7/10 love the textures in this and the whimsy. Some classics and glimpses of bowie's future as an artist.
C: 8/10. Loved this! Honestly way better than expected. I was so engaged by all the sounds and textures. It was so much more avant garde than I anticipate. I was a little surprised at how politically ambiguous it was at first, but it kind of eased into more explicit messaging which seemed intentional, as if to cast a wide net.
K: 7/10, good, noisiness not all my preference
K: 8/10: very listenable, great for cleaning/hosting, definitely long, mostly engaging
C: 7/10 a lot of fun moments. I love the blues but jam bands are always more fun to play in than they are to listen to. Very great recording of a live album. Can see how influential it is. They really know their blues.
C/K: 8/10, love it so much, a couple of maybe-skips but mostly hit after hit, love how cinematic it gets, never boring.
C: 7/10 It's fascinating to hear how similar so many 90s/'00s bands I listened to as a kid sound to this album. It sounds like it might have come out 10 years ago rather than 36. This came out 2 months before Nirvana's first album Bleach! It's an innovative sound and structure but albums to follow would improve upon or respond to. Great vocals. Quiet-loud-quiet thing. Not sure i'll go back to it a ton.
Faves: i bleed, la la love you
6.5/10 pretty good, very listenable and melodic. Great rhythms and drummer. I still found it fairly forgettable, especially for an album from 1990. By that point the world had been blessed with plenty of better Punk albums. Some favs: reprovisional, shut the door, greed.
C: 6/10. The first track A Minor Place led me to believe I would adore this album. It was beautiful, gorgeous production of the vocals and piano. Sad but hope-twinged lyrics were sung to a simple, lovely melody. It went downhill from there.
The most tediously juvenile of all is Death To Everyone. Billy sounds a bit old to be grappling with the concept of death as though he only just became aware of his own mortality, yet the whole song is him incessantly repeating that we're all going to die as if that's some enlightened message only he could impart.
The album's clumsy and adolescent lyricism is sometimes just what is needed to produce a poignant and touching portrayal of a dark subject. In oh no, I see a Darkness, the narrator struggles internally with suicidal ideation and wonders if his friend might notice. The chorus' repetition of the track's title accompanied by a piano-bar piano that sounds like it's underwater made me feel like I was being buried slowly.
The album best succeeds when Billy leans away from the Trent Reznor-esque lyrics he doesn't have the musical chops for and into a twangier folk sound (a la A Minor Place, Madeleine-Mary). A highlight of the sound is the delayed onset vocal layering, though it borders on hard to bear as Billy reaches the top of his range. More flowers for the production of the piano and percussion. Both maintain their sonic nuance despite being buried deep in the background of the mix, giving the music a lot of depth without being muddy.
C: 8.5/10. You'd think an album that combines funk, jazz, pop, rock, edm and even classical styles would turn out sounding a bit academic, besides being pretty good too. Instead, this album is incredibly joyful to listen to. It shows off just enough without sacrificing the cohesion and fun of it. Even when there are no lyrics, Funkadelic rebels simply by cohesively and cleverly incorporating different styles. The result is a clear political message against stereotypes and the genre drama of the music industry that continues to limit artists today. The fact that the album is so fun and engaging due to It's adventurousness is what makes it's message so effective. Why wouldn't you want a funk band to rock after hearing that?
9. Violent Femmes (1983)/ Violent Femmes
C 7.5/10: the first album so far to fully embody Gen-X irony, for better or for worse. The album is always working to further blur the line between earnestness and satire, giving Violent Femmes plausible deniability for either take.
Sometimes the sarcastic whining tone feels more reflexive than intentional, making parts of the album feel flat. Other times it works well. 'Confessions' is a multifaceted portrait of adolescence and loneliness in a fast paced world with some fun, theatrical moments.
We can't get a read on what the Femmes are thinking, but when the band leans into drama and being really dynamic, their personality and originality shine through. One strong characteristic of their sound is how textured it is. Buzzed frets, brush noises, wrong notes and breaths build up the hype energy and give the songs dimension. Add to all that some really fun instrumentation (new fav genre: xylophone punk) and you have an album I quite enjoy.
7/10: love the opening track for how aggressive the bass and synth are, sort of insistently tuneless at times under a very quiet, vulnerable confession of love from the singer. I like the parts of the album that are minimal, crisp, and sort of noisy, rather than the sappy and mushy-sounding ones. The album gets pretty samey for me in the middle. I loved Heatwave! I appreciated the contrast in it. Very clear different sections. Love the recurring tinny and dissonant percussion followed by bright melodies on guitar and piano. The weird sounds like jangling keys add a lot of interest.
Truly have no clue why I just had to hear this album. Not even the one I would say sounded the worst so far, just detestably generic britpop slop. It was the first album i just couldn't wait for the end of. So. Boring.
6.5/10: i liked it. Clearly pioneering force for punk edm and the electronica that followed. There were lots of good moments, but not something i see myself revisiting much
C:7.5 Thin mix leaves me longing for more depth and bassiness and richness. Really successful at creating climactic moments in music. That keeps it from being one of those albums that sounds more fun to make than listen to. There's a sense of adventure and anticipation throughout the album that keeps it exciting. nice use of electronics and weird lil sounds particularly in Son of Mr. Green Genes
C: 6.5/10 pretty good, enjoyable, liked the one about marriage. I don't have tons to say about it.
