Could not force myself to listen to the entire album after hearing the piano tinkle for 17 seconds on the first track.
I snored through this one.
She’s the British female version of Pat Boone or Elvis Presley. Nice voice and unoriginal.
Catchy tunes and amusing lyrics. These lads sound like they are having an awful lot of fun as the second generation of angry young men.
I liked the parts with no guitars or singing.
Half the album are folk songs written to reflect the politics and events of those times. Dylan chose great mentors. His folk songs are striking in their humanity and empathy. This album contains some classics.
I think I’ve heard every song on this album either in my dentist‘s office or shopping at Trader Joe’s. In other words, it’s pleasant background music.
Mostly all enjoyable music. Did not enjoy the lyrical delivery though. Some choruses were catchy.
Some doodling additional sounds can’t make this insipid record interesting
Two songs worth listening to - I’ll Come Running and Everything Merges with the Night. Even those are like second class Jona Lewie songs. The others are pretentious Muzak.
If each part of her instrumentations were performed separately, I might enjoy them - especially the electronic saw. However, putting all the bits together it becomes music to Floss to and forget - if you can fade out her singing.
One of thousands post-punk records. One song that stood out musically was “You Said Something,” but lyrically it’s high schoolish.
Great mix of politics and good time songs.
Loved the old-timey gospel and choir numbers. Did not like the voice overs that presented truths like the singer had just newly discovered them for the world. Very off putting.
Produced by the magnificent Nick Lowe this album is like a close sibling to Lowe’s Jesus of Cool. Peppy, clever, and poppy.
Great idea from the Guthrie archive. Billy Bragg is a great choice. Wilco was so-so. Five for Billy’s songs. Three for Wilco’s
Some standouts among pretty typical misogyny and idiotic swagger. It’s hard to reconcile the four sweet nostalgic and the wonderful historical songs with the typical ones mentioned above. Hard to rate, but in this case of these four songs, I’ll give the album the benefit of the doubt.
The first track reminded me of the sounds my mom and dad were making while cooking spaghetti noodles and talking when I was tripping balls on mushrooms. That track gets a 5 for the intense feeling of deja vu it produced. The rest of the album is a confused cacophony of great genres who’s parts far exceed the whole.
Muzak for the stone deaf. I’m sorry I could hear it.
I’ve heard the idea that they were heavily influenced by The Velvet Underground; I don’t hear it at all on this album. To me, they sound like a power pop version of a sometimes enjoyable amalgam of the Turtles, the Byrds , Little Feat, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Two little stars for Big Star.
Why? Just why?
So fun musically and with some interesting lyrics as well.
The best parts were the opening couple minutes and the silence at the end.
Disgusting - the abusers claiming to be poor victims. Of course lonely teenage boys appreciated this moronic brand of macho whimpering. It’s troubling so many of them think it’s great rather than the greasy wankfest it has always been.
The lead singer sounds like the child of a Lou Reed and Jonathan Richman union. Unfortunately, these two greats produced an embarrassment. Better luck next time, fellas.
Peppy tunes and non-morinic lyrics, but the nearly incessant drum machine drove me to distraction.
Uninteresting musically and lyrically.
Mediocre music. Boring lyrics. Good voice. I don’t appreciate the gimmicky aspect of the the whole project, so I’m sure that creates a negative bias.
I am not a fan of swaggering, misogyny, or glorifying violence. Three songs on the album did not include those noxious themes. They were okay to hear, but musically forgettable and I wouldn’t ever listen to them again.
How many rapid fire guitar solo weepy blues ripoff rock songs with some Brit singing about how a lady he loves so much doesn’t love him - even though she is actually his best friend‘s wife who he will divorce a few years later - do we have to hear? I would hope the answer would have been none, but apparently there’s a whole crap load of them and bunch are on this album. An hour and sixteen minutes of “poor me” songs is an hour and seventeen minutes too much for poor me.
Painful. Without his mom and dad this guy wouldn’t stand a chance of being heard. I don’t get the allure of continuing to pay him.
Reminds me very much of Paul Simon’s music and phrasing combined with Rodriguez’s voice, song styling, and music - in both good and bad ways. I “liked” two songs. Which is about the same as Simon and Rodriguez. Both of whom I find slightly overrated musically, although Rodriguez’s story is incredibly interesting.
Fabulous. What lyrics and what musicianship!! For such a long album the quality of the songs is amazing.
Many artists in this challenge I’d never heard of, but hoped I would find a new source of musical pleasure. It finally happened with this album. Lovely new and familiar at the same time.
Indistinguishable from scores (hundreds?) of other post punk albums.
I don’t enjoy highly produced sounds. This is a perfect example of those records. I also don’t enjoy gimmicks. Another fine example of that with this album.
When I was little I liked to pretend I could play any musical instrument I got my hands on. My games were about as good as this album. Zero stars if it were possible.
Except for the two covers of James Brown’s songs, this is an album that sounded like something new and fresh from everything in the genre that preceded it.
I like the band’s name, not so much the music. Weird and spooky intro followed by catchy and repetitive drumming then overly the spooky sounds again or weird not so spooky sounds with peppier rhythms. Two choices both boring after hearing them more than once.
Not good. An interim album from their first amazing sounds to their later amazing sounds. This one is a poor representation of their sounds.
Very pleasing. A toe tapping body swaying album throughout.
Great line- cigarette butt beach. My favorite parts were reminiscent of the Minutemen or the Velvet Underground, but they were mainly bits of songs. Headache and Space is Gonna Do Me Good stood out as enjoyable for the entire song.
Once the horns and orchestration starts - after 1 minute and 11 seconds of sublime music and singing- this album never gets of the wrong track.
8 minutes of enjoyment and 33 minutes of a jazz fart.
Gross lyrically. Boring musically. Good news for the world they are finally done.
Not their best. The political nature of some song’s lyrics really highlight a weakness in Brian’s writing. The introspective nature of some of his other songs show these to be very pale in comparison.
They can shred and do ballads!! They posture about their live free nature and degrade women. And they write their own self congratulatory bio on Spotify. Pitiful.
A welcome breath of fresh and invigorating musical air. Look up the top ten billboard albums of 1977 and see for yourself.
21 songs, 2 discs, 104 minutes 3 good songs for a total of about 16 minutes, but those songs elevate the entire cacophony into a worthwhile listening experience. Just make sure to use the skip and slider to whip through the mess to find the treats.
So diverse in musical styles - while not the best example of each style, certainly credible and enjoyable. However, the misogyny is hard to take. I wish I hadn’t read the lyrics. Without reading them it’s 4 stars. After reading them 1.
One generation past punk, these guys had lots of great songs and groups to listen to and draw from. Too bad they listened to crap and ended up being scavengers feeding on the scraps of a rotting thirty year old corpse.
Some funny take-offs of early sixties British Invasion song stylings. I’m glad they got to make later albums, which I think are much better than this one.
Love the first 8 seconds of frogs. If you could eliminate the electronic sounds and singing I would listen to it.
Muzak
Loved it when I heard it in my early 20’s and still do in my mid 60’s.
Who would have thought that a bunch of Canadian Civil War reenactors could produce such sublime music? Not only did they do it with this album, but continued for years afterwards A five album and a five star group.
An intermix of musical styles. A few turned out to be worth listening to.
A few songs were enjoyable but the lyrics were so self absorbed I just wanted to speed through the album.
Self-important rehash of 60’s garage rock.
Nothing here for me.
The squeaking became monotonous and annoying. It started to sound like a smoke detector. Really enjoyed three songs though and the masterful use of recordings.
A lot of the production harkens to the horrible “country-politan” of the 70’s. At this point his best music was behind him. I’d like to hear a stripped down version of these songs because I enjoy his voice and many of his songs.
Overly long. Every point worth making in their political songs was made, cleverly and enjoyably, by the 2 minute mark. The rest made it interminable.
A lot of covers that are so-so musically, but offer a window into their influences. Top notch originals.
The best songs are like a female Bob Dylan, but not in a good way. The rest is some kind of Canadian Hannah Montana slop.
Boring, frenetic, and pointless.
An album in which every song goes on for much too long. Even the short ones.
Like Kenny G, It’s not for me
Big deal - a girl group with a break out performer. That’s so surprising.
Not actually horrible, but waaay toooo loooong.
Boring.
Vulgar display of noise
If a goal of music is to make you feel something, this one succeeds. I felt angry that I wasted my time listening to this boring Panda Express version of quiet and thoughtful songs. Thanks a lot, Dummy.
For the first half of the album with the peppier numbers listen to Jonah Lewie or Devo for this type of music with sensible lyrics. I like the music, but the nursery rhyme lyrics were disappointing. The second half of the album is best placed in the rubbish bin.
One song on the album is worth listening to more than once - You Can’t Always Get What You Want. Mick Jagger’s stupid lyrics and lame attempts at country style singing ruin the generally fun instrumental music.
Over produced - especially Deborah Harry’s interesting and pleasant voice.
The best thing that came out of this is the sublime rap group Commodore 64.
The silence between the tracks was welcome relief.
I can’t believe there are at least two Dusty Springfield albums on this list. This one does have a lot of good song writers, just no good music.
A pleasantly voiced musical version of narcolepsy.
A sometimes okay combination of musical styles. The other times it’s pretty unpleasantly cacophonous. It didn’t strike me as particularly original. I heard a lot of similarities from earlier recordings.
Simon’s pleasant voice and the great musicians make this album both relaxing and energizing- oftentimes simultaneously. The combination of the music and his voice allowed me to overlook his obtuse lyrics.