Baby Jane, Young Turks and so on. So sorry Rod for the music it's three stars, for the vocals it can only ever be one.
2
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Sat Sep 03 2022
Garbage
Garbage
Is there a more 90s band? Vat-grown hybrid of grunge guitars, dance beats and a sharp pop songwriting core. Almost like they were put together by a famous producer.... so with a slight caveat it's still a terrific sound even if the album is slightly too long. Ten tracks would have made it a whole lot better. So four stars. Can any album with the lyric I am milk. I am red hot kitchen really be five stars?
4
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Sun Sep 04 2022
Dry
PJ Harvey
I love PJ's middle period but her early period is a bit too scratchy for me to really get into it. It's ok, but nothing compared to what would come five or so years later.
3
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Mon Sep 05 2022
Fear Of A Black Planet
Public Enemy
Lot of noise when this came out about how the production was too dense to listen to. No, sounds fantastic. Had to check my vinyl and yes there were 20 tracks, 1 hour long, on it, so may have in fact been the mastering. The music is excellent, the hi points among their very best.
5
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Tue Sep 06 2022
New York Dolls
New York Dolls
Along with the Velvets and the Fall, a real influencers band. Unlike them the music is fine, but not amazing. Another in the endless series of New York bands where the look was at least 50% of the appeal.
3
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Wed Sep 07 2022
Before And After Science
Brian Eno
Not one of his strongest albums for me, pleasant listen but slightly too much going on for background working, not strong enough on the tunes for attention grabbing.
3
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Thu Sep 08 2022
Coat Of Many Colors
Dolly Parton
not unpleasant and some solid tunes but not my thing.
2
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Fri Sep 09 2022
Hearts And Bones
Paul Simon
On the surface marred by the 80s production, very evident in the first few tracks. But Johnny Ace is a great track, the others are solid, and props to persuading Philip Glass to do a little orchestration for your album closer.
3
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Sat Sep 10 2022
The Queen Is Dead
The Smiths
This came up on Friday 9 September 2022. Its title is indeed accurate. One of my most-played and loved albums.
5
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Sun Sep 11 2022
(What's The Story) Morning Glory
Oasis
Wonderwall, Roll With It, Don't Look Back In Anger and Some Might Say is a four-track hit machine that guarantees four stars. For the five are the non-album tracks their equal, or are they sixes that demand a perfect score overall? No, and no. Bonehead's Bank Holiday and Hey Now are three star efforts, and Champagne Supernova outstays its welcome. So a very solid four. Possibly four and a half.
4
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Mon Sep 12 2022
Technique
New Order
Yes probably the most consistent of their albums and fully deserving of five stars, though its reputation as their'rave' album is overstated. Fine Time is a club banger, but the rest is 100% classic NO 80s sound.
5
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Tue Sep 13 2022
Can't Buy A Thrill
Steely Dan
The Dan bear such repeated listening because at their heart is mystery - is this a tune or just noodling? What do the lyrics really mean? And each time one has to unravel it all again. However, here they would never be so pop in their melodies and straightforward in their lyurics. Aja it ain't, but still five stars.
5
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Wed Sep 14 2022
Arise
Sepultura
They might be Brazilian but on this evidence bog-standard death metal. Blast beats, chugging riffs and the throaty screamy vocals all the way through. Sorry.
1
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Thu Sep 15 2022
Dire Straits
Dire Straits
Pleasant enough debut, Walking in the Wild West End is a tune, and Sultans of course. But not enough memorable stuff elsewhere for more than 3.
3
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Fri Sep 16 2022
Sweet Baby James
James Taylor
Yes it's sturdy songwriting and at least there's a band, but hard to get too excited about this now.
3
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Sat Sep 17 2022
The Chronic
Dr. Dre
P-funk bass, rolling beats, unrelenting misogyny - the post-golden age rap album of the 90s.
3
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Sun Sep 18 2022
I Should Coco
Supergrass
Excellent debut album, three catchy as hell singles and every track is a great listen.
4
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Mon Sep 19 2022
Seventh Tree
Goldfrapp
Brilliant sideways move into pastoral and gentle psychedelia. Synths are gentle washes and pulses, a move that absolutely suited them.
4
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Tue Sep 20 2022
Fuzzy Logic
Super Furry Animals
Very solid effort, Beatles, psychedelia, choruses. All good.
4
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Wed Sep 21 2022
Lust For Life
Iggy Pop
Not quite the lightning bolt that The Idiot was, the second of the Iggy/Bowie albums is still a great collection of tunes, perhaps stronger in its predecessor. Great album, at a period when music just flowed out of Bowie like a river.
4
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Thu Sep 22 2022
Selling England By The Pound
Genesis
Quite like this, possibly the most Rush-like of their albums I've listened to. But it's still pretty wibbly and just when you start to think they're onto something they start another tune. I Know What I like excepted of course, great track.
3
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Fri Sep 23 2022
Bridge Over Troubled Water
Simon & Garfunkel
Can you not give it five stars? There's a five-star set of songs here, only perhaps let down by the throwaway live cover. Truly splendid.
5
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Sat Sep 24 2022
Bossanova
Pixies
Just matchless. A classic test of a great album is that different songs reveal themselves over time. On this listen the vocals and guitar on The Happening are just amazing.
5
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Sun Sep 25 2022
Superfly
Curtis Mayfield
Got to be a vote for one of the best soundtracks of original music (as opposed to crate digging)
4
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Mon Sep 26 2022
A Wizard, A True Star
Todd Rundgren
Somethings too much is just too much. It's like one giant track which changes its mind every 90 seconds. Some lovely melodies in this, but a severe lack of focus.
2
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Tue Sep 27 2022
Parallel Lines
Blondie
This was one of the very first albums I bought - actually my brother bought it, I bought ELO's Discovery, the only time he has demonstrated better taste. Only two things to note on one of the easiest 5 star reviews: I never knew that Hanging on the Telephone was a cover until very rcently, and you need to make sure your copy has the 5:50 disco mix of heart of Glass and not the single edit some early pressings of both vinyl and CD use (including my brother's copy I quickly inherited and still have).
5
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Wed Sep 28 2022
Juju
Siouxsie And The Banshees
Their gothest and heaviest album - which is saying something. The perfect balance of pop-rush (Arabian Knights, Spellbound) Banshees and heavy grinders (Monitor and the quite awesome Nightshift which contains one of the best silences on any record). A very slight loss of focus at the end so four. Probably four and a half if halves existed. John McGeoch - the best guitarist that punk/new wave produced - at his absolute peak.
4
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Thu Sep 29 2022
In The Court Of The Crimson King
King Crimson
The prog motherlode. All a lot of huffing and puffing in search of something they don't quite find. Apart from the last track which really does pull it all together very well.
2
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Fri Sep 30 2022
In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
Iron Butterfly
It's generous really as the organist and bassplayer are not bad to listen to. The vocalist! It's like he listened to Jim Morrison and took all the wrong things. Also incredibly influential which is a bad thing.
2
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Sat Oct 01 2022
Be
Common
Solid rap album, reminiscent of Tribe Called Quest which is on the whole a good thing.
3
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Sun Oct 02 2022
Live At The Regal
B.B. King
Yes this is a good album, and the guitar playing is fantastic, but over a whole album it lacks the deep devilment of the best blues. He's a showman rather than a shaman.
3
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Mon Oct 03 2022
Boston
Boston
Usian Bolt's entire career at the highest level can be boiled down into a little over 100 seconds - that's all it took him to win six Olympic medals. Boston's entire top-level career can be boiled down into the 205 seconds that is the radio edit of More Than A Feeling. And just like Bolt's attempts to turn pro football (training with Man United, embarrassing try-out matches with Australian teams), the rest of Boston's career is somewhat pointless and second rate. Really, the second track here makes a decent fist of retreading the formula but after that it's desperate stuff. Chugging seventies boogie with hackneyed lyrics about being in a rock and roll band, having hard times, making it big, wanting girls, absolutely nothing of note here.
1
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Tue Oct 04 2022
A Love Supreme
John Coltrane
Heretical I know. Not five stars. Not my favourite Coltrane album (Blue Train all the way). It's about this point that the idea of John Coltrane becomes so powerful that it's impossible to judge the music objectively.
3
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Wed Oct 05 2022
The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
Lauryn Hill
This album is soooooooo long that that's really my take-away. Just an exhausting album - made even longer by a minute of classroom skit after many songs. She can sing, she can write songs but someone get her an editor.
2
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Thu Oct 06 2022
Machine Head
Deep Purple
Why not 5 as it's one of the template heavy rock albums. Not quite perfect, as Lazy is some standard boogie. But otherwise just brilliant.
4
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Fri Oct 07 2022
Le Tigre
Le Tigre
One track genius. Four tracks fine. Twelve tracks that's enough now.
2
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Sat Oct 08 2022
On The Beach
Neil Young
Long-deleted Neil album from the mid-70s finds him in a pretty low mood, living on the beach, thinking about leaving town and generally beset by vampires of all descriptions. It's not an altogether easy listen. However, the last three songs are top-grade shakey and well worth the four stars.
4
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Sun Oct 09 2022
Let It Bleed
The Rolling Stones
Take out the 5/5 tracks that start and end this album and its position at the very top of the Stones tree looks a little shakier: there's some filler (Country Honk) and some 3/5ers alongside great tracks like Monkey Man and Love In Vain. So 4/5 it is.
4
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Mon Oct 10 2022
Rust Never Sleeps
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Pretty safe 5 star album and one I've listened to lots and lots. Not only is every track an absolute banger it's got some of his very best lyrics. Weakest track, Welfare Mothers, is still absolutely great.
5
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Tue Oct 11 2022
The Visitors
ABBA
The eighties was hitting hard here. The Abba sound now sounding a little threadbare and tatty (oompah folk disco), the lyrics a little cynical. But more to the point, they were possibly the most singlesy singles band of all time, looking forward to Abba Gold coming up but this is 4 stars for the singles, 3 stars for the album tracks so 3 it is.
3
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Wed Oct 12 2022
A Seat at the Table
Solange
Pleasant enough, but lots of serious skits broke up the flow. Kind of drifted in and out of focus.
3
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Thu Oct 13 2022
The Gilded Palace Of Sin
The Flying Burrito Brothers
We got two types of music here boy. Country and rock. Too much country though one or two absolute tunes.
2
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Fri Oct 14 2022
Beauty And The Beat
The Go-Go's
Allegedly they were fiery punks when they started. You wouldn't know it from this watered down slab of major label corporate New Wave. The aural equivalent of the skinny tie and check jacket that pop bands put on around this time to fit in (looking at you the Cars). Our Lips Are Sealed is a brilliant song (co-written with Terry Hall, perhaps that's why), We Got The Beat less so and the rest forgettable. Belinda Carlisle would go on to dull out the late 80s as a solo star. Yes they were the famously first all-female band to write their own songs, yes that's important. But just not enough going on here.
2
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Sat Oct 15 2022
Homework
Daft Punk
Not so much an album as a dj mix in the form of an album. Two stellar singles and some great rhythms, but they'd nail that 90s elusive beast 'the great dance album' next time round.
4
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Sun Oct 16 2022
Buena Vista Social Club
Buena Vista Social Club
Though not my thing three stars for the exceptional musicianship, and the fact that on a sunny late autumn Sunday this was great wake-up and coffee music.
3
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Mon Oct 17 2022
Pornography
The Cure
The third and gloomiest of their gloom trilogy (17 seconds, faith, this) I saw them on this tour and boy they did not look or sound happy. The first side of this takes some time to get going, but by the time of The Figureheard you are definitely there. Couldn't possibly top this, so pop singles it was next.
4
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Tue Oct 18 2022
Blonde On Blonde
Bob Dylan
Most artists would place their dopey goofin around track half-way through side 2. Not here, it's the first track. Betraying a supreme confidence of peak Bob, more confident in his genius than perhaps anyone ever has been. Sad Eyed Lady.. might just be my new favourite ever Bob track.
5
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Wed Oct 19 2022
Live 1966 (The Royal Albert Hall Concert)
Bob Dylan
Yes the band are in fine fettle but early signs of Wavering Bob Voice. It sounds like a great gig to have been at, but not quite THE BEST THING EVER .
4
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Thu Oct 20 2022
At Folsom Prison
Johnny Cash
Genuine respect for a singer with a man in black image of murders, betrayals and heists going to a prison full of people who did those things for real. Almost like Gangsta Country and Western. Couple of novelty tracks in between the murdering, drug taking and prison timing.
3
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Fri Oct 21 2022
Close To You
Carpenters
Jazz odyssey! Really the last track Another Song (one short of the album guys, let's do Another Song right here) resembles nothing less than Derek Smalls' finest moment in Spinal Tap. Apart from that its expert studio musicianship in the classic Burt Bacharach sixties style topped off with creamy Carpenter vocals. Two huge hits, a cabaret-style Beatles cover and lots of BB songs. Not my thing in the remotest, and so square daddi-o you can hurt yourself on those corners. Four stars for the two singles, two for some of the album filler but that last track eh?
3
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Sat Oct 22 2022
The Poet
Bobby Womack
Very listenable slice of late-period soul, without quite nailing the memorable tune bit.
3
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Sun Oct 23 2022
Pet Sounds
The Beach Boys
This is fine, it's really fine, and perhaps the well-known songs I know well, and I'm not such of a BB fan to give it five stars when the slighly less well-known ones don't make me sit up.
4
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Mon Oct 24 2022
Miriam Makeba
Miriam Makeba
This was a great listen, a little naffly westernised in places but she has a fantastic voice. Solid three stars.
3
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Tue Oct 25 2022
At Newport 1960
Muddy Waters
Not a mahusive blues fan but this really is very good. Full of filthy innuendo all the way with a top-notch live band. Everything is tight and concise with tons of blues personality from Muddy.
4
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Wed Oct 26 2022
Happy Sad
Tim Buckley
So hated Greetings from LA, lumpy coke-rock of the worst kind. This however is really much better, slinky winding jazz folk not a world away from John Martyn, but with much more emphasis on extended instrumental arrangements.
3
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Thu Oct 27 2022
Synchronicity
The Police
Super shiny deluxe pop. Take away the four monstrous singles (conveniently all back to back at the start of side 2) and we have a slight affair with in-jokes (Mother, Miss Gradenko), vocals by the drummer etc. etc. But those singles eh? BIG.
3
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Fri Oct 28 2022
Gold
Ryan Adams
Hmm made two-thirds of the way through this. Basic indie singer-songwriter from the noughties. Clearly a very nasty man as well. Let's hope this is his one and only entry.
2
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Sat Oct 29 2022
461 Ocean Boulevard
Eric Clapton
Never mind the politics or personality. This is lazy masquerading as laid-back. Dull. And his reggae vibes have not aged well, though you do have to give him a tiny bit of respect for bringing Marley to a wider audience, about as much as the Stones and Chuck Berry. Not much at all then.
2
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Sun Oct 30 2022
Medúlla
Björk
The exact point that Bjork's music became a theoretical construct: an idea about making music, rather than making music. There are other good albums later in her work, but never again the quality of her first four.
2
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Mon Oct 31 2022
São Paulo Confessions
Suba
This is possibly the greatest bar album of all time and should have been released on Mo Wax in the late nineties. Though I can't help but think of it as music to drink Corona to, it's pretty fantastic.
4
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Tue Nov 01 2022
Halcyon Digest
Deerhunter
the first 3 or 4 tracks didn't really do it for me, but the middle third of this album is very strong. Very early 00s US indie but some great songs.
4
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Wed Nov 02 2022
Highway 61 Revisited
Bob Dylan
The ultimate expression of Bob world. Listening again for this revealed that perhaps Desolation Row is a touch less amazing than I had previously thought, but the band is just magnificent.
5
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Thu Nov 03 2022
Faith
George Michael
Ok I deeply disliked Wham and GM in the 80s and 90s, corporate pop. But listening fairly he's clearly a proper songwriter. Not the only artists whose production in that era has not worn well, and only the ballads are really difficult to stick by. Others, good radio.
3
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Fri Nov 04 2022
Illmatic
Nas
Why aren't all rap albums like this? Tight beats, melodic hooks and samples, and every track a 4-minute unspooling of bars. Has to be five stars as it escapes the cardinal sins of rap albums: no skits, no 18 tracks, all killer no filler as they say. Also - like the best Public Enemy, Wu Tang (who do all of the above) and it shames me to say the first NWA album, bears repeated listening.
5
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Sat Nov 05 2022
Bad
Michael Jackson
One has to admire the machine-tooled production and the rock solid choruses, but not my 80s at all.
2
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Sun Nov 06 2022
Led Zeppelin IV
Led Zeppelin
The fiviest of five stars. Theory: though Robert Plant was necessary, as every hard rock band had to have a wailer, this is all about the other three. Case in point: Bonham's drumming on When The Levee Breaks. Case two: Stairway to Heaven is the best example of can hardly hear it/quiet/soft/nice/loud/very loud dynamics ever recorded. Who cares about the lady who knows? Not me Clive.
5
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Mon Nov 07 2022
Abattoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
The title, the double album. This is surely one of his gnarliest and most forbidding for the casual listener. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is one of Cave's most accessible albums period and several tracks, notably Beautiful World, Easy Money and O My Children have what can only be described as sing-along choruses. So come on in, the Bad Seeds play beautifully and you'll be ready for Your Funeral My Trial in no time.
4
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Tue Nov 08 2022
Document
R.E.M.
A band squarely in transition. Without two tracks this would sit deeply in the lineage of the first four albums, while perhaps introducing a slightly heavier sound. There is a small town wierdness that pervades tracks like Oddfellows Local 151 and Disturbance at the Heron House. But then there's two tracks that mark the absolute point at which world domination became a possiblity. REM at this point were the ultimate slow-burners: five albums in and their final form was only just emerging.
4
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Thu Nov 10 2022
Triangle
The Beau Brummels
Well this is a surprise. Great tunes, interesting arrangements and at that exact sweet 66 spot when the beat explosion met psychedelia. Forced to admit this is pretty good, a shame all their catalogue goes for ridiculous prices.
4
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Fri Nov 11 2022
The Infotainment Scan
The Fall
Excellent album but would it even make my top ten Fall albums? No it would not. A more interesting point in their catalogue it can claim to own is the last unarguably great album they made.
4
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Sat Nov 12 2022
Live And Dangerous
Thin Lizzy
This is pretty much the TL greatest hits, from the golden run of albums from Vagabonds through to Bad Reputation. Notoriously lots of overdubs, but one of the great 'live' albums.
5
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Sun Nov 13 2022
Deserter's Songs
Mercury Rev
An album which grows greater the older it gets. The links with The Band are clear here - Levon Helm appears on one track - with this an updated ghost tour through American history. I like to imagine they're driving through deserted gas stations and tumble down wooden shops on Highway 66.
5
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Mon Nov 14 2022
Jazz Samba
Stan Getz
You know not every album has to stop you in your tracks. This one sidles up beside you and starts stroking your hand. As the Fast Show would say 'noice'.
3
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Tue Nov 15 2022
Screamadelica
Primal Scream
There are some albums you respect, admire or are even awestruck by. And then others that are just love. This is one of those I cannot love enough. Ten reasons why:
1.
It easily passes the ‘what’s it like without the big hit singles’. Take out Movin On Up, Loaded and Come Together and you still have one almighty album.
2.
Loaded is surely by common consent the greatest remix ever - and the Higher Than The Sun Orb remix and Terry Farley 12” remix of Come Together are not far behind.
3.
It’s one of the great studio albums - like London Calling, The Hounds of Love or Revolver. By that I mean there’s a great producer at the helm (here the sainted and sadly departed Andy Weaterall, Jimmy Miller, The Orb and Hypnotone) and a sense of everyone pushing their skills and the tech to the max.
4.
It’s the album - the track - that brought dance and guitars together. Well, it and Fool’s Gold.
Unpopular view: it’s a better album than The Stone Roses.
5.
Nobody, not even his mum, knows whether Bobby Gillespie can actually sing or not.
6.
They left the title track off the bloody album!
7.
It’s the entire PS career in one album - Memphis 70s rock, dub reggae, a rock band’s take on acid house, ambient. About the only thing missing is the Ramonesesque racket they’d get to on Xterminator.
8.
There’s not one. Not two but three versions of Higher Than The Sun.
9.
There must be a Memphis Sessions style original album before the fairy dust was sprinkled. Come on Creation.
10. The cover was - like all great albums of the time - a great t-shirt.
5
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Wed Nov 16 2022
Apocalypse 91… The Enemy Strikes Black
Public Enemy
The last of the PE golden run of four amazing albums. Perhaps the least-heralded and its a little less blitzkreig than its predecessor. None the worse for a little more space and possesses mighty hits in the form of Arizona, Shut It Down and Can't Truss it.
4
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Thu Nov 17 2022
Warehouse: Songs And Stories
Hüsker Dü
Ah the Du. Was ever such great songwriting let down by such awful production....oh guys you did it yourselves? Try and listen past the fact that the drums sound like they are made out of plastic, and there is no bass, to the late-period Du majesty. There are tunes that are catchy as hell (Could You Be The One, ice cold ice, She's A Woman), thrash outs (closer You Can Live At Home Now) and just plain weird (She Floated Away). A warehouse full of songs and stories.
5
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Fri Nov 18 2022
Who's Next
The Who
Nothing for me to add here. I look at the track listing and can play every single song in my head. The only time IMHO - Tommy included - that they got it together to make not just brilliant singles, but a wholly satisfying album. Quadrophenia a close - actually not that close - second.
5
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Tue Nov 22 2022
Pump
Aerosmith
There are some bands you get the sense are in it to make the music they love and all the other stuff - fame and fortune - is a secondary consideration. They'd do what they do for 50 or 5000 people. Then there's bands for whom it appears to be the other way round. Nirvana were just around the corner, and judging by this couldn't get there quick enough. Adequate.
2
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Wed Nov 23 2022
Untitled (Black Is)
SAULT
Ridiculously prolific, this is perhaps the album that catapulted them to wider awareness. It's not really 20 tracks, more a soundscape in 20 parts, some of which like Monsters and Wildfires are beautifully rendered modern R and B, some of which are spoken word, some instrumental. Really needing to be devoured in one sitting (maybe a coffee break after track 10).
4
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Thu Nov 24 2022
Faust IV
Faust
Not unpleasant as background working, and probably great live as well. Grat that there is an actual track called 'krautrock'
3
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Fri Nov 25 2022
Purple Rain
Prince
After you subtract the monster hit singles that everyone can sing in their sleep, there's only four tracks left. They are all pretty good. Why only four stars? I don't think it is anything like his best album and what do I give Sign O The Times then? 4.5 if they did halves.
4
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Sat Nov 26 2022
The Stranger
Billy Joel
Some albums surprise you. Some are just the way you expect. The big singles blighted my early years of listening to pop via the endless airplay on wunderful Radio One (UK only here). if Tina Turner's 80s input is music for people who don't like music, Joel is right up there too. The album tracks reveal nothing to change the situation.
1
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Sun Nov 27 2022
Natty Dread
Bob Marley & The Wailers
Stellar stellar album. Listen to the studio version of No Woman No Cry and you'll hear a version that's faster and less heavy on the organ and backing vocals than the much more famous live version from Live at the Lyceum. The second side's intensity drops a little from the first, but it's from a 6 to a 5 really.
5
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Mon Nov 28 2022
Sail Away
Randy Newman
I can see absolutely why other people love Randy Newman. But I just don't click. Perhaps a result of associating him with Woody and Buzz. Sorry Randy.
2
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Tue Nov 29 2022
No Other
Gene Clark
Yes this ok, a nice listen, without me thinking it's the best album ever made.
3
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Wed Nov 30 2022
Rid Of Me
PJ Harvey
I recall this album on release as basically unlistenable noise. Clearly wrong. Instead the start of her 90s imperial run of albums up to ... well probably up to Let England Shake in 2011.
4
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Thu Dec 01 2022
Rio
Duran Duran
My younger brother had this - I was at heart in 1982 a Bunnymen Teardrops New Order camouflage jacket wearing new waver. He, 2 years younger, had the pastel suit, blonde flick and white shirt of the New Romantic. We still have some excellent photos of him around that time. Anyway, the 3 singles were inescapable. The rest of the album is efficient. Now I'm in birmingham and you can buy an art print of the Rum Runner. All mental floss which ends up saying that they peaked with Planet Earth and declined steeply from there. he did go to Milton keynes to see Lets Dance era Bowie, so he got something good out of the whole thing.
2
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Fri Dec 02 2022
Nilsson Schmilsson
Harry Nilsson
He hung out with the Beatlies ddin't he. So no surprise the best of this sounds like early solo McCartney. The worst of it sounds like....Without You. Being less than generous because that song is unlistenable to, it's a two.
2
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Sat Dec 03 2022
Mothership Connection
Parliament
You are either a Clintonite or not. If you are this is with the early Funkadelic albums much the best place to start. Pretty damn good from start of finish. And like all good funk albums its chief subject is of course the funk. Getting it, having it, being it, losing it...
4
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Sun Dec 04 2022
The Suburbs
Arcade Fire
It's a four. The first quarter of the album is a five, taking up where The Neon Bible left off. But 16 full tracks is a bit too much and the second half of the album has a couple of samey tracks on. 12 tracks, 48 mins guys.
4
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Mon Dec 05 2022
Palo Congo
Sabu
There is not much latin American percussion in here and I'm a bit at a loss as to what to make of this. The conga playing is clearly great, and the mainly chanted call-and-response vocals add to what is quite a minimal sound palate. Rhythms and tracks that were crying out for just a bit more melody.
2
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Tue Dec 06 2022
Born In The U.S.A.
Bruce Springsteen
There were many turns Springsteen could have taken after the blockbuster variety show that was The River, which in retrospect puts a cap on 70s Bruce. He took the pop and bar band vibes of Hungry Heart and made a whole album following up on that. This is a Big Album, like they made in the eighties and just don't do anymore. Seven singles in the States (I think 5 in the UK) and endless rotation on MTV. Has it aged well? Not really. The title track is rendered virtually unlistenable to by virtue of the production, the Monster Hit is rendered virtually unlistenable to by virtue of being Dancing In The Dark. There's some good stuff here - Downtown Train and My Hometown in particular - but there are no tracks that would make it onto my Desert Island Bruce Disks. It can only be three stars, so that there's proper room for Tunnel of Love or Nebraska on 4, and Darkness.. on 5.
3
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Wed Dec 07 2022
Maggot Brain
Funkadelic
Track one, eleven minutes of shredding. Track seven ten minutes of funk. In between five short and sharp tracks. Superbly listenable.
4
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Thu Dec 08 2022
Take Me Apart
Kelela
Not an unpleasant listen and she can write a tune, but it's too long and quite difficult to focus at times.
3
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Fri Dec 09 2022
Moon Safari
Air
Some whispered vocals, airy synth washes and gently burbling bass. Some a bit slow, some with a bit more of a pulse. The whole thing is so much more than the sum of its parts and - cliche alert - it's all held together with a great sense of style.
4
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Sat Dec 10 2022
Violator
Depeche Mode
Take away the four huge singles, and it's still a pretty good album. Probably comes closest to breaking the Mode album pattern of astonishing singles and ok album tracks. So four stars.
4
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Sun Dec 11 2022
Nowhere
Ride
A band I love more than I should, as I lived in Oxford in the early nineties and even knew a friend of one of the band. Got a guest pass to their gig at Oxford Apollo on the second album tour. Full disclosure over, they have aged brilliantly and this album is full of brilliant tunes, Vapour Trails above all, lush harmonies and clever guitar textures. I listened to it from start to finish in a traffic jam on the M6 and was never less than admiring.
5
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Mon Dec 12 2022
1977
Ash
You know I'd not heard this for twenty years, owned by my partner. Girl From Mars was a banger always, but Kung Fu, Angel Interceptor, Oh Yeah are also absolutely brilliant too. I had this pigeonholed as mid-table Britpop but I'd put this in an Europa league place.
4
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Tue Dec 13 2022
Countdown To Ecstasy
Steely Dan
Few bands have a core catalogue as focused and high-quality as the Dan. The temptation is to give every album five stars. But things are relative. there are five-star songs here - My Old School and Boddhisvata obvs, but Gold Teeth and Boston Rag though fine songs don't quite hit those heights. And if it's five then what is Katy Lied or the Royal Scam? So four, though a 9 out of ten.
4
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Wed Dec 14 2022
Scott 4
Scott Walker
Very surprisingly pleasant listen, sophisticated late 60s singer-songwriter pop with good arrangements. The fearsome Scott lay ahead then.
3
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Thu Dec 15 2022
Time (The Revelator)
Gillian Welch
I'd listened to this a few weeks ago. It's three stellar songs spaces throughout - Title track, I Wanna Sing and the astonishing and astonishingly long end track. They sustain interest throughout with just two guitars or banjo and vocals. Absolutely usually hate this kind of stuff, so it's a strong four.
4
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Fri Dec 16 2022
Pictures At An Exhibition
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Ok I tried I really did. I lasted 3 songs and then went 'you know what why don't I actually listen to the original' . Mussorgsky's piece in Ravel's orchestration is a minor classic and very listenable. When replaced by clod-eared synths, bass and drums it's about as listenable to as Concerto for Group and Orchestra. For Mussorgsky (in a recent Wiener Phil/Dudamel version) 3 stars. For ELP -3. This was why punk had to happen.
1
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Sat Dec 17 2022
Gunfighter Ballads And Trail Songs
Marty Robbins
This is just too country for me, the lyrics are gently amusing with the passage of time but really it's novelty stuff.
2
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Sun Dec 18 2022
Steve McQueen
Prefab Sprout
Many of the albums I end up giving five stars find the perfect balance between two contrary drivers in the artist. And so it is here: the pop rush and classic songwriting chops on one side, the witty wordplay, clever time signatures and chords on the other. Side one is one of the strongest side ones of any album in the eighties and it's a crime that When Loves Breaks Down wasn't number one: the record company clearly thought so too as they kept re-releasing it every ten minutes with another free single. No 25 with a bullet and since covered by the Zombies, Snow Patrol and Lisa Stansfield who clearly all know a classic when they hear it. they'd get the big hits on the next album, slightly too much pop rush and not enough of the grit in the oyster.
5
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Mon Dec 19 2022
Leftism
Leftfield
The sound of clubbing in the 90s and with the Chemicals and Underworld part of the 'big 3' of dance music bands making actual albums. As successful as either of the others in making an album that sounded like clubbing while actually being listenable to. Lydon and Halliday the coolest guest vocalists as well.
5
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Tue Dec 20 2022
The Score
Fugees
This is a pleasant listen with some standout tracks. Lauren Hill's voice and the samples are great, but the beats and rapping are pretty ordinary.
2
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Wed Dec 21 2022
Sweetheart Of The Rodeo
The Byrds
Country-rock is a genre I don't immediately warm to, and the balance has to be exactly right. It is pretty much spot on here and it's a great listen. It's 3 and a half rather than 3, but probably for me not a 4 though for lots of others clearly will be.
3
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Thu Dec 22 2022
Soul Mining
The The
An album I had first on cassette (with additional album Burning Blue Soul), then on CD and now am streaming. As debuts go it didn't reveal quite how far Matt Johnson would go in terms of blood, sweat and guns but it's a solid gold set of tunes.
5
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Fri Dec 23 2022
Inspiration Information
Shuggie Otis
Psychedelic soul, very pleastant listen and that Tarantino track, but not more than a 3
3
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Sat Dec 24 2022
2112
Rush
The ultimate game of two halves album. Side one sheer prog heavy genius and batshit crazy. Side two some nice but ultimately unremarkable single tracks. Can't give it a five, much though I'd like to, for Tears (ballads always problematic for Rush with that voice), and the ridiculous orientatlism of the guitar lick on Bangkok. Four then. They got the 'long tracks/short tracks' balance better on the next two IMHO
5
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Sun Dec 25 2022
Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
OutKast
Oh my god this album is soooo long it started in the second Obama administration. It's so long Britain has had four prime ministers (actually that'd be true of The Ramones) before side two. There are other long albums I like, but there just so many skits, filler and so on that the album of corking material is quite lost. I have this and after listening to again am ripping and recycling. So this works both ways I guess.
2
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Mon Dec 26 2022
A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector
Various Artists
From the golden age of Christmas albums and songs (Eartha Kitt, Motown, the Beatles and Phil). Yes an awful awful man but shouldn't stop you listening to this. Did you spam me this on Christmas Day on purpose 1001?
4
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Wed Dec 28 2022
Being There
Wilco
There's a lot here, 19 tracks. Not sure I've got it all on first listen, but there's a lot going on. Need to relisten.
3
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Thu Dec 29 2022
The Pleasure Principle
Gary Numan
What a great album this is. The bass, drums and analogue synths provide a wonderfully warm soundscape on which Numan's chill android voice intones his Philip K Dick suffused tales of future alientation.
4
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Fri Dec 30 2022
The Soft Bulletin
The Flaming Lips
Two great singles, and a band who in their second decade suddenly found a sound that resonated. Full of their crazy space lyrics but like the next two albums (their purple patch) underpinned by rock-solid songwriting and loads of hooks.
4
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Sat Dec 31 2022
Violent Femmes
Violent Femmes
Every ten years I listen to this album and think 'its good, but not quite good enough to actually buy'. I still think that.
3
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Sun Jan 01 2023
Tanto Tempo
Bebel Gilberto
Nothing to it, a soft guitar, hushed drums and a simple yet lovely voice. But the whole so much greater than the parts.
3
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Mon Jan 02 2023
Rumours
Fleetwood Mac
What can you say about this album? Only that I noticed that Second Hand News is false start: a fine song but from another album. But from Dreams on in its pure 70s fm rock magic all the way.
5
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Tue Jan 03 2023
Entertainment
Gang Of Four
Who would have thought that forty-five years on from punk it was albums like Entertainment that would remain vital and contemporary. Or: 1980. Everyone wants to sound like the Sex Pistols (see US hardcore: Pistols sped up). Eighties and nineties: everyone wants to sound like the Jam or the Clash (white reggae excursions aside looking at you lots of Britpop and the Manics). Last thirty years: the most important bands from the punk/new wave era in terms of influence and bands actually wanting to sound like them: Wire and Gang of Four. In sixties terms then we can see GOF as The Velvet Underground in this scenario with the Jam, Clash and Pistols as Kinks, Stones and….well who were the Pistols?
Whereas Wire’s songs were diverse GOF’s on Entertainment cleave to a restrictive template entirely in keeping with their politics. Slashing guitars, tight drumming and bass with a dried-out and sped-up funk tempo, and sloganeering vocals over the top. Elastica, Franz Ferdinand, Rakes and a billion other bands the sound you took from is here. What they didn’t take which makes GOF sound bang up to date is hardcore Marxism. There’s no personal insights, no obtuse metaphors or poetic phrases but political analysis: At Home He’s A Tourist (He fills his head with culture/he gives himself an ulcer) The problem of leisure/What to do for pleasure, Watch new blood on the 18 inch screen/The corpse is a new personality. These are lyrics that would make as much sense on a posterr. I wish I’d bought this on vinyl as the artwork carries all this into the visual arena: I spend most of my money on myself so I can stay fat/We’re grateful for his leftovers, the cowboy and indian sequence and so on. Streaming on Spotify is just not the same.
Conceptual joke/situtationist artwork: this was released on EMI.
And finally, in the scratchy textures and awkward corners there are nagging tunes and melodies. Not the kind to trouble Elton John or Billy Joel, but enough to have them in your head for a few days.
5
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Wed Jan 04 2023
Planet Rock: The Album
Afrika Bambaataa
Yes some excellent, vital tracks but absolutely not an album.
3
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Thu Jan 05 2023
Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Not really about the albums was he, but of the early ones this is probably the best.
3
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Fri Jan 06 2023
Signing Off
UB40
Listening to this today on the original vinyl I bought second hand in about 82, complete with bonus 12" disc. What a fine album this is, the most successful bringing together of new wave and reggae, perhaps the reggae equivalent of what Gang of Four did for funk. This and its follow up are just great, but from then on its a tale of diminishing returns, awful covers, awfuler collabs, fallings out and ultimately two UB40s touring simultaneously. Never let 'I got You Babe' stop you listening to this. In their defence they went bust several times and covers are a way to get a hit quick and money in. As a Brummie, whose local has a plaque commemorating their first rehearsal, it hurts that they didn't go onto fulfil the promise of the first two albums, though what do I know, they sold 100 million records. Most of which are Red Red Wine or I Got You Babe.
4
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Sat Jan 07 2023
Madman Across The Water
Elton John
No sorry don't buy the whole he was credible in the early seventies. Yes there are songs here. But not songs I particularly like. Even Tiny Dancer.
2
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Sun Jan 08 2023
The Undertones
The Undertones
Yes one of the crown jewels of punk pop. Very little to add to this which is an album I originally got on a cheap portugese grey import market vinyl and has been a joy ever since. While Teenage Kicks might not be the best song ever (in that vein I would go for Another Girl, Another Planet by The Only Ones) it is definitely top ten.
5
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Mon Jan 09 2023
Yeezus
Kanye West
Hardcore if such a thing were possible in rap. I can see why people rate this, and the final track Bound2 is an absolute banger, but there's too little of the sweet sampling that powered the college trilogy and too much of Kanye banging on about this and that. Short though.
3
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Tue Jan 10 2023
My Aim Is True
Elvis Costello
5
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Wed Jan 11 2023
Mama's Gun
Erykah Badu
Context is everything. At work had this on while working on budgets. Me and Erykah did not vibe. At home a couple of hours later the second half of the album sounded just fine while cooking. So a modern soul stew.
3
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Thu Jan 12 2023
Roxy Music
Roxy Music
What must have this sounded like in 1972? Google the Virginia Plain performance from Top of the Pops to see how they looked like they'd descended from another planet. The instruments were plastic, the outfits sequinny and the haircuts held up with clouds of spray. It's the sound of the future, a soundworld completely artificial and ironic, but completely convincing. One of the best debut albums ever.
5
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Fri Jan 13 2023
S.F. Sorrow
The Pretty Things
It might be the first concept album ever but it's late sixties beat psychedelia and the tunes are Europa League.
2
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Sun Jan 15 2023
Lost In The Dream
The War On Drugs
Though it tails off a bit, this is a fantastic reboot of Dylan, if he was backed by Don Henley's Boys of Summer soft-rock 80s synth sound. They'd perfect this on the next record, which adds a bit of Springsteen into the mix as well.
4
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Mon Jan 16 2023
Music From Big Pink
The Band
The thing I always come back to with the first two Band albums is how ego-free they sound. Has a rock band (hah!) ever nailed the sound of five musicans sharing the music so harmoniously. There's other stuff such as the gold-standard songwriting, and their journey into America's folk past just as everyone else was going into the fab future, but it's the interplay of the musicians I always come back to. Still astonishing after all these years. And yes, if you give this 5 then the second album should really be a 6.
5
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Tue Jan 17 2023
Your New Favourite Band
The Hives
I have this on CD, actually a compilation from two albums and various singles. Should it really be in this list then? Anyway, it's a frankenstein stitching up of the Kinks, Stooges, Dictators that doesn't really add anything to the mix except a crisp modern production. Thinking of ripping and binning.
2
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Wed Jan 18 2023
Behaviour
Pet Shop Boys
There are some bands who are frozen in their first flush of teenage youth for decades (think the Ramones), and other bands who appear middle-aged from the start. The National come to mind, but the daddies of the prematurely middle-aged pop star vibe are the Pet Shop Boys. So it is that this album is told mainly in the past tense. The adventures of youth (Being Boring) are events that happened years, perhaps decades ago. Though they were around before the phrase 'sad banger' was invented, they took the melancholia melodies at the heart of Kraftwerk and married them with lyrics focusing on failed romances, youths lost to AIDS, regrets at poor choices and misunderstandings. It's all very adult and amazing that they could do all this and sell millions of albums. There's a much quoted comment from Neil Tennant that once Domino Dancing went in the charts at 7 he knew their imperial period was over. This, the first album they made after that, is them staking out a more adult territory that would sustain them for decades. Is it five stars? Definitely 4.5 and I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt, if just for Being Boring which is perhaps their greatest ever piece of songwriting.
5
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Thu Jan 19 2023
Loveless
My Bloody Valentine
Not much to add to the many comments. It's both an extremely challenging listen and deeply soothing. Best thought of IMHO as one long track through which different melodies rise and fall from the overall texture of distortion and noise. Not really any good or bad tracks, and one of its joys is re-acquainting yourself with the slivers of melody that emerge each time you relisten. Again, an album that absolutely bears repeated listens.
4
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Fri Jan 20 2023
Mr. Tambourine Man
The Byrds
As they influenced so many of the bands I love, Fanclub and Smiths to name but 2, it's great to hear where the whole jangly power-pop Rickenbacker sound started. Ok they leant heavily on Dylan, but this is pretty flawless and the original songs are very strong as well. Heretical view: I prefer this Byrds to the now much-more fashionable country-rock period.
4
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Sat Jan 21 2023
More Songs About Buildings And Food
Talking Heads
It's four stars and a really good four stars.
4
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Sun Jan 22 2023
At San Quentin
Johnny Cash
Always engaging listening to Cash playing the Man In Black, chummying up to the cons and generally role playing the badass. Strong selection of classic C and W.
3
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Mon Jan 23 2023
Rust In Peace
Megadeth
Two monster tunes (Hanger 18 and Tornado of Souls) and a great balance of shred and tune. Not my type of music necessarily, but I've enjoyed listening to this.
3
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Tue Jan 24 2023
Axis: Bold As Love
Jimi Hendrix
Possibly the best psychedelic album every made, and also some fantastic stereo effects as it was a new toy. Solid songwriting and of course some of the greatest guitar playing ever.
4
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Wed Jan 25 2023
Astral Weeks
Van Morrison
What an impossible album to rate. It's the sound of driving through dappled sunlight through the trees in an open-top car on a warm summer day. Anyway, four stars.
4
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Thu Jan 26 2023
Now I Got Worry
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
The bastard child of The Cramps, Stooges and a thousand other scuzz rock garage bands. Is it fake is it real? Does it matter. The only way actually this could be any more enjoyable is if Jon Spencer was actually an Old Etonian called Quentin.
3
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Fri Jan 27 2023
Fire Of Love
The Gun Club
The idea of the Gun Club sound, a punk take on Americana, is great. Can really hear their influence on bands like Mercury Rev. But the songwriting isn't always of the first rank. Fascinating listen, and a sense of wide open spaces that reminds me of the Triffids and Go-Betweens.
3
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Sat Jan 28 2023
Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
Arctic Monkeys
Simpler times. Before the loungecore and strings there were razor-sharp Sheffield anthems of pubs, hooksups and misspent evenings. Fully formed straight out of the box.
4
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Sun Jan 29 2023
Remain In Light
Talking Heads
A band by 1980 so far ahead of their time it would take others several years to catch up. Funk, rap, afrobeats all in a sonic stew anchored by Weymouth and Frantz - surely contenders for one of the best rhythm sections of all time. Though The Overload sees a very slight lessening of the quality, it's 4.75 stars. I've had an earlier TH album ten days ago on the randomizer - assuming from this that pretty well every album up to Little Creatures will come up at some point.
5
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Mon Jan 30 2023
KIWANUKA
Michael Kiwanuka
A noughties soul update of the nineties dinner party vibes as practiced by Morcheeba, Sneaker Pimps et al. And thus three stars. Goes well with garlic bread.
3
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Tue Jan 31 2023
Live At The Star Club, Hamburg
Jerry Lee Lewis
Some fiery live renditions of Jerry's hits, chief attraction being his rolling striding piano, a thing of much joy. At 24 mins is it the shortest album on the list?
3
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Wed Feb 01 2023
Seventeen Seconds
The Cure
The first of their 'goth cycle' - ok all Cure albums are a form of goth, but this, Faith and Pornography set an ever-gloomier template for the eighties. This is a sparse album of textures and moods, a world away from the spiky pop of their debut while retaining a knack for a good tune (A Forest) that would ensure that they are always listenable.
4
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Thu Feb 02 2023
Nixon
Lambchop
Wow I listened to this literally two days before it came up on the shuffle. Lambchop are absolutely an unclassifiable band, alt-soul, new country, whatever. But the songs are brilliant all the way through, Wagner's voice a dolourous delight and the arrangements stately. Is it a five? Yes probably.
5
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Fri Feb 03 2023
Pelican West
Haircut 100
Three socking singles, and the whole album breezes along on pop-funky good vibes. Sometimes it's ok to be shallow - not everything has to be about Death and Taxes...
3
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Sat Feb 04 2023
Dear Science
TV On The Radio
This might be the album (400 in) that I am finding hardest to place. It is slippery - there's definitely a touch of Talking Heads nervous funk - sinewy bass, tight dry guitars - but often uses these ingredients to make something entirely new. Post-rock from less accessible bands like Godspeed is there too. I've listened to it five or six times and their superpower would definitely be escaping definition. If it's a four and not a five it's that only occasionally, as on Family Tree, do they pull everything into focus.
4
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Sun Feb 05 2023
Central Reservation
Beth Orton
Wispy voice, gentle chord progressions, delicate guitars - at times just this, at times with muted drums and bass. The sound of a 1000 dinner parties and mornings after in the late 90s. None the worst for that and holds up very well.
3
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Mon Feb 06 2023
Casanova
The Divine Comedy
A solid three, two big singles and a high consistency of wit, arched eyebrow and glittery melodies all the way. and yes, Songs of Love is indeed the Father Ted theme.
3
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Tue Feb 07 2023
The Cars
The Cars
A quintesssential greatest hits band. Whatever you think of the singles, they clearly are all you need. This is not that greatest hits. Two singles, two stars.
2
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Wed Feb 08 2023
The Rising
Bruce Springsteen
Ok I’ll bite on this one. A 3 for me. But why you ask as a fairly strong Bruce fan. My case m'lud:
It’s front-loaded for acclaim: not only the first album with the E Street Band, its Bruce’s 9/11 rallying cry etc etc.
It’s really a reunion album, hi guys what have you been up to for the past 18 years. And like all reunions we want it to succeed so much it can’t possibly. The ‘return to form’ never quite is a return to peak form.
It is sooo long. 72 minutes for 15 tracks - and whereas earlier albums had epics (Jungleland, Racing the Streets) contrasted with short and punchy tracks, this sees every track stagger long past its natural lifespan. Smoking gun: at least one key change.
The ‘dad rock’ comments elsewhere are on the money: in Worlds Apart (Arabic music), and The Fuse (trip hop drums, looped vocals!!) we hear the sound of someone listening to what the kids have been up to. The Fuse is cringeworthy - not a comment one usually.
Clunky generic lyrics. Waiting for a Sunny Day, Lets Be Friends and Counting on a Miracle are free of metaphor and are a mite simplistic even for a Phil Spector track. We are a long way from The River.
The production is very dated: particularly the drums and synths which sound like this album was recorded a year after Born In The USA not 18.
A chugging mid-tempo beat that suggests they are all a bit too old to really rip it up, and that Bruce’s voice is no longer up to the slowed-down intensity of Drive All Night or Wreck on the Highway.
Arrangements that despite the aforementioned mid-life crisis effects are very uniform. It feels like an album - the very last track excepted - to give everyone in the band their due, which over 72 minutes means the tracks can blur into one another.
In retrospect a midway point: pointing as much towards the middling albums like Magic and Working On A Dream as back to the golden age.
Scores on the doors. Here is the tight, four plus star album it could have been:
Lonesome Day
Into The Fire
Nothing Man
Empty Sky
Worlds Apart
You’re Missing
The Rising
My City In Ruins
3
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Thu Feb 09 2023
Pink Moon
Nick Drake
Oh I don't know. I dislike this form of music so intensely that I can't judge whether St Nick is actually any good at it. Two stars.
2
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Fri Feb 10 2023
The Seldom Seen Kid
Elbow
You know it's not bad, in a kind of rainy Sunday afternoon slightly bored and melancholy way. Maybe a bit hungover, perhaps thinking about a work meeting Monday morning. This is the soundtrack to that bit of your life.
3
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Sat Feb 11 2023
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Very much a debut album, American Girl a startling single that would grab attention, but behind it a sound that was still emerging from the shadows of 70s rock into something different.
3
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Sun Feb 12 2023
Punishing Kiss
Ute Lemper
Like a box of Ferrero Rocher, one Ute Lemper song makes you think this is the best thing ever. But after twelve the richness makes you feel a little bit sick. When you add in Neil Hannon as well, we really are at risk of diabetes. If you could discipline yourself to listening to this as one track a day that would be best.
3
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Mon Feb 13 2023
Haunted Dancehall
The Sabres Of Paradise
Great ambient dub techno or whatever you want to describe it with. Haunted Dancehall is as good a description as anything else. Stands up well.
4
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Tue Feb 14 2023
Transformer
Lou Reed
Fivety five stars. Take away (deep breath) Vicious, Perfect Day, Wild Side, Satellite, NY Telephone and play the other six tracks and they are all uniformly amazing. For an artist whose vast solo output can mainly be described with the word patchy, this is an incredibly consistent album. That Bowie, he was quite on it in the seventies wasn't he?
5
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Wed Feb 15 2023
Strangeways, Here We Come
The Smiths
The only two bands people are impressed by having seen twice are Nirvana and the Smiths - the latter at the Hacienda and Oxford Apollo, a gig at which future life partner was at but as yet unbenownst to me. All of their albums are five stars, and this is no exception. On yet another relisten you can hear how they had perfected the Smiths sound to such a ridiculous degree that they had said all there was to say: the 2-minute pop thrill dominated by Marr's chiming guitar and rousing choruses (Girlfriend In A Coma, Stop Me, Unhappy Birthday, A Rush and A Push) and the moody workout with a slower pace and more expansive arrangements (Disco Dancer, Last Night, I Won't Share You). Apart from that one can hear some of the early Morrissey quirkiness transforming into People I Do Not Like and Why They Are Awful: here disco dancers, record company executives and girlfriends. Alternative: Unattainable Heroes On A Pedastal who Still Make Me Miserable Even Though I Adore Them (Last Night.., Dead Pop Stars, Dan).
5
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Thu Feb 16 2023
It's A Shame About Ray
The Lemonheads
This is just great. The title track and My Drug Buddy are the standout tracks, that any songwriter of the past forty years would be proud of. Ably supported by a consistent slate of short, sharp blasts of early-90s grungy pop. Four stars. Didn't need to even mention that cover.
4
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Fri Feb 17 2023
Superunknown
Soundgarden
Veered between a 2 and a 3 on this, and ended up, because Day I Tried to Live and Black Hole Sun are such tunes, I gave them the benefit of the doubt. As 90s as a David Fincher movie.
3
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Sat Feb 18 2023
Elastica
Elastica
Hey just because their best songs are other peoples songs doesn't mean this is not worth listening to. Still an insanely catchy and sleazy 40 minutes rifling through the post-punk canon. Think of it as sampling with instruments and you'll be fine.
4
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Sun Feb 19 2023
Imperial Bedroom
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
Ah. Yes Beyond Belief, Man out of Time and Almost Blue are fine tunes. But elsewhere everything is swamped in complex arrangements and overproduction. I am not one who subscribes to this album as masterpiece. Overthought and overwrought.
3
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Mon Feb 20 2023
Peggy Suicide
Julian Cope
Is it his finest solo album? yes. Is it perfect no, and there are signs of the Droolian obsessions that would lead him into full on druidery. But the songs are bullet-proof and providing you don't mind it's a double, it's a fantastic time trip to early rave culture, poll tax riots, the awful afterglow of Mrs Thatcher and how deeply wierd we all were in the early nineties. Also, lots of great photos in the packaging.
5
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Tue Feb 21 2023
Since I Left You
The Avalanches
A mixtape album rather than an album, a collage of samples lovingly assembled but also, like the 2manydjs and cut up stuff prevelant in the noughties also exhausting.
3
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Wed Feb 22 2023
Rock 'N Soul
Solomon Burke
Very listenable early sixties 'classic soul' - perhaps he doesn't touch the desperation or ecstacy that Sam Cooke or Otis Redding can reach, he seems quite a grounded chap. Full marks for putting forward his worldview that not every woman can be loved, as he is only one man.
3
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Thu Feb 23 2023
Rattus Norvegicus
The Stranglers
What a strange group the Stranglers were. Perhaps in a solid Europa league spot in the punk premiership, they were hardly punk at all. Insanely musical - but the standout instruments being JJB's bass and Dave Greenfield's swirling keyboards. All accomplished musicians/ice cream business owners. This after nearly fifty years is still a brilliant listen, brimming with catchy choruses and sharp chords. The lyrics? Well only Goodbye Toulouse (apocalyptic destruction of society) and the epic Down In the Sewer (rats resurrect society) are not about beating up women, ugly women, prostitutes, sexually available or unavailable women and so on. were they being 'ironic'. Not really sure myself, and I prefer the rat mythologising. Still, outstanding songwriting.
4
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Fri Feb 24 2023
Gris Gris
Dr. John
Listenable and Gilded Splinters is a proper tune, but elsewhere it's more about the voodoo vibe at times than anything else.
3
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Sat Feb 25 2023
Dig Your Own Hole
The Chemical Brothers
Though it may not be their most sophisticated album, it's the ultimate expression of their early Big Beat phase. Block Rockin Beats, Setting Son are both immense, and Where Do I Begin an early sign that they might have more conventional song structures under all the dj action. Five stars, and six if possible for Psychedelic Reel which which has one of the best drops in recorded music.
5
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Sun Feb 26 2023
Colour By Numbers
Culture Club
An album that should not wear well. But yet it escapes from an era of albums that have not: Rio and True for two. It has many of the tropes of early 80s Britpop: sax breaks check, featured female backing singers check, Motown backbeats check, dry as dust production check, gated drums check. And yet it effortlessly rises above all of tis to sound as brilliant today as bursting out of top of the Pops in 1982. Reasons why? George is a better singer than many others, and the songwriting is pretty foolproof. It delivers the four monster hit singles, but much more it’s got unstoppable momentum. Not until track eight – eight! - Mister Man, does the momentum slow from effervescent to album track. Even then, only for a moment are we down before Stormkeeper gets us back on track and Victims gives it the big closing number. Rounding up from 4.8 because yes.
5
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Mon Feb 27 2023
This Is Hardcore
Pulp
The mother of all come-down albums, a completely feel bad album about fame. Perhaps not Different Class, but in the title track, Help the Aged, Dishes and Sylvia there's a fistful of memorable tracks. Elsewhere, Jarvis is never less than listenable and their sound is tougher and harder, if not quite as poptastic in the choruses. Solid four.
4
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Tue Feb 28 2023
Elvis Is Back
Elvis Presley
Ho-hum. The big tunes you'll know and it's all starting to go a bit Vegas. Again, not an albums artist. Still, it's short. And a nice pic on the cover.
2
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Wed Mar 01 2023
Dummy
Portishead
Five stars. Just one of those albums where every sound is so carefully crafted the whole thing appears hewn from a single block of marble. And textures is exactly the right word - the metallic dragging that haunts Sour Times, the theramin that recurs, and the glorious film music samples that litter the album. All to provide a compelling soundscape for Beth Gibbons voice. Great though Glory Box and Sour Times are, it's Roads that is the 10/5 track - a better idea of the contemporary torch song you will not find anywhere.
5
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Thu Mar 02 2023
69 Love Songs
The Magnetic Fields
Both a good album and the high concept of a good album, there is a double album worth four stars, possibly 4.5, but to get to the magic number 69 there's just enough filler to bring the score down. Nothing quite like it in rock, and possibly the only triple album in this list.
3
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Fri Mar 03 2023
Manassas
Stephen Stills
Never trust a hippy. This is a fabulously self-indulgent, self-important and cringeworthy album. The nadir is surely Jonathans Garden in which we have to consider the following:
With his love
And his carin'
He puts his life
Into beauty sharin'
And his children
Are his flowers
There to give us peace
In quiet hours
I have considered it enough. One star.
1
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Tue Mar 07 2023
Sign 'O' The Times
Prince
Nothing to add, peak Prince. If Around The World In A Day... was Sgt Pepper, this is The White Album and Abbey Road rolled into one humungous statement. See the concert film for the best live act in the world at the time as well.
5
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Wed Mar 08 2023
New Gold Dream (81/82/83/84)
Simple Minds
I love this album, capturing a moment where the chilly Euro-fluenced dance music they'd been perfecting on Empires and Dance and the Sister Feelings Call set thaw out with a new pop sensibility. It's really one mood, with pop sunshine ('Miracle') and longer more abstract tracks (King Is White) moving the dial back and forth but never leaving the unique mood they create on this album. From hereon in the law of diminishing artistic returns/bigger sales would kick in, as their writing and arrangements became simpler. But marvel at how complete an achievement this is.
5
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Thu Mar 09 2023
Close To The Edge
Yes
Some very sage comments along the lines of 'it's why punk had to happen, but it's also really good' - which is pretty much how I feel about it. Never going to give this five stars with the Anderson voice, but it's a solid four.
4
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Fri Mar 10 2023
My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts
Brian Eno
One of those albums about which you can say that though it didn't sell a million copies, everybody who bought it was a musician. It's still a fantastic listen, and great working music. Got to love an album with nods from Kate Bush and Public Enemy.
4
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Sat Mar 11 2023
Songs Of Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen
Three stars. An enjoyable enough listen, and many of the songs are standards. But I'm not that sold on Laughing Len.
3
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Sun Mar 12 2023
Black Metal
Venom
Not unlistenable to, but really not my thing. The kind of album that everyone who then made millions listened to (Metallica, Slayer etc) as it's the mid-point between NWOBHM and thrash. The band meanwhile sold about 30 copies no doubt, so kind of the heavy metal Velvet Underground.
3
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Mon Mar 13 2023
Vanishing Point
Primal Scream
this is such a curate's egg album. A base layer of echo-ey dub, but there's thrash, 70s dub reggae, ballads and pretty much everything. Accordingly, no focus though a pleasant enough listen. The kind of album a band makes after a golden run comes to an end.
3
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Fri Mar 17 2023
Liquid Swords
GZA
Great listen, the depth and quality of the beats here are just fantastic - as in Swordsman (recalling Portishead) or Duel of the Iron Mic. The rapping is so dense it can sometimes pass you by but a good listen.
3
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Sat Mar 18 2023
Bookends
Simon & Garfunkel
Solid four stars, probably four and a half. Not flawless, but with a fistful of undying classics.
4
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Sun Mar 19 2023
Real Life
Magazine
Music was really moving at the speed of light in the UK in the late seventies. Released June 1978 only 9 months after Never Mind... and it sounds like punk is already in the rear view mirror. Sharp Shot (a legacy track from the Devoto/Shelley Buzzcocks) is both the best track and untypical of the rest of the album in its guitar thrash. Elsewhere it's jagged rhythms, Barry Adamson's moody bass, keyboards and shining through the first sighting of John Mcgeogh's luminous guitar work. An amazing album, and great though the other three Magazine albums are (until the first split) they would not recapture the consistency and quality of songwriting on here.
5
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Mon Mar 20 2023
Electric Warrior
T. Rex
Great pop album, a fistful of monsters and strong songwriting throughout. His imperial period might have been brief, but it was imperial.
3
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Tue Mar 21 2023
Fragile
Yes
I'm going to go for Topographic Oceans as the ultimate yes album over this, though Roundabout is an absolute banger. Very listenable, though ultimately not my kind of thing.
3
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Wed Mar 22 2023
Pearl
Janis Joplin
I am never going to get Janis Joplin.
2
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Thu Mar 23 2023
Make Yourself
Incubus
Not awful, but it's pretty run of the mill 90s rock, there's that telltale scratching mixed in so its got a touch of nu metal. And there's a big ballad for the radio plays. Very American. Didn't really do much for me.
2
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Fri Mar 24 2023
High Violet
The National
The slowest burn of slow burn bands. Conventionally their best album. In fact their best album. Not quite five stars, but a 4.5.
4
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Sat Mar 25 2023
Aladdin Sane
David Bowie
On a five-note scale this has to be a five. On a ten note scale still a ten. On a twenty-note scale maybe 18.5, as the Stones cover is pretty throwaway. Other than that, nastier and harder than Ziggy.
5
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Sun Mar 26 2023
Imagine
John Lennon
There is some nice playing from George and mates, and Lennon has still a way with a tune. but the overall vibe is of being cornered at a works do by that colleague that everyone else is avoiding because they know he can talk no-stop opinionated rubbish at your for an hour. And Imagine would make my reverse Desert Island Discs - ie what 8 records would you least like to have as your sole listening library, alongside Candle In The Wind and Bo Rap.
2
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Mon Mar 27 2023
Night Life
Ray Price
This is a very difficult listen for a modern ear, though interesting to hear it from a time when bluegrass, honkytonk and western swing were coalescing into what would become the 'nashville' C and W sound. Academic interest only. Willie Nelson played bass.
2
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Tue Mar 28 2023
Ágætis Byrjun
Sigur Rós
A band still evolving, some moments of greatness, but also some very lengthy passages when not much happens. Around the corner....
3
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Wed Mar 29 2023
Stand!
Sly & The Family Stone
Yes it's a pretty good listen. 3 stars.
3
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Thu Mar 30 2023
Beyond Skin
Nitin Sawhney
It's very listenable to, I was doing a funding bid this afternoon, in a 90s office vibe with a big printer, usb drives and those jelly coloured imacs. I want to say I love it. But I don't.
3
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Fri Mar 31 2023
Kenza
Khaled
Well, it's pretty easy listening global pop, interesting to hear how Western textures and music programming infiltrate other genres. An inexplicable cover of Imagine however downgrades this from a three to a two.
2
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Sat Apr 01 2023
1984
Van Halen
I did not listen to Jump as like the entire population of earth I have heard it a billion times. The rest of the album is somehow worse..Jump has at least a pop sensibility. The rest is hair metal with a touch of synth. An album with no redeeming features at all. As you listen you can hear how it was written for the videos.
1
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Sun Apr 02 2023
What's Going On
Marvin Gaye
The five-star tracks really are five stars, but this does drop a fraction on side two until the final track. Also think Let's get It On is the better album, so have to be able to recognise that. Definitely a 4.5.
4
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Mon Apr 03 2023
...And Justice For All
Metallica
The sound of a band undergoing furious evolution. The riffs are still pieces of granite, the drums thud, the guitars occasionally wail and there’s growly vocals. The songs are a bit longer than on For Whom… and in the case of To Live is to Die there are slow sections that contrast nicely with the full on sludgerama that is their default sound. On this track, there’s perhaps a whiff of a new genre emerging, thrash prog. Mmm. The slow bits could be lifted from late-70s Rush. Elsewhere, as on opener Blackened it is all thrash all the time.
Interesting that they went for a more recognisable heavy metal sound next on the black album, as this is the sound of a band both slowing down (the overall tempo must be slower than Master of Puppets…) and expanding their sound. Dyer’s Eve and Blackened are perhaps last runs through the faster-than-you sound of the early stuff before MTV beckoned. There’s even a thrash ballad in One: practically auditioning for a slot on Leather and Lace IV.
What are they singing about? You know, world domination, injustice, terror, death. Going out with them must be a bundle of laughs. Unless they confirm to the old theatrical truism that the cast playing Hamlet are in hysterics all the time, while those doing a Noel Coward are throwing shade to each other non-stop.
3
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Tue Apr 04 2023
Ill Communication
Beastie Boys
The first 3 or 4 tracks are unrepresentative here - shouty and rocky BB's, but after that it gets much more varied and interesting. Funk, easy listening, jazz, soul - almost everything is in the stew. A rap group who became a group where rap was incidental.
4
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Wed Apr 05 2023
Sheet Music
10cc
This stuff has not aged that well. 10cc are the very definition of a greatest hits band giving you all the stuff you need, so on this album it is The Wall Street Shuffle. Otherwise it's pastiche pop. Immaculately done but absolutely of its time.
2
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Thu Apr 06 2023
Blur
Blur
If there are no second acts in American lives, in great bands perhaps a second life is what makes them great. The Stone Roses, producers of one and a half great albums, could not for the life of them produce a second act. Neither could Britpop premier leaguers Pulp or Suede, the latter refining their sound over the coming decades rather than ever escaping it. Oasis bless them would never admit such a thing was even possible. So it's Blur who produced on this album an act of escapology - adding grunge, lo-fi, even psychedelia to the Britpop template that in the previous album had both peaked and exhausted itself. A fantastic album, one that showed the band could absorb almost any influence and use it to go to new places.
4
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Fri Apr 07 2023
White Light
Gene Clark
Pleasant but unmemorable early seventies country-rock.
3
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Sat Apr 08 2023
Talking Book
Stevie Wonder
Superstition is a five-star track, but apart from that and the fine final track it's mid-tempo pop-funk or syrupy ballads. Thin pickings.
2
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Sun Apr 09 2023
Safe As Milk
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
Ok I will bite on this one and go never listened, did listen, very listenable. All over in barely 30 mins and some actual tunes and great guitar (courtesy Ry Cooder) to go with DGV's ultra raspy vocals. Hard to believe it would two albums to go from this to Trout Mask Replica.
4
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Mon Apr 10 2023
The Last Of The True Believers
Nanci Griffith
I am a fully paid-up member of the NG fan club and boy how she's missed. Be grateful that this - her best album - is on Spotify as her catalogue is only patchily available on streaming. This is right in the middle of her proper Imperial Period - starting with previous album Once In A Very Blue Moon (not available on Spotify) and stretching over five albums to Storms where she was operating with a quality and consistency that few singer-songwriters can match. Virtually every track here is gold, Love at the Five and Dime of course the stand-out.
5
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Tue Apr 11 2023
Green River
Creedence Clearwater Revival
A solid three: blues-rock guitar, that rolling rhythm and the gruff vocals all very much present and correct. Listening this time around I noticed how with some extra harmonies here, studio polish there and some slide guitar on top the chords and melodies in several songs could just slide into The Eagles sound very easily. Not a complement.
3
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Wed Apr 12 2023
OK Computer
Radiohead
What an album this is. The weakest track is perhaps Airbag, and it just gets better and better after that. Two thoughts: it's another example of the law of threes, completing the explosive growth from their debut through the Bends. After this it's a violent left turn with Kid A. Secondly, most of this album passes the 'busker test' therefore a proper tunes - Lucky, Paranoid Android, Karma Police could all work on an Amsterdam street corner with some guy with an acoustic guitar. Kid A, again not so much.
5
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Thu Apr 13 2023
Germfree Adolescents
X-Ray Spex
Did music ever move as quickly as it did in the three years from 1977-1980? New Rose by the Damned was October 1976 and barely two years later bands like X-Ray Spex were moving light years beyond the speeded up pub rock punk template. Oh! Bondage Up Yours is one of the classic punk singles - a howl of protest from an extra-ordinary new sort of singer in Poly Styrene, mixed race, wearing braces and with a sandblasting voice.
But by their debut album the punk howl was only one of their registers. The title track opens on a hypnotic synth riff and an unfolding rhythm that the new romantics a few years later would kill for. Then there’s Rudi Thompsons er unique sax playing - in fact Laura Logic and even someone called Ted all took a turn at the sax keys.
Along with the thrilling sound what impresses in this album forty years on is the strength of the ideas. From OCD cleanliness, genetic engineering, the emptiness of consumerism, personality and identity crises: this is a cumulatively brilliant critique of late seventies society. Though its the student radicalism of the Gang of Four who get the plaudits for injecting post-punk with the overtly political, and the Au Pairs who hold the feminist ring, this album holds its own with both of them in the strength of its ideas.
An essential album, one of the albums on the cusp of punk/post-punk that has lasted best. 4.5 stars but surely needs rounding up.
5
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Fri Apr 14 2023
Reign In Blood
Slayer
Pretty good, if not my stuff at all. Surprisingly melodic in the middle of the screaming and thrashing.
3
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Sat Apr 15 2023
The Renaissance
Q-Tip
Such an engaging rapper, and lovely to hear some native tongues vibes updated for the noughties. Like this.
3
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Sun Apr 16 2023
The ArchAndroid
Janelle Monáe
Just too much going on here - too many songs, too many style changes, too much in general. Some great songs - Cold War is fantastic, Say You'll go Good but it sorely needs an editor. Just lost me too many times.
2
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Mon Apr 17 2023
Dance Mania
Tito Puente
A couple of tracks yes a perfect tonic - a whole album the hypnotic rhythms, the clack of the timbales, the horns, the call and response vocals, it is all a bit samey. And music made worse by bringing the vocalist on. two and a half stars really but feeling generous.
3
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Tue Apr 18 2023
White Blood Cells
The White Stripes
Hard to argue with this. Half a dozen classic WS tracks and its insanely listenable all the way through. Less is more.
4
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Wed Apr 19 2023
Ray Of Light
Madonna
With a slight dipping with Bedtime Stories and American Life, Madonna's run of albums from Like A Virgin through to Confessons on A Dancefloor - near twenty years, is pretty well unmatched putting her up with critical darlings like REM and Prince. Like A Prayer and Ray of Light are the Everest and K2 in this range - I have a personal preference for the latter as I love the William Orbit wooshes and wibbles that provide the distinctive soundworld of this album. As ever the question is take the singles out and what's left. The answer is a lot. I'll even forgive her a bit of karmic nonsense with the om shantis and everything. This album is almost 25 years old which seems crazy as it still sounds contemporary.
5
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Thu Apr 20 2023
The Healer
John Lee Hooker
These collabathons can be pretty dull affairs, and so it proves here. Santana IMHO the kiss of dullness to anyone he works with. Concert at Newport the place to start with JLH not here.
2
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Fri Apr 21 2023
Made In Japan
Deep Purple
Tons of fun with all the Purple early classics sounding bigger, better and bolder live. No album with a 7-minute drum solo is getting five stars, but this is a shoe-in for four. Do agree that the presence of other Purple albums make this a pretty redundant use of a 1001 slot.
4
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Sat Apr 22 2023
Pretenders
Pretenders
Refreshing to hear all the big tracks backloaded onto side two. I do never need to hear Brass In Pocket ever again though.
3
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Tue Apr 25 2023
Phaedra
Tangerine Dream
Yes ok I can see how this is incredibly influential and all that but no matter how much I listen I can't get this - great textures but much less in the way of actual tunes.
2
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Wed Apr 26 2023
evermore
Taylor Swift
This can't quite deliver the complete shock of Folklore, an utter sidestep from Swift. But it's an excellent collection of tunes, only disturbed by the somewhat disturbing eruption of Matt Beringer's dad vocals. Bon Iver is a much better fit though the National again are the indiefolk magic sprinkled throughout.
4
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Thu Apr 27 2023
Skylarking
XTC
I have a lot of time for XTC and Black Sea, Drums and Wires and English Settlement are brilliant albums. Hope they come up later. I don't quite buy the 'late stuff is even better' - this has some lovely songs but it doesn't quite cut through, feels a bit 'classic' to me, though the occasional cut-through of the Wiltshire burr is always a joy.
3
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Fri Apr 28 2023
Trans Europe Express
Kraftwerk
What more can be said about an album that like Sgt Pepper or Pet Sounds virtually nothing is left to say. Two notes from the relisten here: their melancholy beauty is even more pronounced in a Brexit Britain listening to this love song to Europe. And the transition from Trance Europe Express to Metal on Metal is an awesome drop.
5
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Sat Apr 29 2023
Automatic For The People
R.E.M.
What album buries its two strongest tracks three-quarters of the way through the album? A group so confident in their game they can do whatever they like. (tracks in question Man on the Moon and Nightswimming).
5
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Sun Apr 30 2023
The Köln Concert
Keith Jarrett
Not much to add, one of the most perfect pieces of music ever created. Extra-ordinary to think it was all improvised. On tracks one and two you can hear someone composing in real time.
5
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Mon May 01 2023
Zombie
Fela Kuti
I like a bit of Fela, and this is a strong album. Limitations really that (sorry) it's great working music rather than something that makes me stop and actively listen.
3
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Tue May 02 2023
Timeless
Goldie
He wasn't the best D and B artist of the 90s, but a bit like the Damned he was the first to get his stuff out there and into the mainstream. Soft spot for anyone from Wolverhampton. This has some great peaks but it's a bit compromised by trying to make a home listening album out of club music. Not the first person to get caught here.
3
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Wed May 03 2023
The Lexicon Of Love
ABC
I know every moment of this album from start to finish and wore my vinyl copy out before buying it on CD. One of the greatest debut albums ever. How much is ABC and how much is Horn is open to debate, but the results are spectacular. The exact moment that post-punk gave way to 80s pop. Rewards listening on the best stereo/headphones you can find.
5
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Thu May 04 2023
Time Out Of Mind
Bob Dylan
Yes it is a bit of a return to form, if by this do we mean better than Infidels or Down in the Groove. Is it a good Dylan album, yes it is. Is it the equal of his sixties golden period. No it is not.
4
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Fri May 05 2023
The Only Ones
The Only Ones
This is not just about Another Girl..., though it is mainly as that's like saying A Night at the Opera isn't mainly about Bo Rhap. So five stars for probably the best use of 3:02 in music history. But the opening and closing tracks are really strong. Extra-ordinary singing voice too - like Howard Devoto's another voice you couldn't imagine breaking through at any other time other than post-punk.
4
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Sat May 06 2023
OK
Talvin Singh
Very pleasant Sunday morning listening, very nineties mix of Indian and drum and bass. Almost almost really really good.
3
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Sun May 07 2023
Joan Baez
Joan Baez
Not my thing, acoustic guitar and vocals but her voice is so sincere, pure and expressive (this is not news, it is literally the things everyone says about Joan Baez) that this is a very engaging listen. Favourite track: Woman of Constant Sorrow, take that Soggy Bottom Boys!
3
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Mon May 08 2023
Master Of Puppets
Metallica
You know it’s not bad. It’s really quite good. I’ve played it three times and can enjoy listening to it. What I like:
Intros and middle eights. They’ve got a good grasp of rock dynamics and know that if you have 30s of acoustic noodling/slow strumming then the crunching riffs come on even stronger.
Twin guitars. Always a sucker for some double-guitar interplay. Bits of this, the best bits, sound a bit like Thin Lizzy. A good thing in my book.
It’s not really thrash though is it? If it is its the slowest thrash ever. So there’s actually room for tunes, singing, musicality etc to come through. It is intense. There’s no number about a lady in a red dress to be found anywhere.
Doomy lyrics. It was the eighties. Ronnie was joking around with the nuclear football, cruise missiles and the like. Not to mention the height of Thatcherism over here. So lyrics about death, destruction, madness, conscription and cannon doddering and general catastrophe are just fine. And the screaming, roaring delivery really sells it.
Riffs. Huge riffs. Riffs from outer space. Riffs carved from the side of Mount Rushmore. If these riffs were an actor they’d be Brian Blessed shouting from the top of a Welsh mountain.
What’s not so good.
The inessential instrumental. When your other tracks are called things like Leper Messiah, The Thing That Should Not Be or Sanitorium then having an instrumental called Orion rather lets the side down. Like YYZ on Moving Pictures its the heavy metal equivalent of the hip-hop skit. Where’s the screaming? Not that it’s bad, just that it’s not really needed.
They could do with an edit button. Most of the tracks clock in at the 6 minute mark which given the sound is everything up to 11 can get a little exhausting.
4
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Tue May 09 2023
Welcome To The Pleasuredome
Frankie Goes To Hollywood
Perhaps the most epicly insessential album in history. Relax and Two Tribes had already been released in multiple 12" mixes by the time this came out, and the album mixes are not the best ones. The Power of Love and Welcome to the Pleasuredome were both also monster singles, though the latter is here in its full 13 minute glory. So, beyond this it is thin indeed - a slew of inessential cover versions, the odd filler instrumental, and three okay album tracks tucked away on side 4. So, 5 stars for the singles, 3 for the rest, 2 for the covers - round up to 4.
4
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Wed May 10 2023
War
U2
Ah Bono. The Tony Blair of music. This feels like the first album in which the full on Bono Messiah complex hit home. The three singles on here I never really need to hear again, and New Years Day is a fine mid-80s rock single. Beyond the singles it's still pretty uneven with Red Light (featuring the Coconuts on backing vocals) and Refugee rather cringeworthly in lyrical terms. One of my least favourite of their albums - the more straightforward Edge's guitar sound is, the less interesting they sound. Three stars.
3
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Thu May 11 2023
Ramones
Ramones
Though there were precedents with the NY Dolls this arrived pretty much like a bolt from the blue. Side one is unbelievably strong, side two couldn't sustain but still it's gold all the way through.
5
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Fri May 12 2023
Armed Forces
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
Slap bang in the middle of his golden run of pretty flawless albums, and not just two monster singles though this is true, every track is brilliantly composed and the Attractions really find their feet as one of the best ever backing bands.
5
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Sat May 13 2023
Exit Planet Dust
The Chemical Brothers
I can't rate this 5, as then where would Dig Your own Hole go? But this is a very solid 4, with a very clever downtempo feel to side 2 after the dancefloor action of side 1.
4
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Sun May 14 2023
People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm
A Tribe Called Quest
One of my favourite rap albums, and the one you should play anyone who goes 'it's not really music'. This is such a musical album, full of snaggy hooks, great samples and just a sense of joy. The last couple of tracks see the quality dip a little. And the 'why' remix of Bonita Applebum is not on the album - to which one can only say WHY as it's awesome.
4
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Mon May 15 2023
Led Zeppelin II
Led Zeppelin
Yes can't really see any reason not to give this five stars, other than there are other LZ albums that should have more than five stars. It is heavy.
5
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Tue May 16 2023
The Dark Side Of The Moon
Pink Floyd
Yes it's great, but it's symptomatic also of the facelessness of the Floyd. Their best-known album and it doesn't have a track that punches through to the global music psyche like Bo Rap or Whole Lotta Love. Having said that, the production on this album is amazing.
4
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Wed May 17 2023
Rejoicing In The Hands
Devendra Banhart
One of the most annoying albums I have ever listened to. The voice of Marc Bolan's irritating brother coupled with twee as hell acoustic guitar. I rejoiced in the end of the album.
1
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Thu May 18 2023
Fetch The Bolt Cutters
Fiona Apple
Someone anyone please get this artist an editor. There are some great songs (Ladies in particular) but they are somewhat buried in too many tracks, too much of the whacky production and generally too much of everything. I have listed to this before, and it did improve this time, so maybe in ten years it willbe a five, but for now its a three - really 2.5.
3
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Fri May 19 2023
Catch A Fire
Bob Marley & The Wailers
I'm not normally a fan of deluxe editions, but the one of this album is essential. You can hear the original Jamaican mix, and the Island Records rockier remix version. Both are great, and you can hear Marley's songwriting progressing at light speed. A four, the last Wailers album before he was a superstar.
4
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Sat May 20 2023
Come Away With Me
Norah Jones
I am loosely associated with some jazz concert programmers and we get vocal jazz artists wanting to get programmed sending their music through. This is exactly why the never get programmed. It's not objectionable, but it's not really jazz. It's like jazz, in the way that Bud Light is like a beer.
2
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Sun May 21 2023
Devotional Songs
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
So why this album - of the possibly over 200 that Khan released? It's on a 'pukka' Western label, Real World, and has a western art director in charge of the sleeve. So I guess that. And that it's one of only four or so you can link to on wikipedia. My point being, and I enjoyed this album, is that is it better or worse than the other 200? I have no idea. And bluntly I'm not sure the compiler of this list really does too. Maybe he has a quawwali expert he can run this one past. But I've got no reason to believe it's not representative, and its a good listen, even if it's cultural value entirely goes above my head. let's finish with an anecdote: I attended an early WOMAD Festival in Essex in the mid-eighties and Nusrat was on the bill. We listened for an hour or so, then decamped to the main field to listen to New Order, who were great, then we came back and the man was still going strong. Respect.
3
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Mon May 22 2023
The Madcap Laughs
Syd Barrett
Yes it's whimsical psychical folk and has an endearingly unfinished air, but you know what? I'd rather listen to this than Nick Drake.
3
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Tue May 23 2023
Station To Station
David Bowie
If I had to pick one album as my personal greatest of all time it would most days be this. Staggering both in its achievements and the fact that Bowie was so out of it he can remember very little of making it. The only album I can recall actually being interested in listening to the live versions on Stage vs the original album vs the remaster (the Maslin mix) to see which is the most stupendous.
5
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Wed May 24 2023
Olympia 64
Jacques Brel
This is so ridiculously French it should come with a breton jumper and a beret. Drama and histrionics all the way, and though 28 minutes long an absolutely exhausting listen.
2
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Thu May 25 2023
I Am a Bird Now
Antony and the Johnsons
I came to this fully expecting to dislike it, but after a couple of tracks I settled down and really enjoyed it. At the heart is some very solid songwriting, and his voice is pretty amazing. If I have a quibble, not one I thought I would, is that the Johnsons are time are a bit predictable and limited in their arrangements. But a very solid 3.5. One of the more surprising listens so far. Going to invest in a 4 on the basis I'll listen again.
4
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Fri May 26 2023
Rubber Soul
Beatles
Just checked that I know every song by heart already. Yes I do. So no need to play. Five stars.
5
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Sat May 27 2023
Trout Mask Replica
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
Basically unrateable. My view here is that you have to forget like or dislike, get or forget. It can't be reasoned with, it doesn't stop, it feels no pity. Whether you are there or not, it exists. Double album is too much, but 40 minutes is an audio equivalent of wild swimming. Bracing, a shock to the system and you return refreshed. 3 but could be 5, or 1.
3
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Sun May 28 2023
A Walk Across The Rooftops
The Blue Nile
Stellar debut. But there's a feeling that they are locating the Blue Nile special spot: not too eighties synth-pop (Stay); not too piano ballad (Easter Parade) - but a goldilocks zone of mournful, funereal rolling (Automobile Noise and the amazing Heatwave which emerges from this listen as the track from this album, setting the tone for the masterpiece that would follow). 4.4.
4
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Mon May 29 2023
Sister
Sonic Youth
Ok, I had this down as a 3 but on second listen, particularly side two, you can hear the tunes emerging from the noise. There'd be a bit of arsing around (ciccone youth etc) and next time out would be Daydream Nation and lift off. Still a 3 but a 3.5.
3
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Tue May 30 2023
Buenas Noches From A Lonely Room
Dwight Yoakam
We got all kinds of music here. Country AND Western. It's not unpleasant but really this won't convert anyone to C and W who isn't already. Less rhinestones but the same music.
2
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Wed May 31 2023
Shalimar
Rahul Dev Burman
One two cha cha cha is catchier than....something very catchy. Why it's not appeared on any of those loungecore kitsch classics as it's better than almost all the tracks that do. An interpolation of That's The Way Ah-Hah is also genius. The rest of the album can't quite live up to this twisted magic, which shows George Harrison how to really blend Indian and western pop. But what this list is also all about. Tons of fun. 3.75 so I'll upgrade to a 4.
4
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Thu Jun 01 2023
Tragic Songs of Life
The Louvin Brothers
Tragic indeed, this is insanely listenable and depressing, being a non-stop litany of destitution, violent death, exile and sundered love. But they sing it all so beautifully these Soggy Bottom Twins. Not my genre, but shows exactly what was lost when bluegrass and country became Big Nashville. 3.5 really.
3
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Fri Jun 02 2023
Cloud Nine
The Temptations
Solid album, nothing that remarkable apart from the title track and the 9-minute Run Away Child.. epic. Three stars.
3
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Sat Jun 03 2023
Rocks
Aerosmith
It's not a bad listen, but it is fairly generic mid-seventies rock that other bands did considerably better. Kind of like the Stella Artois of this kind of stuff, no-one will object to a pint of it without being especially thrilled to see it's the only thing on offer.
3
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Sun Jun 04 2023
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Beatles
It's not the best Beatles album (that would be revolver or Let It Be) but it's the one that everyone knows. -1 for the interminable sitar track.
4
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Mon Jun 05 2023
Talking With the Taxman About Poetry
Billy Bragg
This is a great Bragg album to pick for the list, still got enough solo guitar and sandpaper voice Bard of Barking vibes of pre-Don't Try This...Bragg, but with some other instruments now creeping to make it a more varied listen. in Levi Stubbs Tears, Greetings to the New Brunette, The Home Front some of his best songs.
4
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Tue Jun 06 2023
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
Giving hope to covers bands everywhere...listening to this perhaps says that initially they were a 'right place right time' kind of act. Also, as the excellent recent BBC documentary revealed, this is also Brian's Stones, playing the music he loved. I can't give an album 90% covers more than three stars, but a 3.5
3
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Wed Jun 07 2023
Pills 'n' Thrills And Bellyaches
Happy Mondays
This album is ridiculously listenable to - bearing in mind that it's not clear how much the band played on it, how much was due to production wizadry, and it is clear how Sean Ryder was 'vocalist' rather than singer. Along with the first Stone Roses album a memento of a quite uniquely British artform: baggy.
5
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Thu Jun 08 2023
Post Orgasmic Chill
Skunk Anansie
This feels like a Major Label Album - in all the wrong ways. What do we do with this artist? Make them sound a bit like other artists. 'Going a bit nu metal' really does not work for them, and surprised to see this on the list. Want to like it, but it's even got the big ballad for the radio play track. No.
2
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Fri Jun 09 2023
Dusty In Memphis
Dusty Springfield
Yes it's a classic, love her voice but at times it is - sorry - a bit plodding.
3
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Sat Jun 10 2023
Thriller
Michael Jackson
Am I am Jacksoner? No. Does Billie Jean, Beat It and Thriller make a pretty amazing set of lead-offs. Yes. Is The Girl Is Mine, along with Ebony and Ivory, a crime against music. Yes. Yes. Yes.
3
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Sun Jun 11 2023
Rum Sodomy & The Lash
The Pogues
I love this album, and have very fond memories of seeing them at Oxford Poly on the tour for this too. Less fond memories of an out-of-it appearance at Reading later in the decade. By far their most coherent album, and a thrillingly original idea of joining traditional Irish music with punk energy. Really, this is a flawless album, culminating in an epic take on Aussie anti-war classic And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda. How original the melodies of Pair of Brown Eyes and Sally Maclenanne are can be debated, how fresh they are here is unquestioned.
5
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Mon Jun 12 2023
Illinois
Sufjan Stevens
Georgeous voice. Solid songs. Interesting arrangement and the whole single state concept going on.
4
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Tue Jun 13 2023
Beautiful Freak
Eels
This one of those 'suburban' albums that American bands can do so well (think Gin Blossoms, first Counting Crows etc.) - think kids on bikes, the 7-11, walking over to someone's house (oh they actually did that). We didn't quite what a singular and depressive talent E was from this, by far their most 'band' record. But a great set of songs. If it was a photo it would be a 'golden hour' shot of trees, a street, a twenty something couple walking away from the camera.
4
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Wed Jun 14 2023
Winter In America
Gil Scott-Heron
Not on Spotify but The Bottle, the epic H20gate blues and many other great tracks from a youtube clip, make this a great solid four star album.
5
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Thu Jun 15 2023
Giant Steps
The Boo Radleys
There's a lot in here, but mostly let's enjoy the last flowering of indie indie, with a bald singer, a terrible band name and the pre-Oasis Creation label. Because this is in its way as great an achievement as Screamadelica, a genre-busting blend of shoegaze, powerpop and psychedelia. However, they weren't cool and would have to release a much more straightforward and less ambitious album to get into the biggish time.
5
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Fri Jun 16 2023
Larks' Tongues In Aspic
King Crimson
Incredible dynamic range - or another way of saying bits are very quiet and bits are very loud. Not unpleasant, always melodic, a bit banging and crashing at times, full on prog.
3
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Sun Jun 18 2023
Kollaps
Einstürzende Neubauten
I would say that this one of those albums that most people will take a view on about two minutes in. And they'd be basically right. I saw them live twice in the mid-eighties, two of the most extra-ordinary gigs I've been to. At The Hacienda they started drilling into the walls, in Paris they had a concrete mixer which they emptied over the audience at the end of the set. But is it music? Possibly only tangentially. it's there with Metal Machine Music, Weld and another great unlistenable albums. Top cover of J'Taime mind, but no-one can give this more than two stars surely.
2
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Mon Jun 19 2023
Songs The Lord Taught Us
The Cramps
The ur-text of psychobilly, and absolutely massive in goth clubs throughout the 80s. Still very enjoyable, though by the end their one trick is somewhat exposed by repetition. Their next would take it all to another level.
4
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Tue Jun 20 2023
Home Is Where The Music Is
Hugh Masekela
Very pleasant listening, apart from the drum solo three-quarters of the way through. But doesn't quite stick to the sides.
3
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Wed Jun 21 2023
Everything Must Go
Manic Street Preachers
Two great singles, two fine singles and solid album tracks. At times the curse of the rock plodder strikes, and it's not aged that well.
3
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Thu Jun 22 2023
In Utero
Nirvana
this is a quantum leap forwards from Never Mind - the songs are stronger, the arrangements and playing is better, the whole thing is more consistent. Twelve amazing, brutal, heartbreaking tracks.
5
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Fri Jun 23 2023
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
Great debut album. Controversial view reinforced here, that the remarkable musicians in the band were not Page and Plant, but Bonham and Jones. The drumming from the very start is just remarkable. There's a (mercifully brief) sitarish track so could never be five stars, but definitely 4.4.
4
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Mon Jun 26 2023
Crosby, Stills & Nash
Crosby, Stills & Nash
Harmonies to die for, and some solid songwriting prevent me from giving it the two that this bunch of complacent sixties survivors probably deserve.
3
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Tue Jun 27 2023
I See A Darkness
Bonnie "Prince" Billy
Quavery voice, acoustic guitar, hushed backing - it could be Bon Iver who maybe took this guy's hustle and made a million with it. Ho-hum. Maybe Spotify turned him down?
2
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Wed Jun 28 2023
Younger Than Yesterday
The Byrds
Solid sixties album with My Back Pages and Rock N Roll Star as obvious highlights. Rest of album is pretty solid bar the awful Mind Gardens, which prompted me to start a discussion on a forum about bands who went 'full maharishi' who really shouldn't. Three and a half.
3
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Thu Jun 29 2023
Eternally Yours
The Saints
This is a very good album, not just the fantastic album opener but above all in the sense of the space, melodies and lyricism that would lead onto the Gobetweens, Triffids and The Church. Good stuff.
4
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Fri Jun 30 2023
I Against I
Bad Brains
Going to go against the reviews here and say that Rock For Light and Bad Brains are fantastic albums, ultra hardcore meeting reggae. This not so much I'm afraid, seems a bit of a watering down of the hardcore and a dilution of the reggae. Sorry.
2
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Sat Jul 01 2023
Floodland
Sisters Of Mercy
At the time - as a loyal Sisters fan present at the last ever concert by Sisters mk 1 at the Albert Hall - this was viewed as an awful attempt to 'go mainstream' . The world had moved on by 1987 and AE was desperate. Thirty years later and I'm of the view it was a great attempt to 'go mainstream' with This Corrosion, Dominion and Lucrezia My Reflection the equal of any earlier Sisters work. Still not quite sure there's a whole album here, so four stars. Patricia Morrison: the goth Bez here.
4
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Sun Jul 02 2023
Blunderbuss
Jack White
Yes it's very listenable, yes its Jack White excitable yelping over the blues. So business as usual without Meg. He seems to have done ok for himself.
3
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Mon Jul 03 2023
Sound of Silver
LCD Soundsystem
This album is a four-star continuation of the first LCD album, witty, distanced, ironic NY cool right up to track 4 - then it lifts into something completely different. Its still got the NY scene beats but the melodies, the rhythms, the vocals are something else. Ageing, worrying about still being cool, worried about clubbing being shallow....the next six tracks are as touching as dance music gets. Then there's a full-blown sad ballad to finish...worried that living in New York is not the answer any more.
5
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Tue Jul 04 2023
Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul
Otis Redding
Yes solid as a rock, the songs are great, the singing is great and the arrangements and playing are fine. He's not got the purest soul voice (Sam Cooke, Aretha for me) but really these are quibbles. Just give the man five stars dammit!
5
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Wed Jul 05 2023
Public Image: First Issue
Public Image Ltd.
Who took the right DNA away from the Pistols break-up is clear from this. While Vicious and Mclaran were messing around with mock-shock rock and roll covers, Lydon was accelerating away into the post-punk era with this ridiculous leap forwards. Sped-up dub bass from Wobble, scratchy funk guitar from Levene anticipating everything that would come from Gang of Four, Fire Engines etc. Lydon's atonal (even for him) speech/howl/singing fits in perfectly. There's even a (relatively) pop-rush in the title track. Fantastic.
4
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Thu Jul 06 2023
Dust
Screaming Trees
A very solid 90s alternative rock album, dusted with the grunge vibe but with great vocals courtesy of Mr Lanagan and solid songs. Enjoyed this.
3
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Fri Jul 07 2023
Histoire De Melody Nelson
Serge Gainsbourg
The music, as some commentators have said, is very proto-trip-hop. Orchestral funk, like Isaac Hayes was doing at the same time, except with a breathy Frenchman speaking over it instead of an anguished black American. Music - five out of five, album concept 1/5. It has not aged well, and sits along Maurice Chevalier in the French musical nonce list of shame. I have to give it a four ultimately. Yes a different time, but hard to think that even in the early seventies having a whole album based around a middle-aged man having sex with a fourteen-year old was pretty unpalatable.
4
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Sat Jul 08 2023
Konnichiwa
Skepta
You know what I really enjoyed this, much more than I thought it would. The beats and samples are great, much more tuneful than expected. His flow is great, and some niche shout outs including Hublot watches. Needs a relisten so giving this the benefit of the doubt.
4
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Sun Jul 09 2023
New Wave
The Auteurs
A solid listen, but prefer Black Box Recorder for the full Luke Haines experience.
3
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Fri Jul 21 2023
Slayed?
Slade
It's a good enough listen but doesn't fundamentally alter the view that they were a singles band. Poor spelling too boys, must do better.
3
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Sat Jul 22 2023
McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sketches, noodles, drafts, demos - if you were being kind you'd say it was charmingly unspun. If you were not being charitable you'd say this would have been long consigned to the dumper but for the Macca brand. Utterly inconsequential, though Maybe I'm Amazed is a tune - one which clearly signposted the MOR direction he'd take in the seventies.
2
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Sun Jul 23 2023
Car Wheels On A Gravel Road
Lucinda Williams
This was a cheap CD purchase, and last time I listened I was unconvinced. So one result of listening again might of been to rip and remove. Instead its back on the shelves. The first side of this album is pretty well pitch perfect: a sweet spot between Springsteen, Nanci Griffiths and Gillian Welch. The kind of country rock I can absolutely get behind. Roy Bittan from the E St Band helped produce so no surprise at times it has the boss vibes, and the title track is one that the man himself would wish he had written. The second half can't quite sustain the stellar quality of the first, and there's a track too many, so four stars.
4
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Mon Jul 24 2023
Funeral
Arcade Fire
I was going to post about 'warm' and 'cold' albums but instead will reflect on how extra-ordinarily back-loaded this album is. The first four tracks are indistinct, hesitant, a bit sound and fury signifying not that much. And then the three punch of Kettle, Crown of love and Wake Up delivers something else entirely. The rest of the album maintains that level, perhaps its part of that uber-indie vibe this album has to make people work a bit first. Anyway, not their best album but very good.
4
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Tue Jul 25 2023
Will The Circle Be Unbroken
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
I have listened to thirty out of the 41 tracks and feel that's enough to make some comments. This is always listenable, and a fantastic corrective to the glossy Nashville MOR country that had solidified by the early seventies. But whether 41 tracks of it in one go is really the way to enjoy this music is debatable. Would it have been a four with 12 well-chosen tracks, possibly not but definitely 3.5 rather than the 3 it is after 31 rippin bluegrass numbers.
3
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Wed Jul 26 2023
Future Days
Can
Textural, ambient, krautrocky, funky...truly unclassifiable except nothing sounds like it descended from rock and roll anytime soon. Great.
4
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Thu Jul 27 2023
Nebraska
Bruce Springsteen
Rule number one: no-one can sustain guitar and vocal over a whole album, no matter how good the songs.
The songs here are so good - Highway Patrolman, Nebraska, Atlantic City - that I am prepared to overlook this rule, if you listen to it as a vinyl album and take a break between the two sides.
3
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Fri Jul 28 2023
Back to Mystery City
Hanoi Rocks
Actually this is ok, the right balance of some sleazy vibes, sing along choruses and chunky riffs. Bon Jovi listened to this, cleaned it up a bit and boom.
3
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Sat Jul 29 2023
The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway
Genesis
One of the longest albums in this list I would wager, at 1 hr 34 on Spotify. Above it only perhaps the very elite list of triple albums (Sandinista, 69 Love Songs etc). So yes it is much too long to stick with and absorb in a single gulp. I have listened it to it three or four times and: there is ALWAYS something interesting and worthwhile going on musically. It's a mid-seventies rock album - so if instrumental solos, big analogue keyboard sounds and massed vocal harmonies are not your thing then move on. I love it - far prefer it to the cod-folky stuff of earlier Genesis. The only Genesis album I actually 'like' as opposed to the odd track here and there. As with most concept albums, forget the concept, and enjoy the songs.
4
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Sun Jul 30 2023
Machine Gun Etiquette
The Damned
Theory: after the first wave of Year Zero albums: Never Mind TB, The Clash, In The City, Rattus Norvegicus - and here Damned Damned Damned - bands took stock with their second album of more punk (interestingly in the case of The Jam and The Clash the second albums were probably the worst ones of their career) before with their third - London Calling, All Mod Cons, Black and White - and here Machine Gun Etiquette - laying out a post-punk musical template that would see out their careers. In the case of the Damned it's as a fizzy, late sixties psychedelic power-pop combo heavy on the organ and melding this with a bit of glam and garage. This album is virtually a greatest hits collection in itself and the one essential Damned album.
5
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Fri Aug 04 2023
Queens of the Stone Age
Queens of the Stone Age
Yes actually this is pretty, pretty good (perhaps the kind of album Larry David would listen to to wind other people up). All-round sleazy vibes and the world-weary flat vocals work a treat. Could be signficantly shorter and then would go up from 3 to 4.
3
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Sat Aug 05 2023
Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge
Mudhoney
You know this is more diverse with a very strong finish than the first couple of tracks would suggest. They're not quite distinctive enough to make them a 'what aboutery' with the grunge Premier League but a strong playoffs from the Championship level.
3
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Sun Aug 06 2023
Deja Vu
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Grudgingly I'll admit these songs are pretty great, even if three-quarters of the band are pretty dislikeable.
3
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Mon Aug 07 2023
Green
R.E.M.
Pretty perfect. The end of their second three-album cycle, moving from the janglemumble sound of the first three, to world-conquering titans. The first time I can really hear the mandolin in their work - crucial to the track that made them global megastars. There's another list song (I remember california), a dry run for a more straightforward acoustic ballad (Hairshirt) and a fistful of ironic powerpop songs (Stand, Orange Crush, Pop song). So, excellence as usual.
5
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Tue Aug 08 2023
Life's Too Good
The Sugarcubes
A whole album of crazy clattering cats in a sack is a bit too much, but tremendous energy and vibes. Birthday is a tuuuunne.
3
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Thu Aug 10 2023
Getz/Gilberto
Stan Getz
This is one of the best background working albums ever made. That's not a slight, just that it does its thing and if you dip out for 5 minutes that's ok, they're grooving and ready for your return.
3
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Fri Aug 11 2023
Roots
Sepultura
The inclusion of Latin American beats at times is interesting but the guitars and vocals are pretty standard thrash, which is not my thing at all. Sorry. And another overlong album.
1
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Sat Aug 12 2023
Tago Mago
Can
This is a game of two halves - half is essential motorik, especially the monumental Hallelujah that a certain Happy Mondays may just have ripped off wholesale without even bothering to change the title for Hallelujah. However there are lengthy drum solos and periods of what appears to be studio chatter and just messing about on the second side. So three stars.
3
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Sun Aug 13 2023
Happy Trails
Quicksilver Messenger Service
I will never complain about how indulgent, noodly and length that Allman Brothers double live album is. Imagine all the skill, fire and interest removed from it and that's what we have here. How is this on this list when 90s scenesters EMF are Unbelivably not?
1
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Mon Aug 14 2023
Roger the Engineer
The Yardbirds
Not a great sixties fan, and this is pretty uber sixties stuff. Not unpleasant, but the Kinks/Beatles/Stones/Doors plus Motown and soul is my sixties pretty much sorted up to sixty seven.
3
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Tue Aug 15 2023
Stripped
Christina Aguilera
Oh my god this is sooooooo long. There are a fistful of decent pop tunes, not my thing but I get why they are good (Dirty, Beatiful etc) but at least ten tracks of filler. Just because you can does not mean you should. Pop albums - twelve tracks, 3 - 4 mins each, 48 mins tops. Simple.
2
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Wed Aug 16 2023
Fifth Dimension
The Byrds
This list loves The Byrds more than is strictly necessary, as this is the fourth album I've got to - while the likes of nineties indie legends EMF go unchosen. It's a pretty solid four stars, two stellar singles and always something interesting going on.
4
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Thu Aug 17 2023
Exodus
Bob Marley & The Wailers
Come for the songs and Bob. Stay for the Wailers - who might just be the greatest backing band ever, certainly top five with the Spiders from Mars, E Street Band, JB's and the Band. Every second of every track there is something amazing going on behind Bob, and for a good half of this album the vocals are so well known I can kind of blank them out. Exodus the title track is just a riff and a vocal line, but oh man the playing.
5
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Fri Aug 18 2023
Modern Kosmology
Jane Weaver
Bands like Stereolab explored ground between motorik and sixties Europop - and Jane Weaver merges these to great effect adding a touch of folktronica on top. She's a sturdy songwriter, so her subtle textures never obscure a great set of modern pop songs.
3
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Sat Aug 19 2023
Graceland
Paul Simon
The politics behind this album have not aged well. Call Me Al was ubiquitous and I never need to hear it again. But there's sturdy songwriting as you would expect. A simple three stars.
3
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Sun Aug 20 2023
After The Gold Rush
Neil Young
Evergreen Neil album, the soundtrack to the exact moment when the hippy revolution fizzled out and the freaks all got proper jobs and mortgages - though still smoked dope. If this was the soundtrack to a film it would be the key party scene in The Ice Storm.
5
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Mon Aug 21 2023
At Mister Kelly's
Sarah Vaughan
I can say after many hours listening to Fitzgerald and Vaughan that I'm no great fan of vocal jazz. And so it goes here. Nothing wrong with anything, except it does very little for me. How High The Moon is a bit of a reach, here's me forgetting all the words and saying the first thing that comes into my head.
2
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Tue Aug 22 2023
Chris
Christine and the Queens
I nearly had a conniption on Spotify, until I realised the listing was the entire album twice, first in English then French. The English half is a hugely enjoyable slice of wonky pop anchored by Christine/Chris's great voice and magnetic presence.
3
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Wed Aug 23 2023
First Band On The Moon
The Cardigans
Gosh this is pretty just OK but it is really one of the 1001 best albums ever made? Slightly twee, very clean and in Lovefool an annoying earworm. Thanks Baz Luhrmann. Cue cliches about Swedes and their sturdy constructions from Volvo cars and Ikea sofas, ok maybe not Ikea sofas, to this. Can you tell I can't think of that much to say about this album.
2
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Thu Aug 24 2023
Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored Water
Limp Bizkit
I really hope this doesn't appear on my Spotify wrapped for 2023. 'The most embarrassing album you listened to was...' the best bits of this are all samples, and the whole thing is so utterly cringeworthy: from the band name, to the album name to the artwork to the utterly unimaginative swearing.
1
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Fri Aug 25 2023
Heaven Or Las Vegas
Cocteau Twins
What a great second act the Cocteaus last three albums were: more concise songs, clearer production and even at times audible words. This is the strongest of the three and is a pretty perfect statement of the Cocteaus world - the rest is up to you.
4
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Sat Aug 26 2023
Nevermind
Nirvana
Nothing to add here. Except possibly that Nirvana Unplugged is - shush - a more enjoyable album to listen to. About as easy to say something original about this album now as about Sgt Pepper.
5
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Sun Aug 27 2023
Water From An Ancient Well
Abdullah Ibrahim
One stellar track, Mannenberg Revisited, and a couple of other goodies, but the spectre of new age noodlings I am afraid frequently derails this. The mid-eighties was not a great time for jazz, and this kind of shows why.
2
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Mon Aug 28 2023
Stardust
Willie Nelson
My well this is so straight up it's kind of hard to believe the whole thing is not some conceptual joke. But no, Willie Nelson, the great outlaw country rocker, delivers a standard standards set. He brings absolutely nothing to these songs other than sincerity and a certain careworn-ness. The very very definition of inessential.
2
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Fri Sep 01 2023
Let It Be
The Replacements
Unpolished, ragged at times but always very listenable and with a huge heart. Halfway between husker du and REM which is a pretty good place to be.
4
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Sat Sep 02 2023
The Doors
The Doors
One of the few albums I can rate without needing to play. All these tracks are etched deep in my brain and need nothing saying. All this without a bassist! A true marvel. Less than four years separates Please Please Me from this, but it seems like four light-years.
5
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Sun Sep 03 2023
The Scream
Siouxsie And The Banshees
Punk, post-punk, goth - pretty much everything and the best debut to come out of the first punk wave. It's five stars even without Hong Kong Garden and Staircase mystery - both singles but not on the original album. John McKay on this album is as good a guitarist as John McGeogh - very different, and a lot harsher, but as good.
5
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Mon Sep 04 2023
Cee-Lo Green... Is The Soul Machine
Cee Lo Green
Can exclusively reveal who ran off with all the talent from Gnarls Barkley...............its.....................Danger Mouse. This is a pretty mediocre album only livened up by the two Pharell tracks, and its sixteen tracks -plus intro and outro long. Why it's on here I am really not sure.
2
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Tue Sep 05 2023
Killing Joke
Killing Joke
slow down the punk guitars, tribal drums, add some reggae bass and a general sense of doom. One of the founding texts of goth. The first Killing Joke album is absolutely essential and in Requiem, Wardance and Change (the latter on the expanded reissue) a phenomenal piece. They'd sell way more records in the mid-eighties, but this and its successor are the Killing Jokes.
5
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Wed Sep 06 2023
25
Adele
Back once again with the beige mistress. Now that she has more money than she knows what to do with, and has unveiled yet another slab of Live Laugh Love in aural form as 30, how about not making 35 yet another MOR product and use that voice for something artistically interesting. For example:
Get Rick Rubin in as producer.
Get Massive Attack in as writers/producers - they conjured a career-best out of Liz Frazer for Teardrop following great outings with Tracey Thorn and Shara Nelson, so know a thing or two about great female voices.
Get Sigur Ros in - no need for a lyric sheet at all.
Steve Albini at the controls - maybe a stretch, but what have you got to lose? He'd make a 12-track album in two days, and you don't need to share the royalties.
Even - gawd help me - Dave Grohl would be something better.
The album? It's not one star. That would indicate something to object to. It's Stella Artois, it's Pizza Express it's a Ford Focus.
2
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Thu Sep 07 2023
Billion Dollar Babies
Alice Cooper
If you're never listened to this, then try and put all the Alice baggage to one side, and listen to it is a seventies rock album (ok this is not entirely possible with I love The Dead). But Billion Dollar Babies, Hello Hurray, Elected and so on are solid-gold rock classics. I did not know Donovan featured on the title track. The musicianship on this album is exceptional - check out the stuttering rhythms of Generation Landslide for example.
4
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Fri Sep 08 2023
Pyromania
Def Leppard
This is nothing like as bad as Hysteria. Helped by the fact that it does not have four singles that I have an extreme allergic reaction to. But it's still overproduced and in Joe Elliot an extremely annoying (to me) vocalist. So, it gains a star by being one step back. By that calculus if their debut makes it onto the list it's be four stars.
2
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Sat Sep 09 2023
Truth And Soul
Fishbone
I am sorry. You put everything out on the table and people don't know what to choose. Much though the idea of Fishbone is a great one, the reality of Fishbone is a billion things going in different directions.
2
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Sun Sep 10 2023
Gentlemen
The Afghan Whigs
Nothing wrong with this. 3.5 starts, but the Whigs - eternally half-way up the main stage bill at Reading in the early 90s - are not really a Champions League level act are they?
3
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Mon Sep 11 2023
Me Against The World
2Pac
Mediocre I'm afraid. Not interested in the 'was he a great or awful man' debate, but his rapping is uninspired and the samples and beats repetitive and one-paced. Also like many 90s albums waay too long. Not even any skits.
2
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Tue Sep 12 2023
John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band
John Lennon
It's not a bad listen, but musically it's not that adventurous. He's always an engaging vocalist, and there are three standout songs in Mother, Working Class Hero and God. Just can never get that excited about any ex-Beatle solo stuff and this is no exception. Apart from the Frog Chorus of course.
3
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Wed Sep 13 2023
Goo
Sonic Youth
Right in the middle of their Imperial Period, and repaying the big bucks Geffen threw at them. The first side is them reaching for the rock mainstream brilliantly, the second a little more in the 80s SY noisenik vein. In Song for Karen Carpenter one of their very very best.
4
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Thu Sep 14 2023
Music
Madonna
Hmm. On a re-listen this feels like a bit of a curate's egg, betrayed by three different producers. Three stellar tracks in Music, What It Feels Like and closer Gone. But bits of it feel like out-takes from Ray of Light, bits of it feel like a not quite fully achieved French filter house album, and bits of it are a bit duff. Then of course one of the worst covers of all time. So can't give it more than three stars.
3
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Fri Sep 15 2023
Savane
Ali Farka Touré
a very pleasant listen, but not above the level of background music. sorry.
3
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Sat Sep 16 2023
I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You
Aretha Franklin
I bought Aretha's 'Original Classics' series of five albums, in which this features, after hearing another of her albums earlier on in this list. I've only bought three other albums from this list as being without them in physical form is unthinkable having heard them. Surely the greatest female singer of the last fifty years.
5
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Sun Sep 17 2023
MTV Unplugged In New York
Nirvana
I'm not a great fan of the Unplugged series, and what started off as a distinctive idea gave birth to the horrors of Jo Whiley's Live Lounge. But this is the exception that proves the rule - stripping back the noise is completely revelatory. Top covers, great playing and just a sense of the most important band in the world at the time.
4
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Mon Sep 18 2023
Wild Gift
X
Hmm. I'm a fan of their first album, but I think their bit of punk bit of rockabilly bit of new wave is already sounding a bit thin. Enjoyable enough, but not pulling up any trees.
3
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Tue Sep 19 2023
Atomizer
Big Black
Listened to this on my vinyl copy, can't have listened for twenty years and it's insanely listenable. Now hoping Songs about XXing turns up on this list as well to get that out too. No Spotify.
4
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Wed Sep 20 2023
L'Eau Rouge
The Young Gods
Euro punk cabaret. Not as impossible as Einstrurzende Neubauten to listen to but hardly easy. Probably awesome live.
2
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Thu Sep 21 2023
Fromohio
fIREHOSE
American alternative music of the eighties is a hinterland I'm still exploring. This is virtually unclassifiable, but there are some elements of the Feelies, Violent Femmes and hardcore bands. But all melded together in short, sharp songs that prioritise rhythm and impact above melody.
3
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Fri Sep 22 2023
Felt Mountain
Goldfrapp
Picking up the indecipherable singing style and gauzy soundscapes of the Cocteaus, on their first album they added trip-hop vibes for something that still sounds odd and fresh thirty years later. They'd forego this for a more straightforward electropop sound, then decide they didn't want that either. One of the more interesting bands of the last thirty years.
4
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Sat Sep 30 2023
Tellin’ Stories
The Charlatans
Four monster tracks, two instrumentals (surely a rule of rock that you can only have one per album if you're not an instrumentals band) and some business as usual Charlieboys album. Solid but not their very best. 3.5 rather than 3, but not 4.
3
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Sun Oct 01 2023
Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle
Bill Callahan
Although not an unpleasant listen, there's not really enough going on here to leave a mark, other than his Lou Reedesque voice. The songs are not as strong as Lou Reed's.
2
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Mon Oct 02 2023
Dirty
Sonic Youth
Second installment of Geffen's advance, more grandfathers-of-grunge sharp rock tunes. Spread over a double it doesn't have quite the focus of Goo, but several high points (100%, Sugar Kane, drunken Butterfuly) and an overall sense of a band both tight and loose at the same time. That old trick.
4
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Tue Oct 03 2023
Teen Dream
Beach House
Music that floats and drifts, catching you in its wispy melodies and airy textures. Yes from minute to minute it recedes into the background sometimes, but that's not a bad thing always. Not a bad thing here.
3
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Wed Oct 04 2023
Scott 2
Scott Walker
Not my cup of tea, though he has a fine voice. You can hear the cracks starting to appear in the Pop Phenomenon - particularly in Plastic Palace People which is a deeply wierd track. Jackie an absolute tune.
2
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Thu Oct 05 2023
Hybrid Theory
Linkin Park
This now appears a bit better as its meat and potatoes combo of rap and metal was the album before the legendarily awful Kid Rock album. So no it's nowhere as bad as that, but it is very monotone. At a place I worked the boss had on her desk a rap album she'd confiscated from her son. This is the kind of music that twelve-year olds put on loudly to annoy their mums.
2
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Fri Oct 06 2023
Devil Without A Cause
Kid Rock
Jesus wept. The bastard love child of The Beastie Boys and Lynryrd Skynyrd. Actually not as good as that sounds, as its so repetitive. Also appears he has not listened to a single rap album since the first Beastie Boys album.
1
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Sat Oct 07 2023
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Pretty much the Neil and Crazy Horse template for the next 50 years, particularly in Cinammon Girl, Down By The River and Cowgirl in the Sand. So yes five stars.
5
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Sun Oct 08 2023
Songs From The Big Chair
Tears For Fears
I try I bloody try but in between the pretty acceptable first and third albums this is an album I disliked from the start and with every listen nothing changes. Why rave had to happen.
2
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Mon Oct 09 2023
Surrealistic Pillow
Jefferson Airplane
This is in my top five of discoveries on this list, along with Nightclubbing by Iggy Pop and Otis Blue. The first side is one of the best sides ever committed to vinyl, in a genre (sixties psychedelic pop) that is not one of my home zones. Fantastic.
5
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Tue Oct 10 2023
Shaka Zulu
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
this is a breeze to listen to. Ambient singing if such a think were possible (possibly yes - Cocteau Twins).
3
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Wed Oct 11 2023
Surf's Up
The Beach Boys
This is a bit all over the shop, but an enjoyable listen, apart from the rewrite of Cell Block No 9 as Student Demonstration. Royalties owed there surely. But no particular desire to hear it again.
3
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Thu Oct 12 2023
Green Onions
Booker T. & The MG's
Yes 5/5 for Green Onions itself, and the rest of the album is a groovy collection of organ-driven mainly covers. Very pleasant, though a little monotonous as a whole album and no 'Soul Limbo' - the intro to Test Match Special for UK listeners and up there with Match of the Day as the greatest UK sports show intro music.
3
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Fri Oct 13 2023
Forever Changes
Love
Going to disagree with the consensus on this album and go that yes Alone Again Or is a tune, but it's pretty standard late sixties a bit psychedelic a bit folky pop/rock.
2
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Sat Oct 14 2023
So
Peter Gabriel
A lot has been made about the production, and on Sledgehammer and Big Time it does rather go for it. But under all the gated drums and synths there's a clutch of very solid songs. At least half of this album is so over-exposed though it's difficult to actually rate it properly.
3
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Mon Oct 16 2023
Kid A
Radiohead
Every time I play this album it gets better. Just a staggering range of textures and approaches to what a song or track is. In Morning Bell they event deliver a 'proper Radiohead song' with verses and choruses and everything to stand with their best.
5
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Tue Oct 17 2023
Street Life
The Crusaders
Street Life is an undeniable tune, but elsewhere it is jazz fusiony grooving and noodling. All very tasteful and immaculately played in a 'quiet storm' stylee but not really anything to shake my tree.
2
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Wed Oct 18 2023
Fever To Tell
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Ok this has aged pretty well as that NY millenial movement - better than The Strokes that's for sure. A slight monotony does set in, but its short and sharp and does not outstay its welcome.
3
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Thu Oct 19 2023
Electric Ladyland
Jimi Hendrix
| am guessing you either think this is his masterpiece or four sides of self-indulgent wibble. What we can all agree with surely is that remove Voodoo Chile (15 mins) and 1983 a Merman (13 mins and you have an absolute kick-ass 46 minute album that would just about fit on a single album pressing. But we'll never know. So 4 - and 5 for the Electric Singleladyland
4
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Fri Oct 20 2023
Alien Lanes
Guided By Voices
28 tracks in 41 minutes. Excellent. Each one an amuse bouche of early ninties indie, from some that sound like Oasis to some sounding more like Dinosaur Jr. or Nirvana. I like this a lot, though not sure how good it actually is.
3
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Sat Oct 21 2023
Elephant
The White Stripes
Pretty much peak Stripes, listening again reminded me how much they wrought out of so little. But how much was Meg? That we will never know.
4
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Sun Oct 22 2023
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
Fast Car, Talking About a Revolution and (tho I don't like) Baby Can I Hold You are all serious tunes. Backed up by a pretty strong set of album cuts. The production is uber eighties, reminiscent of Paul Simon/Peter Gabriel at the time. It's a definitive three, but no more.
3
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Mon Oct 23 2023
Freak Out!
The Mothers Of Invention
Crazy but accessible, and one of the first double albums ever released. Not a zappahead so can't give this more than three. One of my partners favourite albums.
3
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Tue Oct 24 2023
Feast of Wire
Calexico
Very pleasant, and some deep songwriting skills as well as the TexMex vibes, some bits recalling DJ Shadow as well as Los Lobos.
3
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Wed Oct 25 2023
The Man Who
Travis
Writing about bad music is so much more fun than writing about good - I guess that's what makes you a journalist. Me, I will just pass on that for our non-UK friends this album is one of a select few that cluster in the shelves of the charity shops of our fair country. Robbie Williams solo albums, Coldplay early stuff, b-grade britpop like Cast, rank boybands like Blue...The Man Who...is one of this select group. Because it's the album that your girlfriend bought you for your birthday that you chazza'd (technical term) as soon as you split up.
2
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Thu Oct 26 2023
Throwing Muses
Throwing Muses
I love Kristen Hersh and Tanya Donnelly's solo work, and Belly, but have never quite vibed with where it all started. Perhaps just a bit too much going on at once, so this is a good listen but hasn't quite pushed the switch.
3
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Fri Oct 27 2023
A Grand Don't Come For Free
The Streets
As a Brummie of twenty-five years standing got to love Mike Skinner, even if he was responsible for one of the worst-sounding gigs I ever attended at the old NIA. This is The Streets most coherent statement, a rap odyssey in which Mike loses a grand, goes out, loses the girl, finds another girl, finds the grand. A lot of this is insanely catchy, and despite its well-chosen ultra cheap beats can't hide the fact that he's got some real craft as a songwriter. Listen to it in the album order pls, and marvel how everything comes together in the epic last track that could even be termed prog hig-hop/grime. It's definitely a concept album.
4
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Sat Oct 28 2023
Hotel California
Eagles
Not an album I need to play again to rate. Has there been a less likeable band than The Eagles. Much of their music has been so overplayed that it's out there in the ether without anyone needing to choose. I would point out The Last Resort as my personal highlight of what is a pretty perfect album, the definitive statement of LA country rock and one that should be as celebrated as Rumours. Why isn't it? See maybe they're just not that likeable as people...
5
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Sun Oct 29 2023
Metal Box
Public Image Ltd.
Not an easy listen by any means, but treat it as one long soundscape inhabited by Wobble's dub bass, Levene's sparse guitar and Lyndon's vocals and it accumulates over time. Normally I'd split a double album for two listens, this one is best done right through.
4
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Mon Oct 30 2023
The Predator
Ice Cube
Ice Cube's early solo career, repetitive lyrics about homies, gats, AKs, bitches, punk ass niggas, and cars notwithstanding - it is gangsta rap after all - is pretty damn listenable. And so is this.
3
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Tue Oct 31 2023
Hejira
Joni Mitchell
What a run of albums led to this. One of her most enigmatic, but seductive albums. Everything comes together on the final track which one of my very favourite of hers.
5
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Sat Nov 04 2023
Porcupine
Echo And The Bunnymen
John Webster was one of the best there was. He was the author of two major tragedies. The White Devil and the Duchess of Malfi-O. You've either already bailed or you're on board. The lyrics are abstract to the point of absurdity, but the Bunnymen are perhaps one of the ultimate atmosphere bands. And this one is perhaps their densest, least user-friendly vibe. Singles The Cutter and The Back of Love are ridiculously catchy, but its perhaps their gloomiest album. Every time I listen to it it gets better and better, whereas Ocean Rain sounds a bit thinner, a bit more calculated. I will go to my grave convinced that Bono stole the world-conquering crown that was the Bunnymen's by right.
5
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Sun Nov 05 2023
Walking Wounded
Everything But The Girl
If Stella Artois is the reference point for all lager - it can be weaker or stronger, better or worse - this album is the reference point for every dance/d and b inflected coffee table album of the nineties. Portishead miles better, a Leffe perhaps. Morcheeba miles worst - Carling. Needless to say, it deserves 2.5 stars. But I will reluctantly round up.
3
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Mon Nov 06 2023
Innervisions
Stevie Wonder
A great album, but unless you're a paid up Wonderfan it's not five stars. Make no mistake, Livin for the City, Higher Ground, Don't You Worry, Mr Know It All are all five - but that's not the whole album. No fan of Stevie syrup and Golden Lady is that, All In Love is Fair similarly.
4
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Tue Nov 07 2023
In Our Heads
Hot Chip
Solid. One of the few times I've seen a support band blow the headliners offstage, when they supported Goldfrapp. Flutes is an absolute tuuune and other very solid tracks are Motion Sickness and Where We Are. I don't fundamentally think they are an albums band, but this is a good listen. 3.5.
3
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Wed Nov 08 2023
Little Earthquakes
Tori Amos
One of my favourite albums from the early nineties, and has weathered incredibly well. Not sure she ever got the balance between restraint and expression quite as right as she did here.
4
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Thu Nov 09 2023
Aha Shake Heartbreak
Kings of Leon
I don't mind the Leons instrumental schtick - kind of Strokes meets Lynyrd Skynyrd - but that voice. He is doing something that makes it like scraping nails on a blackboard to listen to. If there later stuff is tending to Coldplay vibes then let's hope the vocals go with that, as beige would be distinct improvement on this.
1
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Fri Nov 10 2023
Foxbase Alpha
Saint Etienne
The 'radio selector' album is bit of a risk - if it comes off it sounds varied and rich, if not an incoherent mess. On the whole this is the former, from French sports announcements to movie dialogue and fake TV themes, as well as a fistful of great tracks. Only Love Can Break Your Heart and Nothing Can Stop Us are ageless and it's a quintessentially early nineties time capsule.
4
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Sat Nov 11 2023
Don't Stand Me Down
Dexys Midnight Runners
A sense of a band running on fumes here. Overlong tracks, several spoken word ruminations, arrangements that seem like more tortured versions of what seemed natural in the first two albums...I'm not buying the 'overlooked classic', but the well running dry. Having said that, Listen To This is a lovely callback to the northern soul stomping of their debut. Not enough for three stars though.
2
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Sun Nov 12 2023
No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith (Live)
Motörhead
One of the very best live albums, as Motorhead flatten their own songs from the studio versions into noisescapes even more reliant on blast beats and pure speed.
5
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Mon Nov 13 2023
Let's Stay Together
Al Green
Super-sophisticated seventies soul. Title track is 20 out of 5, rest of the album a lovely listen.
4
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Tue Nov 14 2023
Live!
Fela Kuti
Very listenable, apart from possibly the final track which shows that there is such a thing as too much drumming. But the ensemble is pretty amazing and Fela provides great frontman vibes. 3.49999.
3
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Wed Nov 15 2023
Ten
Pearl Jam
Not so much the Stones to Nirvana's Beatles, as the Clash to Nirvana's Pistols perhaps. Listening to this album it becomes apparent that Nirvana's sound was a complete one-off, built from Cobain's singular songwriting and the trio's chemistry. So it was that on this a template was created that would power so much rock through the nineties. This also falls under the rare category of albums I love while also not being that tempted to explore the rest of the canon.
4
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Thu Nov 16 2023
Elephant Mountain
The Youngbloods
Another of a seemingly endless series in pleasant but inessential mid/late sixties r and b/pop/country hybrids.
2
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Fri Nov 17 2023
Gorillaz
Gorillaz
Some debuts are the best thing the band ever do, some are - appropriately enough for a cartoon band - a sketch of what they will go on to grow into. This is a latter, with Demon Days as a 1000% leap forwards. Is it just my imagination or was the Clint Eastwood single version way beefier than this, or has time flattened my memory?
2
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Sat Nov 18 2023
I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got
Sinead O'Connor
Ok this is not as fearsome as much of her work, still at this point making major label music. Not sure I would listen again, but got to the end. is it three stars? Not quite. 2.5.
2
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Sun Nov 19 2023
Qui sème le vent récolte le tempo
MC Solaar
great flow in a Gangstarr/Quest/Jungle Bros early nineties style. Very early listen to, though of course not sure what he's on about.
3
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Mon Nov 20 2023
If I Could Only Remember My Name
David Crosby
God this doesn't all sound like everyone was coked out of their brains making this. Half the tracks have no lyrics. It's only 1970 and yet punk already had to happen.
1
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Tue Nov 21 2023
Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1
George Michael
I have listened and this has not altered my prejudices.
1
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Wed Nov 22 2023
The Who Sell Out
The Who
The time has come to admit that The Who's purple patch lasted in album terms from Tommy (generously) through to Quadrophenia - ie 4 albums over 4 years if you include Live At Leeds. Outside that it's patchy with great singles (My Generation, A Quick One, this one, Who Are You, Who By Numbers) and completely inessential and mediocre stuff - everything after Who Are You. This then is patchy with great singles. 3 stars.
3
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Thu Nov 23 2023
Guero
Beck
Solid Beck album, revisiting to some extent the pick n mix magic of Odelay with another album that shows what a good songwriter he is, as well as sonic artist.
3
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Fri Nov 24 2023
Blood, Sweat & Tears
Blood, Sweat & Tears
though a bit early to be classically 'prog' this is proto-prog - very talented musicians demonstrating how talented they are at length. I think I like prog for prog's sake - so Rush, Yes, even early Genesis - rather than the 'progging up' other genres like classical, blues or jazz - both of which are on offer here to lengthy and tedious effect. Spinning Wheel is an absolute tune though so drags the whole thing up to a two.
2
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Sat Nov 25 2023
Bat Out Of Hell
Meat Loaf
Oh lawdy I am with Clive Davis who said that Steinman didn't know how to write rock music, this is more like the most ridiculous musical ever made - which is how it started. He could craft an ear-worm, but surely the only missing thing from this absurdly OTT outing is the Liza Minelli version of this album. Should add that all the singles - title track and 2 out of 3 - were inescapable on the wonderful Radio 1 of the early eighties.
1
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Sun Nov 26 2023
Something Else By The Kinks
The Kinks
I agree with the overall feeling that this may be the best Kinks album, and contains without doubt their best song, and one of the best ever written. 4.5 stars really.
4
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Mon Nov 27 2023
D
White Denim
Yes lot's going on, almost too much. The shredding at the end of At The Farm is a wonderful thing, and it's a right old southern stew. 3.5 but it's tough at the top so rounding down guys.
3
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Fri Dec 01 2023
Risque
CHIC
Not much to say here other than this is three of the finest musicians in the world at the top of their game. Their sound is surely one of the most influential ever.
5
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Sat Dec 02 2023
Penance Soiree
The Icarus Line
This appears to have a lot of hate, but you know it's a fine noisy late 90s/early 00's rock. Certainly prefer this to nu metal. Very listenable to - but it is too damn long hence only three stars.
3
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Sun Dec 03 2023
Hunky Dory
David Bowie
Such a flawless album it needs more than five stars. Again, an album grooved on my brain and absolutely no need to play it again.
5
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Mon Dec 04 2023
Honky Tonk Masquerade
Joe Ely
The nice thing about this is the sweet spot between rock and roll (Fingernails) and country (Honky Tonk Masquerade). The other thing is that it's not that distinctive. I can see why he went on tour with The Clash, and enjoyed listening, but no real desire to add to playlist. Also very short and sharp. Sidebar: some of these tracks have 3,000 spotify streams. Even notorious 1001-ers like Kollaps and Duck Stab/Buster and Glen have streams in the many 10,000's - making him I guess one of the most obscure artists on this list.
2
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Tue Dec 05 2023
Foo Fighters
Foo Fighters
I like the early Foos when they were more of a post-Nirvana sideshoot and less of a Classic Rock Band. This is early Foos. Maybe it's just the first two albums I really really like.
4
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Wed Dec 06 2023
Scissor Sisters
Scissor Sisters
Revisiting an album I last heard when it came out, and when the songs were everywhere, I expected to dislike this intensely. But you know what, it's pretty likeable and has aged much better than I thought it would. A pleasant surprise, and shows that they were more than a gimmick cover and cool videos band.
3
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Thu Dec 07 2023
Young Americans
David Bowie
Time was this was my favourite Bowie album. But over time I can see it was precursor to Station to Station, which is my favourite and possibly the greatest album of all time. Two monumental songs, the title track and Fame, but elsewhere a bit shallow at times.
4
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Fri Dec 08 2023
Broken English
Marianne Faithfull
Only occasionally does that cracked, rich voice coalesce into a full album. Here the title track and Ballad of Lucy Jordan do a lot of heavy lifting, elsewhere it feels a bit like a luxury Island Records solo album of the eighties, tho it was 1979.
3
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Sat Dec 09 2023
Superfuzz Bigmuff
Mudhoney
I'm not averse to this at all, some songwriting beneath the slackerdom and noise.
3
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Wed Dec 13 2023
Psychocandy
The Jesus And Mary Chain
A quite brilliant debut, up there with the best debuts of all time. Just Like Honey showed that beneath the noise there was a sturdy songwriting chassis that would enable them to evolve (a bit!).
5
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Thu Dec 14 2023
Damaged
Black Flag
The passage of time renders this pretty listenable, hardly the society wrecking terror it was viewed as at the time. Still short, sharp and occasionally hilarious.
3
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Fri Dec 15 2023
My Generation
The Who
The sound of a band evolving at the speed of light. There's plenty of Motown, Bo Diddly and the blues alongside the powerpop. Do you rate the Deluxe Edition which includes Anwhere, Anyhow and I Can't Explain or not. So on the strictly original track listing which only contains ten-star My Generation it's a four-starrer. My Generation though - their entire sonic career from crazy drum fills, bass as lead, feedback, solos and power chords. Just the moog of Won't Get Fooled Again missing. That and all the bad stuff. Roger Daltrey is a surprisingly generic vocalist (MG excepting) - controversial opinion.
4
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Sat Dec 16 2023
Life Thru A Lens
Robbie Williams
After The Man Who the second chazza shop classic on this list. Angels would be pretty near the top of 1001 Songs You Never Need to Hear Again. Apart from that and other inescapable single Let Me Entertain You it's still a breeezy if featherlight pop listen. And the most childish F U teachers every committed to tape at the end. 2.5 but rounded down for that.
2
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Sun Dec 17 2023
The Good, The Bad & The Queen
The Good, The Bad & The Queen
Coming after Parklife in my list, one of the three Blur-less Damon manifestations (solo, Gorillaz) and perhaps the weakest of the three. Pleasant enough but a distinct lack of killer tunes.
3
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Mon Dec 18 2023
Parklife
Blur
The creative high point of Britpop, and also of one of the most enduring British bands of the last thirty years. Come for Phil Daniels comedy stylings, stay for Albarn's knack for finding the melancholy and downbeat (This Is a low) as well as the party anthems (Girls and Boys).
4
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Tue Dec 19 2023
Chore of Enchantment
Giant Sand
Mmm. Kind of like Grandaddy but without the depth of tunes. Straight out of early noughties college rock. Not unpleasant, but really a 2.5. Rounded down for length.
2
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Wed Dec 20 2023
Ananda Shankar
Ananda Shankar
Absolutely not something I would reach for, but this fusion of sitar and moog works pretty well, though it can never completely escape the whiff of cheese.
3
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Thu Dec 21 2023
Sheer Heart Attack
Queen
The earworms are the singles, the non-singles are not earworms. I don't like the earworms, though can concede their immaculate craft. Elsewhere it's all a bit hairy blokes in drag.
2
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Fri Dec 22 2023
Time Out
The Dave Brubeck Quartet
Ah one of the twenty or so jazz albums that make this list - a typical 'jazz for non-jazzers' along with Kind of Blue, Blue Train, Ah Um etc. etc. It's an excellent album, his blocky piano playing really shines through.
4
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Sat Dec 23 2023
Every Picture Tells A Story
Rod Stewart
The Rod so far on this list has been awful. This is...probably his best. Still not for me at all, but the song selection and playing is nothing but copper-bottomed and can see how this made him a huge star.
3
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Sun Dec 24 2023
Legalize It
Peter Tosh
Too much liberation and ganja for international superstardom, but his songs were at their best Marley's equal
4
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Sat Dec 30 2023
Straight Outta Compton
N.W.A.
Fittingly I bought this album on a bootleg cassette in the States. Now have it on CD. As electric as ever, 35 years on.
5
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Sun Dec 31 2023
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Elton John
Surely no-one ever needs to hear the big singles from this ever again, doubly so for 'Candle' - there's a nice Zydeco-flavoured cover from kate Bush I'd recommend. Elsewhere this is still a pretty pretty good 70s singer-songwriter album and a solid four stars. Even though I really don't like EJ all that much.
4
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Tue Jan 02 2024
Lazer Guided Melodies
Spiritualized
Beautiful, drifting, stately, otherworldy etc. Jason would get the tunes sorted in subsequent albums to add to the vibes on show here. Three stars.
3
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Wed Jan 03 2024
From Elvis In Memphis
Elvis Presley
You know what this is not a bad listen, quite fun. In The Ghetto and Suspicious Minds are tunes. The band are tight and the up-tempo numbers at the start are perhaps an indicator of a slightly more interesting road than he ended up taking. The second of his albums after his debut that I could contemplate listening to all the way through.
3
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Thu Jan 04 2024
The White Room
The KLF
Head to Youtube for the original mix of the album and the three monster singles. KLF were only ever about hits, Top of the Pops, 12" remixes, the Brits and all that really important stuff. Albums less so, as why would you throw away good stuff that won't get played on MTV/Radio One. 3 stars for the backups, 5 stars for the singles. 4 it is.
4
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Fri Jan 05 2024
Done By The Forces Of Nature
Jungle Brothers
Kind of like Tribe Called Quest without the magic, and like many rap albums of the time waaay too long. When I am world dictator it will be 12 tracks, 48 mins or the gulags for you. So really 2.5 but rounded down for length.
2
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Sat Jan 06 2024
The Wall
Pink Floyd
Nothing new to say about this album. Hideously unfashionable at the time, hideously unfashionable ever since. Some everygreen songs, but the concept and the linking bits are very skippable.
3
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Sun Jan 07 2024
Kimono My House
Sparks
Everyone knows 'This town' but this is an excellent album from start to finish. Along with the wonky pop there's a distinct krautrock chug. 3.5 stars really.
3
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Mon Jan 08 2024
Let Love Rule
Lenny Kravitz
Chat GPT's take on how to mix Beatlesesque song structures, some Hendrix guitar stylings (toned down so nothing too scary), Prince vocals and a DOA early nineties production style. Lyrics auto-generated from keywords 'love' 'baby' 'freedom' and 'peace'. But we're still a world away from AI creating anything you could call original.
1
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Tue Jan 09 2024
Cafe Bleu
The Style Council
My oh my. We've only had Sound Affects from The Jam before this came up. It'll be a crime if this makes the list and the other two albums from The Jam's golden trio, All Mod Cons and Setting Sons, doesn't make the list. As someone who was a massive Jam fan the Style Council were always underwhelming - I can remember hearing Into Tomorrow (his first solo single) and going 'finally' - like instead of a difficult second album he went for a difficult second musical career. Funk, soul, jazz, mod all jostle uncomfortably on a confused record that goes off in a million directions without sounding convinced by any. In a non-instrumentals album you're allowed one, any more (like here) ends up sounding like half-finished tracks. The next album, Our Favourite Shop, is generally seen as a stronger and more coherent work. Maybe that's on here too.
2
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Wed Jan 10 2024
Second Toughest In The Infants
Underworld
The naming of killer boy....Reverend Al Green...Karl Hyde's cut-up lyrics are an under-rated part of Underworld's armoury, along with his sometimes sung sometimes spoken delivery. This is an amazing album, showing how swiftly dance music was changing the musical landscape in the mid-nineties. Not since progrock had albums seen lengths like this: the first two tracks clock in at over 30 minutes, and the first has distinctly-named sub-sections, another prog move. All the tracks shift and alter evolve slowly - a bassline here, a hi-hat there, as melodies and Hyde's vocals emerge and subside from the central groove that anchors each (and made them such a mainstay of the 'DJ compilation mix' of the time). Apart from prog, an even better comparison is the minimalism of Steve Reich - imagine Music for 16 Musicians with a drum machine and you're halfway here.
5
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Thu Jan 11 2024
Jack Takes the Floor
Ramblin' Jack Elliott
You know this was not a difficult listen, lots of talking blues and guitar picking in an early Bob Dylan style. Jack is a more straightforward proposition, perhaps why he ended up nearer LLewelyn Davis than global megastar.
3
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Fri Jan 12 2024
Antichrist Superstar
Marilyn Manson
Jesus christ (hah!) this was a slog. Each song sounds exactly the same, and there are lot of songs. If the devil does have all the best tunes then Mr Manson must have sold all his to someone else.
1
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Sat Jan 13 2024
C'est Chic
CHIC
Easy five stars here. Anyone who can should watch the 3-part BBC series Disco, Sound of Revolution which has some truly amazing interviews and footage, with Nicky Siano as a breakout star. The instrumental prowess on this album is mind-blowing.
5
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Sun Jan 14 2024
The Rise & Fall
Madness
Their brilliant career. Unlike their two-tone peers they could both sustain a lengthy career (Specials and Selecter, The Beat all imploding after 2/3 albums), and like them hit the ground running from the off. All of the first four Madness albums are excellent, a proper imperial period straight off the bat. This is the fourth and last (IMHO) and introduces a more reflective tone into their music, more lyrical ambition - it's really a love letter to the London they grew up in (Our House, Primrose Hill), and just a greater maturity from a band never far from silliness. Both a long way from The Prince and not. Perhaps the most London of bands since The Kinks. All of these things are compliments.
4
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Mon Jan 15 2024
The Sounds Of India
Ravi Shankar
Impossible to rate really as a Western casual listener but the spoken word intros are great and as a soundscape its great working music.
3
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Tue Jan 16 2024
Go Girl Crazy
The Dictators
In the category of 'Interesting yes, influential yes, good not really' . An extra half a point docked for a pretty lame cover version. Along with The Tubes their 'progenitors of punk' credentials are slightly oversold to these UK ears.
2
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Wed Jan 17 2024
Ace of Spades
Motörhead
The Velvet Underground of heavy metal. Hard to think of much happening in the thrash/speed metal scenes without Lemmy's discovery that turning the speed up to 11, keeping the songs to 3 minutes and the solos to 20s was a winning formula. Two absolute classics in the title track and We are The road Crew, but like many rock bands of the time their best album is live (No Sleep, also on this list I think).
4
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Thu Jan 18 2024
Da Capo
Love
I'm sorry I know Love are much beloved but have now heard two albums from this list and don't get what raises them above a billion other beat bands who went a bit psychedelic.
2
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Fri Jan 19 2024
Melody A.M.
Röyksopp
Such a clever and well-crafted album. It's a bit trip-hop, especially Portishead, at times, it's a bit coffee table dance, but there are some lovely melodies here that really nail this down as a pop album. Gotta look to the remixes for anything to actually dance to.
3
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Sat Jan 20 2024
Playing With Fire
Spacemen 3
What a great album this is, the Velvets mixed with late sixties psychedelia, and a touch of Terry Riley drone music. Mixed in with the freak-outs and drones there'sa touch of gospel in which salvation or getting high are pretty much the same.
4
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Sat Jan 27 2024
Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs
Derek & The Dominos
One hour and fifteen from the old r****t Eric, a double helping of smug self-satisfied blues rock. There is a little bit of energy that saves it from one star, but the coda to Layla goes on and on and is a classic example of more is less. And it doesn't have Wonderful Tonight on, so there's that.
2
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Sun Jan 28 2024
Murmur
R.E.M.
This is just a perfect album, not a single weak track. Not much to say about it other than it being one of the most stupendous debuts of all time, and its reputation only growing. If I had one caveat - only one - it's that the production is a little basic. The drum sound on tracks like Radio Free Europe is a little tinny. But really, it's nitpicking. Five stars.
5
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Mon Jan 29 2024
All Directions
The Temptations
Papa is 10 mins of utter brilliance, and elsewhere there's some sold seventies pop-funk backing it up. The sun was slightly setting on the all-covers soul ensemble, and their versions of Do Your Thing and The First Time Ever are a bit bloodless. Overall 3.5, feeling generous, rounded up.
4
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Tue Jan 30 2024
Here's Little Richard
Little Richard
This holds up really well because there are no ballads, just faster R and B and slower R and B. Simple. Got to give it a 4.
4
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Wed Jan 31 2024
Bug
Dinosaur Jr.
Wiinning combo of angry fuzz guitars and lovely pop melodies. There's an agreeable ragged edge to Dinosaur Jr., a real songwriteryness which is why I guess they've endured so long.
4
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Thu Feb 01 2024
Meat Puppets II
Meat Puppets
Yeah this is a good listen, a bunch of rattling melodic short and sharp songs.
3
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Fri Feb 02 2024
Third/Sister Lovers
Big Star
Over the three Big Star albums there is one absolutely knockout to be assembled. This is a third of a great album, and This Mortal Coil knew what they were doing when they picked out Kangaroo and Holocaust.
3
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Sat Feb 03 2024
Country Life
Roxy Music
Stunning first side, fine second and a double punch of Really Good Time and Prairie Rose to finish. Slightly more guitar-based with the departure of Eno, and after a shift taking place from the wild art experimentalism of the Eno era to their mid-era sophisticated Euro pop this is Roxy at the top of their game.
5
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Sun Feb 04 2024
The Next Day
David Bowie
I'm of course liking this a lot, as it pretends that his entire iffy career from Let's Dance to reality never happened. Certainly only Heathen of his post-LD works stands up to this, both a calculated return to the golden years of heroes and low, and a survey of virtually his entire career. Certainly some Ziggy-era glam and Hunky Dory big balladeering feature. if there's a melancholy, valedictory tone to much of the lyricism, well three years later we knew why.
4
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Mon Feb 05 2024
It's Blitz!
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
A textbook example of noisy guitar bands of the noughties going 'synthpop'. Some of these tracks have big fat analogue synths Gary Numan would recognise. But a really really strong set of songs, slightly more guitar heavy on the second side, and all built absolutely for singing along to at Reading midway through the evening.
4
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Fri Feb 16 2024
Definitely Maybe
Oasis
Tonight/I'm a Rock and Roll Star is just about the most perfect statement of Album one, side one, track one 'We're Here now' possible. Listening to an album that just about every British guitar band has had to relate to in some way over the past thirty years, it's hard to recapture how fresh and brilliant this sounded when it came out. The template for every single Oasis album ever is already in place: four killer singles (here Supersonic, Shakermaker, Live Forever, Cigarettes and Alcohol), some solid album tracks that would be singles on other albums (not least the aforesaid opener), a soaring epic (Slide Away), and a throwaway acoustic number (Married With Children). And lastly, one track that sounds so like someone else's you can't believe they haven't been sued for a writing credit (here Shakermaker = I'd Like to Teach the World To Sing). If all the singles here are scored at 10/10, the great album tracks 9 and the others 8 take one off for each subsequent album, so by the depths of 5th album Don't Believe The Truth it works out at 6, 5 and 4 which sounds about right. Bonus: their B-sides in this period were better than most people's A-sides, and are included in The Masterplan which is better than any other album they did apart from this one and (possibly) the second. Overall 5/5. Lyrics: Noel for No(b)el Prize for Literature. I'll take my car and drive real far/You're not concerned about the way we are. Genius.
5
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Sat Feb 17 2024
Fun House
The Stooges
erm a bit disappointing as up for the Igmeister usually. Sludgy.
2
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Sun Feb 18 2024
Heavy Weather
Weather Report
Just because you are excellent at noodling, and this has a reputation of one of the greatest noodling albums of all time, and the players went onto noodle for other bands and enjoy international noodling careers, does not make it not noodling. That and any fusion saxophone risks tipping into epic sax territory. Two and a quarter, maybe two and a third. But not 2.5.
2
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Mon Feb 19 2024
BEYONCÉ
Beyoncé
it's a 2.5, at the back end of this in XO, Flawless and Superpower there's a lot of stuff to like. But to get there there's a lot of quite boring stuff, immaculately sung and produced but which does nothing for me. Other opinions are available.
2
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Tue Feb 20 2024
Apocalypse Dudes
Turbonegro
There are bands that just, well are - Kraftwerk, Roxy Music, peak Stones - and then there are the 'What if..' bands. Here the proposal is 'Imagine if Tom of Finland dressed a band blending Ramones/Dictators with rock guitar solos.' Well the results are a bit derivative, and it's hard to know how to take their 'Ass Cobra''Scandinavian Leather' gay/trans stylings. Some kick ass tunes, but really nothing distinctive on record. Can agree they are probably awesome live.
3
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Wed Feb 21 2024
The Number Of The Beast
Iron Maiden
Have to admit I am no Maiden fan, and though I bought a couple of their early singles I very rapidly moved away from this kind of stuff. Cartoonish album covers, ridiculous clothes (striped spandex!), songs about ancient Egypt, Civil War ghosts, the usual Satan stuff. And while I will never be convinced about them as a band, this is an absolute banger. The first side is solid, but the second four songs are just brilliant.
4
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Thu Feb 22 2024
A Girl Called Dusty
Dusty Springfield
My son (jazzhead) has theory about why no-one can play like Clifford Brown or Miles Davis anymore. There were so many jazz musicians in the thirties and forties that you are hearing now the very best of hundreds of thousands of players. To make it to the top you had to be truly extra-ordinary. And so it is with female singers in the sixties (viz. Aretha). Though the material here is sometimes slight the phrasing, the variation, the tone...all truly exceptional. Greater things would come, and her truly great moments were of course singles. So a very solid 3.5.
3
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Fri Feb 23 2024
Permission to Land
The Darkness
Tons of fun. Channelling the more optimistic seventies classic rock sound, all duelling guitars, falsettos and killer choruses. Amazing they got a whole career out of pastiche Lizzy/Aerosmith/Queen etc.
3
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Sat Feb 24 2024
Dookie
Green Day
No sorry this is energy, three chords and not a lot else. Can see how incredibly influential it was, but rather monotonous over an album. Full marks for taking Fugazi, Black flag et al and making an absolute mint from it.
2
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Sun Feb 25 2024
Shleep
Robert Wyatt
Himm. A bit all over the shop. Some lovely playing, and his voice is just as amazing as ever. Reminded me of the Pauline Murray and the Invisible Girls album at times, which is a good thing. Straightforward three.
3
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Tue Feb 27 2024
Out of Step
Minor Threat
Surprisingly varied, glad I listened, not sure I will again etc etc.
3
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Wed Feb 28 2024
Fulfillingness' First Finale
Stevie Wonder
Snoozie Wonder.
2
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Thu Feb 29 2024
Ellington at Newport
Duke Ellington
I guess that the jazz albums in this list are those from the '100 best albums of jazz' lists. It is a great album, and the vaunted solos on Dimuendo and Crescendo are superb. But the jazz albums here are a bit random - why not for example have Jacqueline Du Pre's recording of Elgar's Cello Concerto? Anyway, four stars.
4
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Fri Mar 01 2024
Two Dancers
Wild Beasts
This appears very polarising which baffles me. I would regard this as a solid slice of 00's indie, with a more distinctive vocalist than most. But the songs aren't really strong enough for more than 3.2/3/3
3
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Sat Mar 02 2024
The Atomic Mr Basie
Count Basie & His Orchestra
1958 so can see why this is in. Tighter than a gnat's chuff. So tight you can see right through it. If all big band was all killer no filler like this then I'd like it a whole lot more.
4
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Sun Mar 03 2024
Shadowland
k.d. lang
You know this is a revelation. Insert the old Buddy Rich at the hospital gag. Are you allergic to anything? yes country music. Pretty much describes my feelings, but the combination her voice, tasteful arrangements and a rock-solid song selection make this a solid three, probably 3.25 and I might even put it on the relisten pile.
3
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Fri Mar 08 2024
The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators
The 13th Floor Elevators
What a great album this is. Mid-sixties garage rock is not my comfort zone, but I've heard this album several times before and it never disappoints. You're Gonna Miss Me and Reverberation are obvious high points, but it's strong writing and playing throughout. Probs 4.5 but have to round you down a bit.
4
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Sat Mar 09 2024
Vulnicura
Björk
The 'return to form' album is the holy grail of mid and late career artists, wished for far more than their ambient/reggae/classical excursion is a re-nailing of why we loved them in the first place. Rarer than hen's teeth, Bjork gets pretty close to the RTF ideal with a focus on strings and the kind of hushed electronic beats that dominated Post and Homogenic. If none of the songs are quite a Hyperballad or Joga then that's understandable. But always listenable, and within touching distance of a melody. 3.5 but feeling generous.
4
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Sun Mar 10 2024
Vulgar Display Of Power
Pantera
Nothing much for me here, a white power version of Slayer. Sorry no.
1
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Mon Mar 11 2024
Live At The Witch Trials
The Fall
I have only twenty-odd albums and saw them live only 4/5 times, so a lightweight Fall-head really. This gets less spins than others possibly due to being on the original Small Wonder vinyl and safely stashed away. Their run of brilliant early singles - collected on Early fall 77-79 - has rather put this debut in the shade. A relisten reveals that it's - what do you know - already a classic fall album. Rebellious Jukebox, Two Steps Back, Industrial Estate and No Xmas for John Quays are all prime cuts, supported by such perennial Fall tropes as a dig at the music biz ('Music Scene') and a sub-1 min amouse bouche (title track). Their sound - rolling bass to anchor, clattering drums , obtusely tinny yet melodic keyboards - is here in template form. MES appears already full-formed, speech-singing and making everything rhyme by putting 'ah' at the end. Not a five as that would say it is the equal of 'This Nations...' or 'Hex Enduction'. But 4.25 definitely.
4
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Tue Mar 12 2024
The Boatman's Call
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
One of the NCATBS albums I would point as somewhere sensible to start. Full of Nick in Love vibes and with the Bad Seeds in a classic lounge band mode. Some of his loveliest tunes (Into My Arms and Are You The One particularly) and less gnarly guitar from Blixa and 8 minute old testament workouts. Not my favourite though, a solid 4.
4
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Wed Mar 13 2024
Remedy
Basement Jaxx
Perhaps the least-heralded of the bands who took rave and turned it into 'proper album music' (with the Chemicals, Underworld, Leftfield, Prodigy, Orbital) this is as light as a feather, perhaps a little overlong like several 90s dance albums, but full of lovely touches.
4
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Thu Mar 14 2024
Get Behind Me Satan
The White Stripes
Hard to find a Jack White album less than listenable to, and this sees them stretch their sound with more piano and instrumentation beyond the blues guitar and drums. My Doorbell is - a banger - and it's great all the way through.
4
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Fri Mar 15 2024
Another Music In A Different Kitchen
Buzzcocks
When I was about 15 at school I went round to a friend's. We played bass and keyboards for a bit, then he showed me a dirt motorbike he had. As he was 14 all he could do was ride it round the garden. I had a music sheet book of Another Music In A Different Kitchen that was his, and never gave it back. Ebayed it for a healthy sum thirty years later. The album? By the band who were the first band I ever saw live. Just perfect. The sleeve, the title...everything that was exciting about music when I was 15. Still sounds amazing.
5
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Sat Mar 16 2024
At Fillmore East
The Allman Brothers Band
You know I had it in mind to be severe with this, as when I ripped it had only a single CD's worth I could find a decade ago. But I'm at work ripping through tedious admin like bank details and budgets and some mellow endless shredding is exactly what works. So a solid three stars. Sitting down and listening to it without having something else to do would however be surely banned under the Geneva Convetnion.
3
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Sun Mar 17 2024
Hail To the Thief
Radiohead
Right album, wrong time. If this had followed OK Computer it would have been seen as a great step forwards, upping the glitchy textures and losing the last shreds of 'anthemic Head' from The Bends, Lucky, Karma Police. Following on from the double punch of Kid A/Amnesiac it can't help but feel like a step back in the catalogue. However, it's a pretty immaculate set of songs, and if it doesn't get the five it's to reflect the fact that 14 is one or two too many and there are 5-star albums elsewhere in their catalogue.
4
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Mon Mar 18 2024
Endtroducing.....
DJ Shadow
Ambient hip-hop trip-hop soul. Surely one of the best albums of the nineties. A debut so perfect he's never really got out of its Shadow.
5
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Tue Mar 19 2024
Black Holes and Revelations
Muse
When I was in the fourth form and starting to buy vinyl I bought a couple of albums by The Boomtown Rats (notably not listed so far and I'm up to 600 odd). Then within a couple of years I was listening to The Clash. For millenials aged 14 I guess this was who you listened to before Radiohead. Frightening to think that you wouldn't move on pretty quick. TBF, like the Rats, they can put together a tune - this one starts and end pretty well, but boy does it sag in the middle. 2.5 really but as a gateway drug to OK Computer I'll give it 3.
3
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Wed Mar 20 2024
Heaux Tales
Jazmine Sullivan
It's really an EP once the skits are removed (serious skits rather than those on 3 feet high...) - but these half-a-dozen songs are a great listen, and they get stronger as things progress. solid three stars, in a genre that's not really in my comfort zone.
3
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Sat Mar 23 2024
Rising Above Bedlam
Jah Wobble's Invaders Of The Heart
Listened to this twice, and if you can I would recommend. On first listen it's a bit unfocused and the plethora of different voices can mean it slips by and doesn't really grab you. While there are passages that are more textural and ambient, on a second listen melodies and structures reveal themselves.
3
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Wed Mar 27 2024
System Of A Down
System Of A Down
Pros: the songs are short. Most are based around some semblence of a tune. Cons: They all sound the same. Generic late 90s thrash I am afraid.
2
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Thu Mar 28 2024
Moby Grape
Moby Grape
Not all on Spotify but the 9/12 of the album I could hear was great, in that sweet spot around 66 when beat went just a bit psychedelic but was still pop.
3
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Fri Mar 29 2024
Viva Hate
Morrissey
Conflicted. Big conflict. I can look on at the Kanye or Clapton arguements and ultimately not got that much skin in the game. Kanye's first three albums are fine. Can leave the rest of it. But Morrissey. I loved The Smiths and saw them twice (ticket stubs framed of course). I've seen Morrissey solo once. Vauxhall and I, Viva Hate and his early singles compilations are all regularly played chez nous. And yet he's throughout his career written songs and spoken not just from a conservative standpoint. That would be Phil Collins or Tony Hadley. No, from an anti-immigration and 'England for the English' standpoint. He's endorsed far-right activists and the arguements that it's either because of his animal rights views or he's being a provocateur don't wash. Yet....the music on Viva Hate is fantastic. Like many first solo albums you suspect these songs were brewing during the end of the Smiths. Everyday Is Like Sunday, Suedehead and Late Night, Maudlin Street are fantastic tracks that could slot into say Strangeways....perfectly. Vini Reilly's guitar work on the above is very different but equally wonderful to Mr Marr's. Bengali in Platforms has a stunning looping, nagging guitar part....but it's a massively anti-immigrant rant. So, you could mark him down for his views, ignore this and mark the music. I'm a massive hypocrite and going for the latter. So, it's a four. Aargh. Will never buy any more of his music or see him live.
4
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Sat Mar 30 2024
This Is Fats Domino
Fats Domino
The roll bit of rock and roll. Steady beat, that flowing piano and Fats melodious voice, never yelpy or hoarse. Easy three, and you can reconstruct this album in 5 mins from Spotify even though the album itself isn't there.
3
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Sun Mar 31 2024
Electric Prunes
The Electric Prunes
Two monster singles, a short and sharp sixties album from that golden period when beat was blending into psychedelic. 3.5 really but rounding down.
3
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Mon Apr 01 2024
Here, My Dear
Marvin Gaye
Many albums are a spite listen, few are a spite make. From its awful cover art to Is That Enough? and other raw lyrics it's one of music's greatest FU's. The music though, is great.
4
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Tue Apr 02 2024
Queen Of Denmark
John Grant
This is a good album, and each individual song is fine. Possibly many are a four (Sigourney Weaver for example). But at over an hour it's much too long and suffers from the chocolate box effect: after twelve of such rich musical fare the delight has diminished somewhat through sheer repetition.
3
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Wed Apr 03 2024
The Sensual World
Kate Bush
I would place this exactly midpoint on the Bush discography: below Hounds of Love, Aerial, Never for Ever and The Dreaming. Equal with Red Shoes, and above Kick Inside, Lionheart and 50 Words for Snow. One of those disconcerting albums when side 2 is much better than side 1, and nothing else to say about what has to be a four. Hope the others are on the list. Not that I need to listen to them.
4
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Thu Apr 04 2024
Dirt
Alice In Chains
Plus point: they can touch a tune. Minus points: everything else and the length of the album. I guess CD was still a shiny new format in the nineties. Nevermind is 49 minutes. This is 57 but feels soo much longer.
2
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Fri Apr 05 2024
Rock Bottom
Robert Wyatt
What is it? Jazz? Folk? Singer-songwriter? I have decided that I can't really get with John Martyn, but Robert Wyatt just has something that means he is always listenable. If you like you like.
3
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Mon Apr 08 2024
Electric
The Cult
This has not aged well. Love Removal Machine still kicks something, but the rest of the album is a wasteland of oversized riffs and ridiculous rock posturing. They would keep all that in the next album and add a chunk of tune. There are some missing links that should stay forever missing and the one between The Doors and Aerosmith is clearly one. Most of its two for LRR. No album with a cover of Born to Be Wild this bad and inessential can get more.
2
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Tue Apr 09 2024
...Baby One More Time
Britney Spears
Hey Max it's great we're halfway through the album. If we keep up the standards of the first half of the album this is going to be a stone classic album. Can't wait to hear the tracks for the second side.
Er yeah Britney about that. I generally find that four or five bangers upfront plus an equal amount of B-grade filler that no-one will listen to more than once is the way to go here. It's worked for Madge for twenty years.
You the man Max.
3
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Wed Apr 10 2024
Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor
Lupe Fiasco
What! 16 tracks! 70 minutes. Another over over long rap album to make your heart sink. More on that later, but this is one of the best rap albums this middle aged white guy has head in the last twenty years. Mr Fiasco has an engaging and open 'flow' with plenty of wit and intelligence in the bars. The samples are on the whole melodic, well-chosen and I would say make this a pretty good pop album. Now, back to that length. I see a gap in the market for 'Record Reducers' who will provide you with an authoritative 12-track, 45 minute cut of any album that bloats. This is more a case of just too much of a good thing rather than sprawl, and had it clocked in at the 45 min mark may well have been 5 stars. Legend has it CD length was fixed by Phillips to get a complete version of Beethoven's 9th on there. How they wish now they'd gone with the Ramones first album instead.
4
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Thu Apr 11 2024
90
808 State
When this was made the dance revolution that would define the nineties (far bigger than grunge or Britpop, a proper cultural revolution) was a live events and singles affair. DJ Mix albums were recorded onto dodgy cassettes and sold at Camden Market. Two years before the first Prodigy album, four years before 'dance bands' like the Chemicals, Leftfield and Underworld would start to crank out proper dance albums this feels like a long EP. Absolutely of its time, and signposting the way ahead to greater glories, there's nothing here to equal the timelessness of Pacific State but its aged pretty well.
3
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Fri Apr 12 2024
xx
The xx
This is one of those rare albums that gets better the longer it plays. Intro and VCR are the weakest songs, and at that point you might be wondering what all the fuss was about. By the mid-point of the album why it's so special is abundantly clear. Very few artists use space in such a way, and by letting each element (beats, bass, guitar and vocals primarily) stand out in crystal clarity each reinforces the others. Up there with the classic debuts of all time.
5
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Sat Apr 13 2024
The Trinity Session
Cowboy Junkies
Vocals five, song choices four, instruments three. Lovely to listen to.
3
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Sun Apr 14 2024
Blood And Chocolate
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
A pleasant surprise. Not Imperial Elvis (first six albums, a proper golden run, not counting inessential Almost Blue) but a first-rate second tier Elvis. Tails off a bit towards the end and EC is not a six-minute man, but really this is a strong three stars.
3
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Mon Apr 15 2024
Butterfly
Mariah Carey
Just because you can doesn't mean you should. Absolutely nothing to distinguish it from the tsunami of pop R and B in the nineties/early noughties than her voice. Which is a taste I have yet to acquire.
1
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Wed Apr 17 2024
GI
Germs
Yes listenable classic punk. Not a lot else to say, didn't outstay its welcome but not one I'm likely to revisit.
3
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Thu Apr 18 2024
Smile
Brian Wilson
I can see all the fuss, a vintage era Beach Boys album in all but name decades afterwards. Beautiful playing and singing. But not my cup of tea. There is some trail off by the end (Vegetables) as well. 2.5 but will round up to 3.
3
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Fri Apr 19 2024
(Pronounced 'Leh-'Nérd 'Skin-'Nérd)
Lynyrd Skynyrd
I had a battered copy of One More From The Road which I played to death decades before I heard their studio albums. And it is to that album that I would direct anyone to hear definitive versions of four tracks on this album, not least Freebird. The other tracks are fine back-up but as Motorhead (No Sleep..) and Lizzy (Live and Dangerous), UFO (Strangers...) the live album contains the versions that leap out of the speakers.
4
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Sat Apr 20 2024
Black Monk Time
The Monks
The second-hardest album to find that I don't own. A 45-minute Youtube rip was the only thing I could find. This is pretty fine in a Seeds/Electric Prunes/Moby Grape/13thfloor Elevators beat going to psychedelia moment. But it also has many low points (Cuckoo) and thus can not be more than 3 stars. Great story behind the band.
3
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Sun Apr 21 2024
You've Come a Long Way Baby
Fatboy Slim
There's inescapable and then there's Right Here Right Now. Equally at home across sports footage, film montages, DIY presenters walking into homes, probably even local news about roadworks, it has become shorthand for 'this is exciting, honest'. It and Praise You and Rockefeller Skank are killer singles. The rest of the album is, well could work in a club mix.
3
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Mon Apr 22 2024
Suzanne Vega
Suzanne Vega
Somewhat odd choice, as its her second album that has the only tracks the wider public will remember (Luka and Tom's Diner). So is Solitude Standing also on this list, as 2 Suzanne Vega seems very generous. Anyway. Fey is a very underused word but absolutely describes Vega's delicate, at times whimsical vibe. Marlene on the Wall is a top track, and the album a good listen. Not so sure about the The Queen and the Soldier which is a valiant attempt to update the seventies singer-songwriter love for getting medieval on yo song (thinking Mr Stevens and his Lady D'Arbanville or Lindisfarne's Lady Eleanor. Not mentioning the full Rick Wakeman. So at times four, but overlal three.
3
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Tue Apr 23 2024
The Band
The Band
Pretty safe five stars here.
5
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Wed Apr 24 2024
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
David Bowie
Albums by Bowie that would need a comment because they are less than five stars and there are things to say about them: Space Odyssey, Man Who Sold The World, Pinups, Young Americans, everything from Lodger onwards. This is not one of those albums.
5
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Thu Apr 25 2024
Arrival
ABBA
There's the 'four singles/8 b-grade album fillers' pop model beloved of Madonna, Britney et al and then there's this. What to make of the fact that the title track has been streamed 4 million times while Dancing Queen has 1.5 billion. What you can make is of course that some tracks are very very good, exceptional, and others not so much - the singles. You could give it 8/5 for the singles. Maybe even 35/5. But let's be clear as an album, unlike say Pulp's Different Class, you take out the big singles and there's being generous a 3/5 album. So it has to be a 4 for me Clive.
4