The Pogues came out of nowhere for us--how did this exist? Like the band's faces drawn over the originals on The Raft of the Medusa, they embossed wild punk and Irish music and nothing was ever the same. I recall a party where someone put this on and the next thing the whole room was jumping about in exorbitant gleeful abandon. To this day, A Pair of Brown Eyes and Dirty Old Town are essential listening, with Waltzing Matilda and Sally nudging their way in. Not many albums compare.

Afraid the production kills this for me. I just can't get over the pop-focused mechanics that drains any real human emotion. Sad, because I want to marry her.

Got to give them pre-punk punk chops. The haphazardness belies the forward-thinking energy. Like a seedbed for punk, heavy metal, glam rock, hair metal, post punk, Kiss, the Tubes, you name it. What fun. Best taken in small doses, though, else the repetitiveness gets cloying--stick with a couple at a time.

Couple great tunes, some unengaging.

Beyond my small ability to evaluate.

Engaging lyrics, yes, but the voice has the hypnotic beauty that carries the tune. All-star instrumentation. Frequent driving interplay between the voice and guitar. Pop should always be this good.

Not very interesting.

"Militaristic sounding industrial compositions"? Not my version of industrial.

I feel a deep sadness that Cave's son died unexpectedly. I expect songs driven by such unimaginable grief to be lyrically hoping for redemption and sonically orchestral, with droning synthesizers, zero percussion, wavelike numbness permeating the evocative voicing. If you would like that, go for this album. If you don't, stay away.

The opening track's guitar drama sets the the tone for the album's exploring the singularity of the Roxy approach. This is often called glam rock, but that doesn't really capture the complexity of Ferry's voicings or the shifting guitar, sax, synth interplay. When you think something's over, it's not, taking on new avenues. Deservedly brought Ferry into the higher echelons of rock wizardry.

The cover's surrealism is an accurate harbinger of what's to come, a fairly psychedelic experimentalism. While I love Rundgren's pop standards, I sure enjoy this album's growing complexity. You can hear the old Todd in You Don't Have to Camp Around but the new Todd starts right away in the opener, You Need Your Head. Yes you do.

Didn't know this at all. Enjoying the laid-back vibe. Her voice glides over the laid-back rhythms. Soul meets hip hop and they have a rhythm track baby.

Not really getting it here. Seems like the same song is often repeated. Vague psych overtones creep in here and there but are not explored (except in I Never Asked to Be Your Mountain). Phantasmagoria in Two shows how it could work. Title track seems a mishmash of 60s themes and tropes. A good try falling a little short.

Brilliant. Saxophone as poetry. Lyrical, moving, I could go on. Shut up and listen.

Not insightful about ambient or electronica, but if I were I would want it to sound like this. Dreamy but not one for all night--you wake up partly and begin to hum along familiarly, and a few demand you pay attention. You might even recall some of it throughout the day.

Absolutely a fan of Harvey through Uh Huh Her, but this album lost me, as if it was being self-consciously not a Harvey album. All and Everyone is a good example--starts off great then detours into a kind of talk poetry. Same for On Battleship Hill--starts great, then starts wandering vocally, gets back to very poetic rhythm, then wanders, then ends just when it got intriguing. Love Hanging on the Wire and wish the rest was as organized. Many of the parts of many of the songs grab me, but sad to say it didn't work for me.

Plaintive, poetic, poignant (not trying to stay with the 'p' words deliberately). Sombre (there, no p). Biblical emotions but personal (sorry back to a p). Sometimes I fear he'll just slow down so much he falls off the stage. But he starts again after I help him back up.

Nope. The whole aesthetic is off-putting to me.

One of my favorite from Miss Harvey. The simple directness of the opener, The Best Thing, belies the varying complexities to come. You Said Something is among my favorite of hers, melodic, lush, earwormy. She is exploring the possibilities of her voice and not hesitating to to head toward the mainstream. I recall a general diss,This Isn't Our PJ Harvey Bold and Raw. Too bad. You'd've bitched she was doing more of the same if she did more of the same.

Hard to separate my current understanding from my 12-year old wide-eyed wonderment. Just blew me away back then, leading to a lifetime appreciation of Jethro Tull. Now it seems a worthwhile exploration of its themes of alienation and loss and religiosity (among others) and a nice highlighting of musical adventurism. Hard rocky, proggy, folky, psychy. An all-time great.

Holy shit this rocks! Who's That Lady is all I knew well coming into this review--what a psychedelic soul jam. The Doobie Bros. never sounded so groovy. Searing, grooving, but somehow smooth too. All the covers here rebrand the originals into Isleydom, Summer Breeze going from a soft rock staple to soulful introspection punctuated by searing guitar. This album is great.

Sorry, I just can't follow much Bjork after the Sugarcubes. I quite enjoyed the opening cut, Stonemilker, but I think that exhausted my Bjork engagement for the day. I suppose it has its good points, but I can't get there.

Oh yeah this was foundational, the music against which I measure all subsequent hip hop I cross paths with. Ridenhour's refusal to accept our construction of black America seems ever more insightful. We're along for the ride.

Funny these tunes seem to end just when they get started. Short and sweet. Nice Texas blues rock kept direct and simple. Straightforward, if that doesn't diminish how engaging it is. What is Hot, Blue, and Righteous about? Who cares!

That opening should come with a parental advisory. The rest is just cool--you can have it as your background music to a groovy pre-hippie 60s-themed party and enjoy every song but have a hard time thinking of any names. C'mon get you're groove on.

Pollard has somehow put 28 songs into 41 minutes of album. How is that possible?, you may ask. Well, just imagine B-side Abbey Road for the indie crowd. These are pared down, isolationist insights, focused on themselves only. Enjoy the moment and wonder how you pay attention to each of those moments expecting them to turn into something more. They don't, but you keep listening.

Very few voices just plain annoy me. This is one of them. And it seems contrived, as if trying to assimilate blackness. I can't bear it.

Mexican waltz-influenced desert blues rock reaches American singer songwriter pop stylings to brilliant effect. I love this album. Has one of my all time favorite songs, Across the Wire. Mixing musical borders infuses the sound along with the physical border. Calexico uncovers the riches to be found there.

Infectious. Rage Againsty. Metally. Angelic voicing shifts instantly to thrash. I have never heard any of this before and feel like I have been shortshrifted and want to blame someone for my own shortsightedness. I want to be a skankhead. And throw my hotel tv out the window and watch with those guys in the album cover as it shatters below.

Well I can't really say anything insightful or intelligent that hasn't been said before--look it up. Vignette: seeing Pixies at Pappy and Harriet's, they do Where Is My Mind, all 2,000 people sing along ecstatically, their faces turned up to the desert night. Indelible. When I see the cover, all I can think of is tasteful Catholicism, which I suppose is exactly what Francis Black Frank Black Francis wants me to see.

As I am no fan of the brit-pop sound, I have less than good intentions listening to this. Turns out I was right. Not for me.

Yes oh yes, having a Molly Bloom, Song of Solomon moment to start things off. Sensual world yes indeed. It has a late 80s bigness to it. It has some moments, but not enough of them to my tastes. I don't ever get a chance to get hold of things.

I haven't listened to this in forever--and it's better now than when it first delighted me. Kind of odd, no? Some rock, some experimental. His voice, drums, melted guitars, that cover says it all: half recognizable, half distorted. Nothing predictable about it.

Never really heard it much--but I'm enjoying it. Anything attached to John Hughes had me running. Where did that sax on I Just Want To Sleep With You come from? They sound like they could have almost taken off (despite Hughes). I like the singer's quasi-louche affect. Pretty In Pink is their pop side leaking out. Probably made them a fortune but made them uncool despite their alternative strengths.

All this 80s (esp. if it's 90s) throwing me off a good bit. Don't really abide that synth pop sound. Good for the dance club (I've been to one accidentally in my life), not so much for my graceful attentiveness.

While I heard and liked the classics during the early 70s, I also remember when the album JT came out later and really soured on his style. Listening to this album for the first time, I am not really impressed by the somewhat saccharine vibe. And even the classics seem less engaging, as if they're shortchanged. While I am very sad that he had to suffer the personal travails that plagued him, I can't engage musically. Things generally seem incomplete, embodied perhaps by Suite for 20 G, which the internet tells me was three fragments strung together.

Never heard of them or this --hint of punkish, hint of psychish, mostly pop rockish. The superimpositions on the cover are fitting. I am pretty engaged, mostly, but it occasionally can be too confusing. Is the lead singer bored doing this? Should we be bored watching the tide? I'll have to listen again before I rate it.

Punk/Rap/Rock/Insanity, nice combo. Killing is deservedly iconic. This hits on all bases for me. I love the simple straightforwardness. Wake up indeed.

So Americana gets invented in upstate New York in 1968? By Canadians? This is the father and mother of the 70s (and beyond) and we are better for it. (Think Wilco.) (And Neil Young.)

As a child, I thought ELP was the be all and end all of popular music. It was for me a way to separate myself from the Osmonds, Tom Jones, Lobo, and Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep. The brilliant songs out there suffered from guilt by association (hey I was barely 12). Prog excess wasn't a term anyone knew (let alone experienced). Our parents listened to the same radio station we and everyone else did. Promenade, on the other hand, was a road away from such--normalcy. And no one I knew wanted to be "normal," or "uncool," or what the older kids would have called square. These were the days "Go Away Little Girl" was a top ten hit of the year. If I'm sounding a little defensive, well, I'm just trying to argue for a little leeway for folks who were out there on their own and for those who, like me, tried to support them.

What a way to open (the thousand covers to follow should have tipped us off). Strange (strange because we used to be on LSD) pilgrim?--yes, aren't we all. Hard to overstate the somewhat unwieldy trajectory of this lp. Not to suggest my experience was typical (though it largely was), but I don't recognize a specific listening to it until 1995 or so, by which point it seemed essential. The invention of alt-country or progressive country. It was there all along but some of us didn't know the trouble we were in. Thank or curse Gram Parsons and bluegrass, but there it is.

Just not my style. Overproduced. Violins make me cringe. I am sorry she suffered in her life. Her eyes are indeed haunting esp. given the traumatic future.

Generally like a good bit of the music. Can't listen to the vocals.

Frank's voice is amazing. His arrangements are hit and miss. When the violins are backgrounded it works much better. Easy listening is often way, way too easy. His voice here often has more chance to shine.

What I said before about his voice. I can't listen to it.

Certainly not to be confused with any traditional approach to popular music. What are those occasionally understood snippets of lyrics? This is a breath of fresh air after a smog of normalcy. And have fun decrypting the song titles while you're smoked out in your dorm room or basement (knowing spanish helps). Proggy approach to wacko. Tool on acid? I like to listen to one or two songs at a time, but a whole album side can be too much. Less can be a good bit more here.

Funny how this seems entirely concocted to appeal to young suburbia teens. With allowance money. How cool is it that? Did you notice that 3MTA3 (above the engine) is Eat Me backwards? How cool is that? I suppose it is an accident of birth that kept me off this bandwagon. Just lucky, I guess.

I reviewed this but it is gone (I clicked save). Said something about soul creeping in but not enough and that I actually liked northern soul (usually more than this). It was okay.

Whew, those suburban boys propping up gangsta rap finally learned that there was more to the picture than they could imagine. Freed up the gangsta rappers. Something like what happened to post-Nirvana record executives hitting themselves in the head and instead of screaming "get me the next nirvana!" screamed "get me the next non-nirvana!". Opened our ears I love the breadth of the samples and the varied grooves. There is a world (literally) of rap out there and that many kinds. A great place to check in.

Much too pop-oriented to grab me. I find the lyrics and the musicality a bit too simplistic. The musicianship is studio top-notch, no feeling allowed. I couldn't listen to the whole album--I heard the first few then started skipping ahead for the next few. Just not my thing.

Nice opener--peak Roxy. Hard to imagine another popular vocalist in 1973 taking as many chances as Ferry does here, particularly Beauty Queen. There is a lot of up-tempo energy here, lots--these instruments are having fun! You should be too. Oh, and Bogus Man is perfect proto-Eno.

I've never understood the meaning of the descriptor "glam rock." Is it only the clothing style of the performers? So Bowie and Roxy and Mott and Elton John are bedmates? And when that-era Zeppelin shows up to visit they climb under the covers too? It isn't that I dislike any of this--I like the wailing energy, I like the propulsive guitar, I like the crashing drums, but the lyrics often seem juvenile and the songs rarely have more than one idea. It's a good idea, but there is only one. Best heard one song at a time.

Lot of good shit mixed in with a lot of meh, often within the same cut. While of course it is referencing the times of the LA riots, it too often seems oddly dated. I'm only good for so much of this.

Nope. Music might be good, but the instant I hear the vocal I shut down.

Soundtrack of my high school days --not a good thing. Parts of FFaF/LLB sound like they are going to become interesting, but they immediately become too schmaltzy/pop dominated. That approach sets the tone for the rest of the albums. I like half of Grey Seal but that borders on losing me; Dirty Little Girl is the first song that fully reaches me. All the Girls Love Alice nicely drives but the lyrics are a bit appalling--why can't they work together? Too much effort goes in to hearing this album.

After a gentle opening, when the electric part kicks in it really really kicks in. Repeat. Soft, loud, metal, jazz, sooner or later you will hear what clicks, Yeah man it clicks. And clicks. Ofttimes majestically.

Well certainly nothing that makes me think "whoa, here's a country artist/song that doesn't rely on tired anachronistic banal recitations of the same barely legitimated past." Seriously, 1988? And all you could think of was this? I know, lets put some horns and Mexican-to nonMexicans-sounds and call the album Buenas Noches! That'll be intriguing! Yeesh.

Hmm, never heard more than a few short iconic moments from this. Started with side B, and as a card-carrying stoner boomer acid head (maybe exaggerating a bit) well, so that's where overlong drum solos come from! Seriously, I was surprised how much I was actually able to attend to, or was I just listening for the birth of metal? hard rock? acid rock? jam bands? psychedelic rock? glam? Not such a bad beginning. And the drum solo was actually listenable, not a 17-cymbal 35-tom prog nightmare. Side A a nice warmup. Came out well, especially for a supposed mondegreen. Now if I could just find all those tabs I brought with me from '69.

The Pogues came out of nowhere for us--how did this exist? Like the band's faces drawn over the originals on The Raft of the Medusa, they embossed wild punk and Irish music and nothing was ever the same. I recall a party where someone put this on and the next thing the whole room was jumping about in exorbitant gleeful abandon. To this day, A Pair of Brown Eyes and Dirty Old Town are essential listening, with Waltzing Matilda and Sally nudging their way in. Not many albums compare.

Totally new to me. Sorry but it seems dangerously close to yacht rock. Much too pop oriented. I'm trying hard to give them a chance, but I don't think I'm Australian enough. Had to quit during Hometown Farewell Kiss.

I have a real soft spot for Doves. Yes I can get a little disengaged here and there now and then, but the steady return to hookness from dreampopland keeps me focused. You can hear the beginnings of Coldplay , a continuation of shoegaze, some psychiness, and just enough spaciness to make you wish you were on some club drugs. I really like the constant insertion of inventiveness. Catch the Sun a regular favorite.

Big. Nothing calm here, nothing laid back. Not a sip but getting pretty buzzed. You'll recognize Eli's Comin' and Stoned Soul picnic, testaments to her writing skills, but also how just a step back allows you to hear them a little better. How did Farmer Joe not become a hit? Might need a step back. Oh, and I am in love with that face and the script.

While I appreciate the underlying R&B nature and the hiphop influence, the pop urges dominate too much for me. The repetitiveness makes me lose attention, not carry me. Strings just bother me.

Love that relentless start. Then Cybele's Reverie invites you to pay attention more closely to the incoming dynamics. It is easy to get lost in Stereolab's looping recursiveness (is that the cover talking?), but focusing on the interpolated bursts of song or keyboard or cymbal is rewarding. Slow Fast Haze! indeed.

I wished I liked this more, but I can't get behind it. Synths just ruin it for me, nor do I care for the vocals. I do like the tempo changes, but I then I run out of things to like. I've had this problem forever.

New to me. Rock creeping in, nicely. I'm loving the way the covers are both familiar and ground-changing. The horns alone are enough to love this album.

What can I say? The intro song says it all--the bodhisattva is among us, playing wicked guitars. Bring back that boston rag, yes, but make it a jazz rock song. And keep that cool vibe vibing throughout. No wonder there's no (thank god) single--I'll take My Old School any day. I never warmed to their whole approach, but listening today I am more than pleasantly engaged. Maybe my speakers were too shitty back then.

Funny, I barely recognize this album cover, though I played Solsbury Hill way back when on the radio. Still an all-time favorite. Now listening to the rest again, Humdrum almost as nice, Slowburn nearly as dramatic as his very recent Genesis work. Some tunes seem to be be from other people's albums, as if he's still trying to figure out who he is solo. He's hiding behind the windshield, eyes closed--not ready yet to show himself after the giant costume that was Genesis. Lots to like here, but still working things out. The Fripp is great--helpful.

Come all ye musicheads. Where would we be without the folk rock world? Not much to say here--just enjoy.

Psychy, poppy, not the same as but makes me think of Dandy Warhols. Approaching punk warily. Have no idea how to characterize this (Fuzzy Logic impeding me all the way). Sure am enjoying the ride, though.

Oh man I love psychedelic soul--hard for me to stop moving my foot and hard for me to stop attending to every vocal line and drum hit. Exploring gets you lost sometimes, but you find really really cool shit sometimes. This ain't your momma's grapevine.

Not normally in my listening world. So, just acceptable or unacceptable, and this is good acceptable.

It is true I find this listenable. Can I differentiate between songs? No.

Great opener, and the rest just keep passing the high bar. The cover of the pipers maybe at the gates of dawn hints at the orchestral and muted psychedelia that is to follow. The season cycle could be the theme song of the album. The light, casual breeziness hides the technical precision. One of their best.

I am much more familiar with the later work (except for Mr. Fantasy), so it's very nice to see where that came from. Very nice. Enjoying the hell out of it. Feelin' Alright? more well known to me from 100 other iterations, but like I'm hearing it for the first time. Nice interplay between Mason and Winwood. The five demeanors on the cover are replicated in the songs.

All class all the time. Standouts like Chain of Fools and People Get Ready and Natural Woman deservedly lionized. When was the last time you heard this Groovin?

Soundscapy things leave me cold. I'm trying, but hard to get past the sweeping dramatics. Then it gets all EDMy. Not for me.

Well it grabbed my attention for the first ten seconds of the first few songs but then my attention wandered and I couldn't get it back. Hard to imagine I'd have trouble engaging with anything by Eno and Byrne, but there it is. Liked Regiment, though.

Totally new to me. Refreshingly off-centered. Threatens to be pop but backs off whenever that threatens. Tight musicianship. What did you expect? Those expectations will be unfulfilled.

Not to my tastes. I'm not into the staccato, the propulsiveness, the atonality. Just not engaging to me.

Not a good start. The threatening aggressiveness bothers me. The tropes become tiresome. I can recognize the quality of the rhymes and the structure, but there's nothing for me.

So low key it's easy to think you've locked yourself out of the house. Fear not, the house is all in your mind. Spacemen 3 put the ops in neopsych and the spacey in spacey as fuck. I could listen to this forever, it feels so good.

We've heard Take Five so often it may have dulled our senses. Yeah interesting things were happening (Coltrane anyone?) elsewhere, but think for a moment how enduring that song has been and think of it as a gateway drug into time. It even makes 4/4 sound more interesting. I know shit about jazz (and everything else for that matter) but I know this makes you pay attention.

More interesting than I suspected, but when I get a whiff of their future descent into radiodom I recoil. May is a phenomenon, Taylor solid. I like the exploding of structure. When they're heavier, they're better.

I want you to love me, but I'm going to make it hard for you to love me. The easy descriptions (daring, difficult, challenging), while fine, don't capture how fiercely engaging each tune is. Who is Shameika anyway? Where'd those dogs come from? Why are we at this dinner party from hell? There are some cuts that don't really work (the attitude can easily detour into repetitiveness), but when she's on, she's deftly captivating.

The click song was all I knew. Nice to know world music has a godmother. This album is nicely varied. Her lilting voice fully exploited. Pure magic. And her activism, I'm reading, makes it worth even more attention.

Guess it's Afro-pop week. What pop should be--well-recorded, engaging, intriguing. When you don't know what the words mean, you focus on production and sonic engagement. Good. Entrancing.

Yeah (just one). Karen O is the only thing that keeps this engaging for me. The occasional drum fill works. The occasional synth drone works. In Skeletons, they both work. But for the most part the synth often seems intrusive, like it never really joined the band.

Pop at its most casually engaging. Flashes of brilliance in great rollicking pub-fun rock like it was meant to be.

Wow, really enjoying this--kind of out of the blue for me. Psych meets electronica and their baby is exploring the world.

Synth usually makes me cringe, but this isn't quite like the 80s Brit-pop synth so I hung around. The use here seems self-consciously investigative. Like the vocals and the accordion. Since when is there a wild piano solo in an 80s song from England? I'm not hooked, but I'm listening.

Yep. Your whole fucking life might be a wreck, but you are able to make (and enjoy) music. Wild gift? Wild ride. Punk can often be just as fun as snarling and to me this as fun as it gets. The psychobilly aesthetic is perfect Zoom and Doe. Exene and Doe somehow get off the couch.

Gack. I didn't know English bands could do yacht rock. I couldn't get past abbreviated attempts with the first few cuts. A band called Orange Juice should not do a song called Breakfast Time.

Not to my taste, though I do find myself intrigued. I do a lot better when it has no vocal. The wandering bass grabs me.

Rockin' into the weekend. I like propulsive and I like punk--it's like they can't keep away, try as they might. Tonsils, boners, gender bending, of course the material for songs. And songs like 16 Blue and Androgynous show what they could stretch to when they wanted.

A nice surprise--I had the lead song on a compilation disc 25 years ago, and the accompanying songs keep the groove going. My rusty spanish makes it fun to grab out the phrases I understand. Really engaging here. Seems to hold up; surprisingly contemporary. Driving. Hypnotic. Endlessly creative.

Damn, have we heard a lot of this a thousand times? Would hold up a thousand times again. If you're sick of the title track, the rest of the album will pleasantly remind you why you liked it so much in the first place.

Some nice, positive energy. Dreamy, some psychy; lot like good 60s pop. Subtle. Never got on my radar, wish it had.

I can appreciate the artistry here (interesting blend of genres, styles, subjects), but it doesn't really absorb me like it does many others.

Easy listening. Great bar band stylings. Riff rock. Lyrics and vocals right up front. I can't get enough.

While a bit of "outlaw" country seems just another marketing trick, this has a certain realism to it that is immediately present. Everything is up front, the tropes fresh, the guitar new, no dogs; trains, yes, but I can't recall any trucks. A line like "fingers claw the darkness in my dream" is more poetry than typical country.

Come out hard, come out fast, hit it. Change. Have a brew. Sounds like what DIY should sound like and help remind you why hate overproduced bullshit.

I guess I just can't put myself into the target crowd. I like the slice-of-life focus but have too much trouble hearing the words so I lose the whole point.

Drum machines in, me out.

These American recordings showcase Cash's singular presence in the collective songbook--spare, sparse, evocative, downright eerily entrancing.

Peak Yes. Everybody hitting on all cylinders. Prog excess and overweening pop triviality unimaginable at this point. Personally, arrived in my life as adolescence was beginning and I could properly obsess over it. Pure delight. Pure endless delight.

Got to me pretty late and hasn't disappointed. How to put the dream in dream pop while you're gazing. The vocals are mostly unintelligible, as is usually the case when empyrean voicings try for the terrestrial. When these cuts works for me I'm transported. Hard to maintain that for an album's worth.

Never liked him much after Brown Eyed Girl. Then he became Mr. Conspiracy.

Sure enjoyed these hits when I was young. Listening now trying to hear past nostalgia, it is more interesting than I knew, and less so too. When good, it is infectious, and when weak it feels unfinished, oddly incomplete. Punchy and weak.

1973? Ahead of its time. Unadorned visceral power. Definitive rock and roll.

Bad memories of 70s overplay make this hard to listen to. Puerile, lyrically and musically. Simplicity masquerading as profundity. Notice how many songs rely on overplaying the chorus? No.

Time of the Season the extent of me familiarite with this album. I have to sae it has mane accomplished foraes into 60s pop relevance. Great harmonies, great vocals, great piano/keeboard. Unexpected turns delight. The Butcher's Tale an anti-war epic of profound dimensions, like a Wilfred Owen poem transported to 1968. How mane bands turn to William Faulkner for tragic inspiration? Eleanor Rigbe a similar feel-good tune.

Gravelly, both lyrically and dirtily so. Swampy, if that can be a thing. The background vocals a delight, a nice tonal counterpoint to the mostly monotonic talk-song of "Dr. John." The echoey repetitiveness is hypnotic, with a steady percussion assist. I had no idea this could be so engaging. At only 33 minutes, I had to listen twice. Didn't, but I think taking mushrooms to this might be pretty fun.

Before he took up residence in the deep end, Axl could rip it (though a little screechy), and Slash was right there with him (minus the crazy). They can be a little unimaginative and repetitive, though at their best there is a nice freewheeling energy to follow.

Post-punk perfection? Ms. Harry's voice is often the most imaginative instrument in the band (I would have forwarded it more in the mix). Moody, melodic, masterful. Highly pop influenced, the album keeps changing its particular approach. A couple misses, but mostly keeping things very engaging.

Groovy. Harp, piano, drums just right. Growly and swingy as necessary, the voice holding it all together.

Pop stylings usually leave me cold, but the propulsiveness here gets me going--this is Sly caught up to 1989, or prefiguring Suzanne Vega; Rhythm Nation indeed. The Knowledge (and others) is great if I don't listen too carefully to the unimaginative lyrics. You go, girl.

That voice can pull the most mundane production up into listenability. Pop soul seems self-contradictory. The soft jazz of Private Dancer takes away any edge it might have had and as the album goes on pulls hard against her voice. The rock edge of Better be Good and others works much better and she owns these tunes and her performance of them. Things seem pretty hit and miss throughout. I'm very glad for her career-wise. Just not totally on this album for me.

Wasn't much aware of Weller or The Jam before some Facebook music group posts. The lyrics can be a good bit underwhelming, in keeping with the yacht rock stylings of the music. I can hear at times what could have been pretty cool, like in the instrumental part of Has My Fire Really Gone Out? or 5th Season or Shadow of the Sun, but the lyrics return too soon. I keep feeling like this could have been something.

While I like the idea of The Cramps, the product is a bit come-and-go for me. It has a minimal appeal. Camp is always borderline with me. Are you edging too far into the different for different's sake? Or weird for weird's sake. Hard to listen to a whole album's worth. Attitude on its own only goes so far before it becomes just tedious.

I found it uninteresting until A Very Cellular Song piqued my interest. To be honest, though, it was hard to maintain. Did the collective energies of the late 60s inspire a lot of this to the point of tedium? Others may find the psychiness profound, the experimentation daring, the spirituality inspiring, but it didn't work for this pedestrian. Perhaps on another day, but not this day.

Nice antidote to the treacly Sonny and Cher and to treacliness everywhere. Rollicking, jaunty, satiric, in-your-face, joyful, all at once. Pick your shibboleth, including rock and roll, it's in the crosshairs. I found my spirits lifted.

I'd heard a bunch of fIREHOSE and really enjoyed it. Reading wikipedia I learned the reason why: the outgrowth from MINUTEMEN resonating therein. Irreverent, funky, punky, jazzy, eclectic. Makes you want to listen to try and figure out where they're going.

Was really happy to see the OZO kids when I opened today's album. I have that street sign as a little sticker. Picked it up at one of the shows I saw around the time of this album, really really energetic affairs. Yeah the lyrics can get a little cheesy but they can get a crowd jumping. So maybe it doesn't really capture the vibe when you are not part of the collective delight, or don't know spanish, or have a salsa or rock en espanol affection, but damn I check those boxes and can't (won't) separate now from those occasions. I love this.

Powerful maybe. But more so just vulgar. All seems pretty tiresome.

I like how the intro steadily drives into intensity on the bass line, then sidetracks out into sax and flute land and then on into the unconquered territories. Songs? Hell, lets give up the tired notion of songs--let's do an album side per song. When you're stoned you don't want to bother to have to attend to such things. Jazz? Jazz Rock? Free Jazz Rock? Free Psychedelic Jazz Rock? Free Electronic Jazz Rock? Side note for Pynchon fans: The 2007 CD reissue has a bonus disc with "Esther's Nose Job," which includes "Pig."

I think in another universe I would be tempted to like this more--but in this one it seems kind of one-note. Fairly unimaginative lyrics with high school cursing thrown in. My parents! No! Does every song end by repeating lyrics? I actually enjoy the dissonance and genre mixing, but that is about it. Pretty is disturbing: you don't know who you feel sorry for? What the fuck are you talking about? All in the Family seems desperate, shock value masquerading as serious commentary, on what? I'm not sure. Gonna take me a sec to get this outta my ears.

Nice opening, chambery, lush, slowly developed, vocals and harmonies grabbing, great intro to the rest of their catalogue. Pop as it should be. The upfront vocal clarity belies the engaging deviousness of the lyrics. A keeper.

Certainly not music to relax to. Nor to enjoy. But to be threatened by? Irritated by? Distorted by? Aggressed by? Sure, yeah.

I'm a sucker for world music. I picked up a Rai Rebels CD in the mid 90s and Khaled was on it. I like the driving intensity. The lilting lyricism. Listening to this album, I am surprised by the diversity. Great cover of Imagine--I'm sure that pissed off the fundamentalists. His voice the real instrument here, forcefully intimate. Gets my vote.

Bad memories of pervasive 70s disco. Sort of starts things off on a bad foot. Overly packaged, overproduced, overshadowing the actually creative moments lurking somewhere herein. "Soaring" is a bad word here--please no. So the guys can sing too?--please no. I do confess, however, for a fondness for Fernando. Way to go, Scandinavians, for writing a song for Mexican revolutionaries.

After it started, I didn't expect to like this much--but that changed quickly. I don't know as I've ever heard any Chemical Bros. Pretty fun, if you can use that word to describe techno. Grabs your ears. Endlessly engaging and inventive, often surprisingly so. I would normally think this is only good on the dance floor, but it works (for me) as background music that you occasionally drop in on and attend to.

Gregarious, complicated garagey bluesy pop rock. Relishing in its unexpectedness. Quite casually complicated, starting with the vocals and continuing through song structure. I have to say Electricity is brilliant. I have to say I was continually delighted.

Afraid the production kills this for me. I just can't get over the pop-focused mechanics that drains any real human emotion. Sad, because I want to marry her.

Wow, decades since I heard any of this. Down To Zero is a magic song. This album should be a stellar attraction in the Cool Hall of Fame. Her voice in just Help Yourself and Water With the Wine is worth a million times the price of admission. I think my older sister must have had this because many of the cuts have the familiarity of long lost but cherished memories. Endlessly inventive, and she exhibits a powerful possession of all aspects of the music. No filler.

Not much on my radar--too bad for me. Nice driving intensity. The grating subtleties nicely matched by the lyrical abrasiveness. Punk freed from the confines of song structure into industrial dance (see cover of oil rigs and factories). 1/2 hour or so of pure engagement.

A little interesting. The album seems to never quite get started, and a lot of the songs have the same issue. The lyrics seem dorm-room moody. I'm just not getting the vibe.

Not attending too much to the individual lyrics. I like the flow, the beats, nice background. Drug dealing and gang warfare too stereotypical to attend to. So, I like the sound, content less so.

While Bjork's later voicings can easily irritate me, on this and on their next album she and the band are like the fresh-faced new kid on the block: everything is new and intriguing. The music is fairly competent post-punk and with Bjork it soars. My favorite part? Singing in Icelandic.

My best friend at York (Old York) introduced me to this. Indelible memories. The pre-hat Edge, the pre-arena anthemic Bono, the driving rhythm, the pure energy was captivating, post-punk flexing its skinny little arms and staring down any attempt to marginalize it.

Animal Collective songs don't develop--they steadily entone, hypnotically, the way a Philip Glass composition entones. Incantatory. Lucid dreams indeed.

A pop masterpiece. The variety is mind-boggling, everything easily accessible and catchy. It helps I haven't heard classics like I Saw the Light in forever--they sound even more impressive hearing them with fresh ears. Todd steps up, outta the park.

Definitively brilliant. How can so much be packed into one collection? Only the gods know. Hendrix is a genre unto himself. What can an electric guitar do? Jimi knows. He contains multitudes (thanks Walt).

Shades of Woody and Bob. Real, visceral, necessary, the reject (the boll weevil) who makes a place wherever he is but is always looking for a home. Romantic? No, there are bedbugs. Foundational.

Approaches but doesn't succumb to 80s overly dramatic self-importance. While I can appreciate the vocals, I like more the rhythmic droning. Hard to tell one song from the next, but that's a mostly good thing. 5, 6, 7, 8, (9!) minute songs helps. Okay so yeah there is some aimless wanderings but the overall aesthetic holds.

Got to give them pre-punk punk chops. The haphazardness belies the forward-thinking energy. Like a seedbed for punk, heavy metal, glam rock, hair metal, post punk, Kiss, the Tubes, you name it. What fun. Best taken in small doses, though, else the repetitiveness gets cloying--stick with a couple at a time.

Astral Weeks is a pretty cool tune, a stream-of-consciousness astral journey from the ditch to heaven, but I start to lose engagement quickly after that. His voice often verges into screechy and the wandering music is alternatively intriguing and lost.