MY FIRST USER ALBUM!!!!!
Positive’s first: I really like the character on the cover, on their Spotify theres a picture of their fans and it looks like they’re really loving it and I think there is appeal for this an atmosphere is really built and you are undeniably immersed when listening to it.
Negatives: I think the appeal of this album is narrow and it doesn’t really appeal to me. It’s a mostly instrumental album with very indulgent song lengths, the shortest being 7 minutes and the longest nearly 20. 7 tracks but 70+ minutes. I had to keep stopping and returning to this album because it’s very hard to give your attention to.
2/5
This is a very well known album among music nerds, I’ve never really understood why but let’s go…
At the halfway point as of typing this, it’s not the easiest to sit through but the instrumentation is incredible. Cinematic is definitely the way to describe it, songs for me are ways tor project thought and that is there. Even if it is incredibly pretentious, and I don’t think the revisitability is high.
After finishing it, I’d say similar, the last track was my least favourite, I just thought it stalled time too much at the end and there was too much of the sample stuff, felt like a bonus track. I get the appeal of this thing but I knew from the start godspeed weren’t my kinda thing…
2/5
Sure theres the argument that it shouldn’t be on the user list because it’s an EP consisting on one song BUT I get why a nearly 20 minute epic by a punk band with really short songs does deserve a spot on the list. And to be honest it’s the precursor to green days Jesus of suburbia (but the decline is double the length). And this is very fresh today, the picture painted by the song is essentially Trumps America. 17 years before the US population made the mistake of voting him in (for the first time). I’m english so this is just an observation but thats ‘the decline’ to me.
Despite this I’d rather someone submit a NOFX studio album. I don’t know NOFX that much (I’ve probably heard more of their side project me first and the gimmie gimmies than NOFX themselves). But I will check NOFX out now!
Either the seratonin or the Jesus and the NRA or the super ego bit is my favourite!
I think it’s a 4/5, was very close to giving it a 3/5 and I get why some would be opposed to this being on the list but I get it! And I do think this track is a ‘must listen’ even if you get nothing else
Sam fender is Springsteen light. I don’t think this album deserved a mercury prize win (should’ve been fontaines, pulp or wolf alice). My dad bought his album seventeen going under and I just thought, this guy has nothing new to say. It’s like harry styles if he didn’t have a cult of obsessive fan girls (tbh harry’s house is a solid album). This album is just so safe and inoffensive, like a the teddy bear you forget to hug as a kid because it’s just not cute enough. Theres a 2 track run that is surprisingly great though rein me in and TV dinner… the very easy highlights.
3/5 inoffensive with a few highlights not amazing enough for 1001 but not horrible
One of the worst album covers I’ve ever seen, it looks really MAGA. They’re all about WWE and BBQ by the looks of it. It just sounds like the most average rock. I’m sure it’s better than St anger (tho I’ve never gave that a go) and as everyone whose on the user list will know it beats the Kid rock album on the main list. Just real mindless 2/5
I prefer the mollusk, to the point that initially I was a tad disappointed when seeing I got this. But when you go from hard rock like ‘it’s gonna be a long night’ then the psychedelia of zoloft I can feel the love for it, then Transdermal Celebration and among his tribe are just great. But you get to so many people in the neighbourhood and it’s pure Ween weirdness. Tried and true does really pick it up though, beautiful song, and the vocals work with it well. Hey there fancypants reminds me of one of those old fashioned songs off queen’s album a night at the opera . Chocolate town/ I don’t want it are both solid. The fucked jam is just stop/start, stop/start but reminded me of the kinda thing that’d be in splatoon. Alcan road is a very dark song. The argus is a great climax (one of the late albums best) but not quite as good as (what I’d call it’s equivalent) Buckingham Green on the mollusk. And the closer is beautiful.
Cut off 3 (ish) songs and it’d be a 5 but it’s a 4 and I do think it deserved to be on the list
Firstly I get why someone added this on the list albums outside of the US and UK are lacking and a more definite version of the list would include a more diverse range of countries! Honestly this surprised me, looking at the cover I thought it’d be some tepid acoustic album but not at all, this is Chilean synth pop, like mag bay but a decade earlier.
I did a (probably) wrong translation of the track names if anyone wanted to know….
1. My first gold 2.Giant waves 3.Whatever you want 4.Diane Keaton (was already called this)
5. The teenagers
6. The bikers 7.Feedback (was already called this) 8.Cartagena (is the name of a city so no change) 9.Second skill 10.Central coast
11. In the middle of a party
This is the lyrics to the first track:
Pensar que a veces se pierde y otras se gana
En que me ves en un tele a color desde tu casa
En que puedo resbalar desde las barras
En que conocerás a alguien este fin de semana
En que si gano te daré la medalla
And here it is translated:
To think that sometimes you lose and other times you win
That you see me on a color TV from your house
That I could slip off the bars
That you’ll meet someone this weekend
That if I win, I’ll give you the medal
There’s barely any lyrics to this track but my god it’s a great opener!
Los adolescents has an amazing riff
Feedback has a brilliant chorus
Litoral Central is such a style change, sounds so much darker than the rest of it, really one of my favourites
Honestly it’s my favourite foreign language album I’ve ever heard, oh and btw the title translates to music grammar gymnastics!
It’s a classic. Sure it’s immature and a bit cringe. But my god it’s such a tight album. My favourite has always been aliens exist, I just love the lyrics ‘I know the CIA would say what you hear is all heresay’, ‘nice to know ya, paranoia, where’s my mother, biofather’, it’s just such a fun track, oh and ot flows do well into going away to college, which also flows into what’s my age again .Dumpweed/ don’t leave me is a 1/2 opening punch telling the story of a toxic guy and the end of his relationship. Dysentery Gary is so childish, sounds like a 13 year old wrote it but it’s charming. Then Adams song, probably ‘the best’ song in terms of songwriting, it still has the charm but by this bands standards it’s depressing. All the small things is just a pop classic. Worst song is the party song but it’s just okay, not a bad track here really. Mutt is solid not one I’ve spent too much time with but good quality anyway. Wendy clear is a great song overshadowed by 10 better songs but the hook (‘but I’d play with fire to break the ice line, I’d play with a nuclear device, I wish it didn’t have to be so bad’) is really strong. Anthem I just think ‘I time bomb, I time bomb’
5/5
I thought by the bands name it was gonna be a desperate attempt to sound edgy like an ‘alice in chains’ knockoff, but then I found out Alexis on fire was named after a pornstar while Alice in Chains was just ‘why don’t we just put alice off alice in wonderland on bondage’.
Firstly I actually do love the cover art I like things that look like a comic.
In the UK this is mother’s day so I’m just thinking about how much my mum would hate this music, it’s very screamy, the best way I can describe the screams is ‘metalically reinforced’ idk what that necessarily means but that’s what popped to my head, guess that it’s clearly a rock album but with metal layers?
Theres a market for this album which I hear but it’s 1 step too much for me 3/5
My first thought was very REM, like if you told me that this was REM I’d believe you. The fact that this guy would later on do his final tour despite having terminal brain cancer is something I have a lot of respect for. Membership and vapour trails have some really rocking moments. I love the way he pronounces ‘thompSONgirl’ on that track. Emperor penguin is a great closer.
I liked all the tracks to be honest but I also find the album a bit draggy, trimming some fat wouldn’t do it harm 4/5
That’s an amazing cover and I don’t even like whipped cream or any cream. Only song I know is a taste of honey but I know it because it’s notoriously the weakest track on The Beatles debut Please Please me. But this is an instrumental version… oh it’s an instrumental album. I don’t get how people can dig instrumental music, on an objective level sure, but even after 2 or 3 tracks on this short album I was like ‘eh’. Except for love potion no 9 that was good. And I’m 70% sure it should be on the list, but am only 20% invested in the album.
2/5
I wasn’t surprised to find out that the guy who submitted this album submitted the eel’s album too. Because this album did make me think… this is kinda like the eels. Other people have said REM, Elton John, Supergrass, and I get it all. But I struggled to grasp ‘what makes mull historical society special’? Sure hypocritical from someone who gave both oasis albums a 5/5 on the main list and this album isn’t horrible at all, I just don’t find much special with it and it’s long, very close to an hour for only 12 songs it can just drag. Also to me it just seems pretentious to give yourself a name like ‘mull historical society’ like you’re a band when it’s just one bloke. Did find it cool that Bernard butler (who was on the first 2 suede albums produced one of this guy’s other albums)… sadly not this tho
I don’t hear the ‘freak folk’ or ‘outsider folk’ in it, to me it just sounds like folk, because to me ‘outsider music’ has to be off putting like ‘Daniel Johnston’ or ‘the shaggs’, sure those examples aren’t folk but they’re the best examples I could think of. Compared to them, this sounds relatively pleasant.
I don’t know this guy’s stuff at all but from what I’ve gathered through reading this just seems to be a random album from the discography rather than what people would call ‘essential Michael Hurley’. It’s not bad at all but I think with ‘must listen’ it needs to be the artists essential album.
When writing these user album reviews I always feel bad as it’s an album that someone else really loves, but music is subjective . There are positives though: it’s tonally consistent, there’s great guitar work, overall I’d call it nice.
3/5
