What a beautiful piece of work. The Velvet Underground has long been a blind spot for me. Others note the band's influence on all rock music to come, but I don't have the investment in their legacy to get into that here. What I can say is I don't think I have ever felt so connected to a recorded guitar as I do here. Every note, every string, is alive. The minimalist production is at once melancholy and lit up, making the whole affair feel live and in-person. Plenty of bands have tried to sound like The Velvet Underground over the years, and few are half as interesting or talented.
A fascinating missing link between the early stages of punk and post-punk and the following hardcore, new wave, and alternative scenes.
At times Pink Flag sounds like traditional punk, reminiscent maybe of The Sex Pistols whose debut album dropped the same year. Other times, dark, distorted guitars bring to mind the brooding of The Stooges. Midway through the album, I hear a seed of Talking Heads. Other songs foretell Black Flag or The Dead Kennedys. Wire moves effortlessly and fluidly between genres and probably spawns a couple along the way.
Even lyrically, they move between smart, political lyrics (see "Reuters") to more lager-soaked, in-your-face, punk-grousing with songs like Mr. Suit ("Take your fucking money and shove it up your arse"), depending on the sonic profile and intent of the song.
The effort in their shifting lyric styles and music approaches is worth noting. It is what elevates this album to more than the average quality of its individual songs. Pink Flag is not an easy listen. Few of the 21 tracks could be singles (though you will likely note that "Three Girl Rhumba's" excellent guitar is sampled on Elastica's "Connection"). Rather, the album is an intersection and likely origin point of many emerging styles of the late 70s and beyond. Wire is at once slavish and subversive to genre conventions as they present archetypical sounds and subjects and then utterly ignore precedent on how to piece them together, assembling component parts of countless styles in new and novel ways. As a result, Pink Flag is a genre-defying musical madhouse.
While it is not entirely relevant to this record, I remember the first time I heard the Pogues and the person who introduced me to them. They were so unique, like nothing I had heard before. Without The Pogues, it's hard to imagine there would be a Dropkick Murphys, or a Flogging Molly, or a Gogol Bordello, or maybe even the contemporary "old punk rocker with an acoustic guitar" genre.
This record is full of Celtic folk-punk bangers. The music is upbeat, the lyrics are either beautifully mournful or gunning for a scrap , it all just makes you want to raise a pint and dance until your feet bleed.
Lots of cool stuff on this album, particularly with voice. It is bright, optimistic, experimental, and very busy. Often it is downright hectic.
Sadly, all of those features come together to become grating long before the runtime is elapsed. Imagine being in a car with someone you've just met, and, at first, found very charming. They were affable and superficially interesting. The conversation was instantly lively.
But, over an hour drive to the next city, you realized they were doing all the talking and you just wanted the drive to end. They wouldn't stop making animal sounds, and telling you about their half-baked song ideas, and pronouncing vegetables "vega-tables" like they thought they were goddamn Steve Martin on the stand-up circuit. Once, a siren went off in the distance, and they produced a siren whistle, you know, the ones with the little fan in them that makes the rising wwhHHIIIRRR sound, and blew along with the siren and just laughed their goddamn head off at their own spontaneity.
That was my experience with this record. I appreciate Wilson's willingness to be surprisingly weird on record. Music needs that. But I will never listen to this again. I suspect the band Fun took a lot from this record when they made Aim And Ignite, and that is a much better record.
Good enough, but notable only for painting the Queens' blueprint, trancey stoner rock with sexy dance vibes. Homme and crew would refine their approach to great success, becoming one of the best, most dependable rock bands of all time, but this album may be the least of their efforts. "If Only" is a standout track and best represents their path forward.
Hot, hot, hot afrobeat featuring one of rock's all-time great drummers. The chemistry among all these musicians is unreal, and the product bleeds cool. I would put this among the best live albums I've ever heard.
Look, we all know Jimi Hendrix is a rock god and his contributions to guitar are legendary, but this album is meandering and a bore. Boy, does it end strong, though! All Along the Watchtower and Voodoo Child (Slight Return) are a monstrous one-two punch.
The production sounds great and the music is pleasant, but it is super krauted-out and all sounds the same after just a few songs. I'd give it another half star if I could.
Track 1: 9 seconds in and rapidly approaching "No."
Track 2: "I'm SMOOOOTH - Like water from a fountain!" *ugh*
Track 3: END
Never thought I'd rate a Billy Joel album higher than a Jimi Hendrix album, but here we are.
This album transported me INTO the computer.
What at first sounds like a typical 80s pop record is actually full of long, complex songs and excellent lyrics. Styles don't change, but shift, from track to track and the music explores a lot of sonic ground.
One of those albums that just explodes your head the first time you hear it. Unlike anything else. Unbelievable talent on display and killer, weird tunes.
This album is just wonderful. One of my favorite hip-hop records. 14 of the 16 music tracks are top-shelf, with a brief lull in tracks 15 and 16. That's mighty impressive. Lo is a true artist, and when he's not leading a banger about getting high, he's reciting raw and introspective poetry over an easy beat. If you're too invested in either mode, the other may put you off, especially since the album sets an upbeat expectation by being so front-loaded with party music. Still, Cee-Lo Green can do it all and this is his best record among an impressive catalog.
This record is iconic, a true piece of history. Sociologists and musicians will be studying this for generations.
Based on music alone, this would be a 2 star record with some 3 star bangers, but the lyrics are so good and deeply personal. They touch on child abuse, toxic relationships, divorce, the AIDS epidemic, and struggles with faith. Madonna's reach was huge at this time, and her image was bigger than life. The vulnerability she shows on this album is to be commended. Few releases of this magnitude have this much to say.
Boy, do I love Tom Waits's ability to paint a scene. This album sounds like a lovesick drunk at an all-night diner in a cold, windy city full of shady characters.
I just love Fiona Apple and how weird she has made her pop, and how she couldn't give half a shit about a Grammy or the industry.
This is like a pop masterpiece from outer space to U.S. ears. Devoid of North American blues influence, this album contains a pervasive, wistful melancholy under its stage-ready Broadway-style bops. At the time of its release it was derided by critics, but in hindsight, ABBA is a behemoth of pop influence.
The production here is pristine and leaps from your speakers. It sounds good on everything, no crazy hifi necessary.
5 Bats subtotal, minus 1 Bat for a distasteful and flippant use of Stagger Lee.
I keep trying to come up with things to say about this album, but it demands more attention than I can give it right now. So, for the time being, I'll say it is an instrumental, shoegazey rock album and I like it.
Eliminator is one of those rare, magical records that contain mega-hit after mega-hit, but the band obviously coasts on some of the filler tracks, most egregiously the 6-minute-plus snoozefest of "I Need You Tonight." The good news is even when ZZ Top is coasting they're better than 90% of other bands.
While the music is unremarkable, it is simply the backdrop to a masterpiece collection of folk poetry. Folk music is at its purest in protest, and on this record, Prine protests war, nationalistic jingoism, and the misapplication of Christian values. Reading the lyrics, one can't help but notice the more things change, the more they stay the same. Consider politicians with their little flag lapel pins as you listen to "Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore. Prine, of course, throws a few apolitical and melancholy songs about lost love and heartache for good measure. He does it all with clever flourishes and a sense of humor, too. It is beautiful. I laughed, I cried, I clicked the little heart icon.
Unfuckwithable
The Grand Tour is essentially a collection of songs about infidelity and relationship troubles (mostly infidelity), but Jones's attitude is frequently forgiving, unconditionally loving, and optimistic. At worst, he is willing to accept that people are the way they are and there is no point in fretting about it.
Even on the album's final track "Our Private Life" where George lightly chastises the public about their obsession with celebrity gossip, he refrains that he doesn't mind giving up his private life because he came to play for them. He only asks that they remember he is only human when he comes up in the tabloids.
I love the old-school rural way of thinking, where sometimes we just accept things. I used to see it in my grandparents. Everybody's got their troubles, often significant, and sometimes you just have to love them anyway.
I listened to this album today and couldn't remember a single melody today, so despite people throwing around words like "masterpiece," I'm giving this collection of early-90s sitcom themes 2 stars.
The first couple of tracks sound like Beck half-ass emulating more-interesting country songs of the past, but by the time the album ended, I was a believer. It is uneven at times, some parts clearly more inspired than others, but a good record nonetheless.
A stone-cold classic. This album contains one of the strongest collections of megahits ever gathered on any single studio album. It's a shame about the weak opener.
Dreams, Don't Stop, Go Your Own Way, The Chain, and Gold Dust Woman cram this record with more top-tier goodness than anyone should reasonably expect, and, as far as I am concerned, The Chain is one of the greatest rock songs ever recorded.
Big points for raw, stripped-back production and Joni's undeniable voice. Putting her so up in the mix with no production to conceal her flaws leaves her so vulnerable, but there are almost no flaws to find. Her poetry is pure, if coffee house by today's standards. All around it is a really beautiful album, but it all happens at the same tempo, and I cannot dance to it.
Bringing It All Back Home is front-loaded with its best songs and finds Dylan in an uncharacteristically rollicking mood. Also uncharacteristically, he doesn't seem to have much to say. The album degrades as songs get both longer and less complex, ultimately becoming a bit tedious. I'd rather just listen to Muddy Waters.
A bunch of well-done and cool-sounding cinematic audio vignettes, but I am simply not high enough for this.
Joy Division is a great example of how a band can be very important and wildly influential and still be a drag. As I listen to Closer I can hear the hallmarks that make them interesting, but they also re-implement those same tricks over and over again, so that every song on this album sounds the same and it all sounds the same as the album before it. No one else sounds quite like Joy Division, but Joy Division always sounds too much like themselves.
Some of the things I like best about the album are the raw dynamics as instruments come up and down in the mix and the song Twenty Four Hours stood out as really great.
The album oddly gets better as it goes, but it never stops sounding like boring white music for uninteresting college kids. For fans of Dave Matthews Band, Widespread Panic, and The Grateful Dead.
Absolute banger right up until the drugged out, 12 minute final track. Minus one. Definitely sounds of its time.
All Nirvana albums are 5-star albums. All of 'em.
This is probably the raunchiest-sounding mainstream album ever released. The opening lick of Serve the Servants is so vile I used to turn my stereo down for the first few seconds of the song. After that, though, the lazy guitar lack drags the listener along through a hard rock sludged out fuzz fest. And the drums on Scentless Apprentice!
In Utero is chock full of ultra-abrasive super fuzz and a few surprisingly gentle singles in Dumb, Pennyroyal Tea, and All Apologies. Rape Me and Heart-Shaped Box fall somewhere in the middle. Hard drivers, but not terrifying to casual listeners at the time. They would both be too abrasive for mainstream today.
The entire album was recorded over 2 weeks with producer Steve Albini, using the wall-of-sound techniques pioneered by Phil Specter. It's mostly live with all players playing in a room full of mic'd amps. It makes for a truly brutal sound. Grohl's kick drum sounds huuuuge. I love this record.
One of the few excellent movie scores that stands entirely on its own. People 3 or 4 generations removed from this film still quote and parody the title theme (I'm just talkin' 'bout Shaft!) Isaac Hayes's "Shaft" deftly blends funk/soul and orchestral themes to create 18 tracks of eclectic and beautifully-recorded music. Anyone familiar with the Stax recording studio's legacy will likely be interested to learn this was the highest-selling LP ever on a Stax label. That's no small feat. I could listen to this record just about any time.
Post-punk had been done earlier and much, much better.
Although it falters during the last half of the second disc, the rest of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness is so epic in scope, it qualifies as a masterpiece. Is it overwrought exercise in self-indulgence, as so many double albums are? Absolutely! But it fluidly moves between hugely fuzzy and bombastic, and gentle and introspective, and sometimes manages to be both at once. Like MCR would later channel Queen on The Black Parade, Smashing Pumpkins have leaped from straightforward grunge to a theatrical and grand arena rock spectacle while maintaining the angsty foundation that made them.
Just a really, really perfect record. Single-handedly legitimizes electronic music for those hesitant. Sexy and brooding, with every note and sound perfectly placed.
This album shows Tears For Fears were more than a one-hit wonder, but it's also very self-indulgent and corny at times. Still, as a cohesive piece of work, it's decent.
Admitedly, Purple Rain is not a perfect album, but Prince's effortless blending of funk, blues, rock, and very poppy pop produces great results. 4.75
Nick Cave is up there with Tom Waits and Bruce Springsteen as the great story tellers of rock n roll.
The Talking Heads only seem interesting for about three and a half minutes.
Raw, wild, fluorescent riot-grrl pre-cursor punk. The energy is undeniable, but the awfully obnoxious, 5-minute "Plastic Bag" at the midway point of the record really brings the fatigue on early.
At times this album crackles with surprisingly modern alternative-rock energy. Other times, it trips over itself entertaining the pretentious, drug-fueld excesses of so many '60s epics. Much of it is just typical British Invasion, though the Pretty Things' deep blues influence often conjures surprising notes of Black Sabbath. A true rock opera, bearing all the cliches that entails, it is a little too long to hold my rapt attention, but it is infrequently brilliant.
The production, the songwriting, the lyrics, the vibe. Perfect. No notes!
The most overrated band in the universe.
Pure trash in all the right ways.
The first two tracks set a high bar for for the album, but the next 8 do not deliver, falling into sentimental country cliches. That said, only Dolly Parton could start out with a song about a poor girl's biblical coat of many colors made from rags, follow it up with a song about a two-timing traveling salesman, and feel completely genuine the entire time. Dolly is singular; a one of a kind treasure. But this album is just pretty good.
Obviously, it's very competent. Simple with nice vocal harmonies. But this all-American Christian gunfighter hoakum is so dated and ridiculous, it is unbearable. Sensible gun reform now!
Apparently this is a highly influential album, but there was a lot better disco than this.
Rather than I great punk band, I believe the Clash is, somewhat ironically, a marketing success. They are all flash and image; their music rarely, if ever, living up to their fierce visual presentation.
A white-hot slab of blistering rock music with little hint of the embarassingly poppy band your mom liked in the late '90s. Essential.
His insight is strong, but his flow is weak.
The most overrated band in the universe.
I know they were influential or whatever, but the Pixies just bore me terribly.
Back to Black makes a great case for short albums. If it were just the first 6 tracks, it would be a masterpiece. As it is, tracks 7-11 are a long and slow wind-down that all sound rather the same and completely lack the impact of the first half. It is a seriously front-loaded album, but that first half is so damn good.
It really is tricky to rock a rhyme.
A literal life changer. The kind of album that sets you on a musical road forever. It is chock full of iconic tunes. Black Sabbath created like three genres on this one.
Liked it. Can't remember any of it.
This album got instantly better when it went ended and Tricky came on instead.
It sounds like it wants to be grungy southern rock, but it is too produced and musically and lyrically banal to be exceptional in either of those genres.
