The bit of me that wants to have cool opinions wants to mark this right down for Bono's later ego/tax offences.
But this album is just too big a part of my upbringing, and there are just too many hooks (of both types) buried in my brain for me not to admit a resentment-filled love for about six tracks on this album. Which seems apt given all the divorce-themed lyrics.
My resistance is useless. "On your knees, boy"
A couple of daytime radio classics, but does it really move you? Not quite poignent enough to avoid the feeling that it's just a great, beautifully executed example of light music of the time. But doesn't stir the hardened 21st century soul.
For a transgressive, genre pushing work it's just rather boring.
It's hard not to hear this through the lens of film and TV of a vaguely spacey/SciFi flavour, almost more like a soundtrack to an idea than an album.
I am conflicted really. I like this that are languid, spacey, meditative. But the melodies just don't snag me, and it's like the band is alergic to hooks, except for the chorus of 'shine on'. Did they ever snag anyone who wasn't also listening under the influence of something?
A big childhood one for me here.
Big, warm, beautifully produced. A couple of big zingy hits (Sledgehammer/Big Time) but the ones that really last more are probably slightly quieter - like In Your Eyes. Plus a Kate Bush cameo.
If there was a 4.5 star button I'd push it.
"Bow to the bland", they sing.
"I'd rather not", say I.
Bless, what an innocent band.
Here are just some of the things that, on their own, would make this album worth 5 stars:
- The piano glissando between the end of God is Love and Mercy Mercy Me.
- The successful deployment of the word 'inflation' in a song lyric.
- The right kind of unironicness.
- The fact he can make you cry by simply asking "Tell me friend, how in the world have you been?"
- The menace.
- The prescience.
- The love.
Well this one's jolly peculiar isn't it? From 1984 but without a synthesiser in sight, some of it could be on a jazz album, some sounds a bit like the Jam, there's even a completely implausisble rap track in there. And a decently charting single, too, "You're the Best Thing".
Three stars for trying absolutely everything, but not more because it's not clear how much actually works.
Has a warmer album ever been recorded?
So many memorable tunes. Such aching.
This man is very, very rude about many people.
Jaunty Wolverhampton numbers, evoke an age, but their more lasting tunes are not on here.
What an incredible first three minutes. Bit mixed thereafter, but still worth the four stars.
Wow - how did I not know about the best selling solo jazz album ever. Very hard to argue with.
I don't doubt that in a loud american bar with lots of beer this might be great. But as an LP to listen to elsewhere, just dull dull dull.
Gentle jazz, pleasant but I fear not very memorable for me
Doesn't contain any of the big hits, but still has some good moments, like the opening of 'Life' which is menacing and lyrically original.
So many classics, such sparse instruments
Lovely to find where 'preacher' came from, as sung in Heart of Darkness. Charming
The more Nick Cave writes like a teen who's just discovered gothic fiction, the less I like him. Not his finest work, this.
So warm, so cool, so much more agriculture than most albums.
I now know where most 90s and noughties parodies of eighties art pop came from. Boldly experimental, largely unlistenable, but three stars for really Having a Go.
Is it more tuneless than turgid, or more unsubtle than unrelenting. Hard to say but it's an insult to Alices everywhere.
"Mother earth is pregnant for the third time. For ya'' have knocked her up".
Pleasant but I'm not really moved, nor driven to dance
Not a feminist masterpiece, but god how great is POWER?
I wish I thought this was greater, but I'm just bored. Sorry.
Really vapid, except for Janie's got a gun.
Moments move, but more bore or cringe.
Fun, up beat, inoffensive. But no classic tunes.
Sweet voices, warm and proto cool soundscapes, but just not enough memorable tunes. No Kings of Convenience.
So wonderfully self indulgent. It would be 2 stars except that they had the hubris to ship a track that's mostly a drum solo, but named after Moby Dick
I'm just not quite enough of a poseur to truly enjoy, I think.
There's just not much here really
I had no idea there was just so much boring rock in the 80s. Justifiably forgotten.
Some classic tunes, but far too many that are not. And then there's Maxwell's Silver Hammer.
Hahaha this one really feels like a product of recency bias in the early 2000s reviewers. Sort of similar to many other superior whispering mid western albums.
I admit it, I couldn't finish this one.
Lots of this feels very 'by numbers' to a modern ear, but then there are some odd charmers like 'In the Ghetto'
So many great bangingly great songs, and some fun 80s art pop experiments too.
"It's in the trees, it's coming!"
Surprisingly tedious. No sign of what they are going to become a few years later.
An incredible source of samples. But is it more than that?
A classic. But is it truly timeless?
As iconic as an album can start. But most of the rest is just background scene filler music, no?
Fascinating, an album I like a lot, but oddly I like it more when I play the tunes back in my head, than when I listen back to them. Go figure.
Contains Tiny dancer,so come on. But.... uneven to say the least.
Don't You Want Me is obviously a banging classic, but there's not much else to engage.
Building up to greatness, but not quite there yet.
