Like it alright. Repetitive lyrically but the music is very layered and fun.
Highlights: Pale Blue Eyes. Not sure where i've heard this one previously but this gave a hit of nostalgia I wasn't prepared for.
After Hours. This was a nice change of pace from the nightmare that was Murder Mystery.
Lowlights: The Murder Mystery was a real freakin' weird one.
Made it three songs in before needing a break. Not digging it so far. More to come.
Nevermind. I'm done with this one
I'm tempted to rate this one without even listening. I have listened to it hundreds of times as a teenager. That being said, I'm giving it another go right now. It's bringing serious waves of nostalgia and is every bit as good as I remember.
Beats are great, but without lyrics this is relegated to background listening for me. There's a place for that, but it isn't what I was hoping for.
It was fine. Led with a few good ones but there was a lot of filler.
Two songs in. On the off chance that I forget to come back and review this, let me put, on record, how much of a sucker I am for 70s/80s dad rock with a heavy emphasis on falsetto-ish harmonies.
I did the thing. My point about dad rock harmonies holds true. I could've used less of this album though... or just more variety.
3 stars
I remain fairly "meh" on Joni as a singer. I don't think it's her voice, which is beautiful, but it's not to my taste. Possibly more about artistic/musical choices of the eras in which she's been most prolific. I love many of her songs, but tend to love them more when someone else sings/arranges them.
Blasphemy, I know.
Highlights so far, 4 songs in: Everything except for The Moonbeam Song
Lowlights: The fuck is this Moonbeam song...
8 songs in: I've never had such a polarizing response to an album, whether in this 1001 album exercise or not. There are some genuinely great songs in here. And then there's Moonbeam and Coconut. I appreciate an artist that will do some weird shit. Not sure how I'll feel about this album in the end but it goes places.
In the end, I mostly liked this album, but the weird sojourns into repetitive drums solos or bass lines or just boring ass songs about moonbeams keep me from pushing this above a 3 out of 5.
Not as good as I remembered from beginning to end. Some great songs but also some real stinkers
I can't tell if my rating is simply because this isn't to my taste but I suspect there's something more to this that is leading me to two stars over three. Whatever that is, I'm not willing to spend any more time considering it. I'm cool with maybe being "wrong" on this one.
If you're going to make your album 2 hours long,I (perhaps incorrectly) expect it to be able to listen to it idly in the background. This one proved too challenging for me to do so
I'll be interested to read what the book has to say about this one.
Not my cup of tea, but fine in its own right. Turns out I really don't like flute in my jazz.
I liked the first few songs. When the next few didn't really change things up in terms of tempo or tone, my interest waned.
I'd have rated this much higher if not for being a little bored of it by the end.
I liked it.
Thoughts:
Starting with accordion is a brave choice... particularly given the history of this album coming after such a commercial "failure"
This is inoffensive but I'm not particularly connecting with anything here. It's fine
This continues to be my impression. Nothing that I would say I hate, but nothing above 3 stars personally.
I'm still not a fan of the prevalence of the accordion in this album.
Pretty good. I bet that if I gave this another listen, I'd rate it even higher.
Liked it alot in high school but didn't really grab me past the initial nostalgia on this relisten. I'll average out the 5 stars high school Eric would give this with the 3 stars 40 year old Eric gives this...4 stars
Liked it better than I anticipated. I'd give this 3.5 if I could
Not for me. Not absolute garbage, but not impressive enough to bump up to 3 stars.
Not sure how much of my review reflects how I was listening to this (while at work) but this all felt very same-y. I like it a lot but there wasn't much variation in tempo, tone, etc. That being said, when I could "tune in" the bass lines in this were dope. One of these days I really need to get back into playing bass.
Also, any time I listen to Elvis Costello, I'm reminded of a friend of mine who asked me what I was listening to back in high school one day. It was a local-ish pop rock band called Ultimate Fakebook. She listened to it and said "Oh, they've got a real Elvis Costello thing going on." I, being a stupid teenager, balked that my musical tastes were being compared to anything that remotely well-known/popular.
This is coming 20+ years too late but, Kali, you were right. Ultimate Fakebook still rules. Real Drums Forever!
First three songs: Pretty dope.
I'm In Touch With Your World can jump off a cliff.
Literally the rest of this: Also dope.
Nothing I haven't heard before but I imagine if I heard it in the context it was created in, I'd be pretty impressed.
It's rare that one of these albums is something that I find myself looking for again the next day, but this was one. Loved it.
Liked it
The first 10 seconds of this album were almost a hard "no" for me. I turned it off and went and looked at some of their more popular songs because I hadn't heard of them before and really liked what I heard.
Gave the album a second shot and I'm glad I did. Really liked at least the first half of this (first track not withstanding).
