California
American Music ClubStarted strong but too much filler later on.
Started strong but too much filler later on.
Great from start to finish. What I was hoping to get out of these 1001 albums
Inoffensive background music. Doesn't make you feel anything
Had the odd moment. I guess you had to be there at the time. Just seems drag too much.
I really wanted to not give this album 5 stars. I obsessed over this album as a young fella but have not really listened to it in a long time. Assumed I had moved on. No! This album slays track to track.
Too pretentious. Too much "could we" and not enough "should we". You could see the ideas but they were not formed well.
Great album. Perfect listening to under the sun with a beer in the afternoon. Could.heat and feel the passion. But, and it's not his fault, I can't stand the song Hallelujah.
It was alright. I like what they did with the Sax. But a bit too repetitive after awhile.
Mostly solid set of tracks with good passion.
Takes you back to player the greatest games of all time: Sim City 2000 and Sim City 3000. What more could you ask for.
Great from start to finish.
Guess you had to there.
Tunes to make you groove.
Great album all the way through.
Good tunes mostly.
Starts strong with 4 great songs but tapers off after that
If you need an album to sink a few beers with your father-in-law while watching the sun set over the ocean, then it's hard to go past this. Like a macro lager, it goes down easy without much thought.
I csn see why it's on here but not for me.
6 stars!
A very enjoyable album
Legend of a man. Legend of an album
Mostly just noise
Has some great tunes and you can see why it was such a hit. Bit also, so filler tracks that you'll want to skip
Some good tracks. Some ok. Some noise
Great album start to end
Fairly easy listening but nothing too exciting
A plesent listen.
Good though not sure it holds up over time. But a solid listen regardless.
Great swing and rock to it and what an amazing singer. Would have been quite the album in the 60s and while it stands up today, I can't give it a 5 as its not quite my cup of tea.
Maybe you had to be there at the time. Maybe you needed to hear this before you heard the stuff that came after. Interesting lyrical content and some interesting instrumental parts, but not anything I'd like to listen to again
It starts well and has some.good hits. Overall a good listen.
A great collection of songs and enough diversity to keep you interested throughout. Sounds like a product of its times and in a good way. Any low points are overshadowed by the highs and some incredible catchy and memorable tunes in there.
Every album has a time and a place. For The Prodigy's "The Fat of the Land", that time is Anytime, and that place is Anywhere. No matter how your day/week/month/year is going, put this on and you are in a happy place.
Starts very strong with some great songs but goes down hill fast and just becomes a noisy slog
For an album I thought i wouldn't like i was plesently surprised. Good use of actual samples, interesting vocal performance and nice arrangements. Hip hop pop vibe. An enjoyable listen.
Was ok. Started to drag on a bit but nice musicianship throughout
There is a story of a going to a Ryan Adams concert and calling out to hear Summer of 69. This album could have done with a bit more Bryan Adams song writing. Its too long, too overly pretentious in parts. Sometimes, less is better, and keeping it simple works. I enjoyed the opening track and a few others, but really I won't be putting this bad boy back on my stereo anytime soon.
Solid album. Good catch rockk
I know it's a legendary album and all but I couldn't really get into it. Too much literal noise for the sake of noise at times. Feels like it's trying to hard to be different, hip, and better than everything else with no real self awareness. Some good moments in parts though and good song writing. Liked some of the guitar work. Interesting choice of drum sound. Not sure what it is but really cant stand the song Karma Police. 2.5 but will round up to 3.
Having only heard his later stuff I was surprised by this. Well rounded effort and an easy listen
One of the strongest album starts out there. Trying focusing on anything else while this album is on is near impossible. You just want to get up and move. Top notch vocals and musicianship. A wop bop a loo bop a lop ba ba!
Some good tracks hidden amoung the noise. And there seems to be plenty of noise for the sake of noise. Needed someone in the studio who had not drunk the "hip" Coolaide to maybe ask some production questions amd cut back a few things.
Another album you probably had to be there for. Still holds up as good folk music, but nothing special. Good voice, good story telling, but too much same same.
Great music and catchy tunes. But the lyrics have more cheese than Thursday night Buff Nachoes.
Some good ol rock n roll but nothing special. Don't feel this was an album i had to hear before I die.
I always assumed i didnt really like REM and never understood how they could be so influential to people like Kurt Coban. This album was the missing piece. A great showcase of song writing and balancing pop influences with indie and rock execution. Really enjoyed the bass lines on this album. Could have done with a bit more variation towards the end, but I'd play this again.
They say with Jazz you have to listen to the notes they are NOT playing. This was ok. Good background music. Unoffensive cafe music. Some good tracks but nothing special. Needed to crank up the double bass as too low in the mix.
Can and should you separate a man from his legacy. Listening to this album takes you back to O-Week 2006. You've taken party pills for the first time and/or its your first ever night on the Jim Beam and Cokes (those days are a bit of a blur now). Either way you've gone to see one of the big local acts heaviky influenced by old school reggae that you vaguely know. They start playing a 2 chord rhythm which at first you are into, but then you get distracted by the urge to chew your own lip. What feels.like 20 minutes later your turn to your friend and mention that this new song sounds awfully similar to the first song. He responds that it is the same song. You are shocked. Finally they finish and move on to the next track bur you soon realise while the key has changed, the progression and rhythm remain the same. That's ok you think, at least Bombfunk MCs play next week. 12 months go by and the new O-Week line up comes out. Its full of bands like Fat Eddie's Dub, Scouts of the Dub Table, Katchadub etc. In horror you realise not only is there no international headliner, there is fuck all variety. Everyone seems to be reggae influenced. You book yourself into a couple of the less popular punk and rock shows and a slab or 2 of South Gs helps you forget your troubles. Another 12 months passes and this time its worse. All variety is gone, replaced with endless upstrums and snares tighter than a dress shirt on Uncle James. In disbelief you take yourself off for a lunxh time treat of a $7.99 pizza sube at Pappas Pizza. As you start to question your own memories, as if maybe this has always been the way it was, you noticed the walls lined with old O-Week posters. Bands like The Chills, Shihad, Head Like a Hole, The Button birds, Violent Femmes and even (for better or worse) Alien Ant Farm grace the posters. Hell, you even remember your old man's yarn about Iron Maiden playing The Uni of O back in the day. You sit there and realise that all things come and go, and while this might be the peak of reggae and dub, times will change soon. But then, 660 come along. Now every hipster in Wellington who ever took a roadie up the coast to grab a few slabs of Gissy Gold and stumbled upon a local Marlie tribute act playing at Smash Palace has stared a Dub band, and not only will the be at O-Week, they be playing at mother fucking Re-Oweek. You realise that was no parabolic ride you were on earlier, but a God damn quartic. And that local maxima you were at back in 2008 is nothing compared to the new vertex that is to come. Fast forward a couple decades and things are getting bleak in NZ. Inflation is up, there are shortages in teaching, nursing, doctors, you name it. Wellington is in decline and record numbers of young skilled kiwis are on the move to Australia. Now I'm not saying that this is all Bob Marley's fault... but it does make you think. A couple of good tracks but too much similarity.
Great lyrics and stroy telling. Didn't start strong but built up and finished well. A good album
This album is like the time you dated that crazy bird despite all the warnings people have. When it was good, boy was it good. But when it was bad, it was bad. Not much consistency and you never knew what was next. You'd think you were done and over it, but then the next bang(er) would have you wanting more and suddenly you'd be thinking you could listen to this album for the rest of your life and be happy. Next thing you know you have 3 kids, a mortgage and a job you don't really enjoy at the BluRay factory. You come home from work tired one day and forget to wipe up the milk you spilt while making your regular 5.30 pm cup of tea, and your wife looses it. You realise you should have listened to everyone all along. Especially Dave "2 step" Taylor, your oldest friend, who had been saying all along you'd been blinded by the hits. But know you don't know what to do. You blew your life savings investing in your crazy wides homeopathy buisness. That promotion you applied for at the BluRay is looking unlikely due to the rise of streaming services. Divorce will be expensive and the recent mortgage rate rise was the last thing you needed. Some days you even look at your 3 kids and all you can see are the traits of your wife that your come to despise. You wonder what kind of man can fall out of love with his own children. Any way where was I. Some good, some bad. 3 stars.
Trump has started gold plating everything in the Whitehouse. McDonalds sells a double big mac. A Ford F150 doesn't even get near the top 10 list of biggest pick up trucks. We live in a time of excess and Hysteria, despite coming out 38 or so years ago, fits perfectly into this world. Excessive production, vocals dubs, big guitars, striking drums. It is peak hair metal pushed to its limits. I'd cry if I googled the budget for this album. And the problem with excess is it usually comes off as tacky. That is the case here. It doesn't feel authentic. There is no real soul or passion. This is music tailored to sell big. Trying to find meaning and depth to the lyrics is like trying to figure out why Christopher Luxon thought it was a good use of tax payer money to fly himself and Albanesr to the top of a mountain for a photo opp. If you want to hear the album that killed hair metal and brought forth Grunge, Thrash, Alternative, then this is it. 3 stars as despite all this the title track, Hysteria, rips.
Fresh, Jazzy, Funky. A great ride. Goes by fast despite its moderate run time and leaves you wanting more. While other jazz influenced albums can be all pomp, pretentiousness and show offy, there is none here. All feels authentic
Guess you had to be there. Not my cup of tea.
I get it, they did a lot of drugs in the 60s. But at some point when Dr John proposed an album that was to be inspired by the sounds of a busy Mumbhi street market, the chants of Tibetan Monks, the bells and clinks of a Sunday morning religious parade mixed in with southern rock n roll, there needed to be a veto. Im starting to think he may not even be a real Doctor.
An intersting mix of styles. Really enjoyed the African influences. Some parts didnt work but for the most part its a great album. And "You can call me Al" is an all time classic.
Sometimes it feels like you are listening to the list of "1001 albums you could get through life not hearing and not be missing out on anything" This is one of those albums. When they showed off their punk and ska roots, with some nice 2 step rhythms it was good. But mist if the time it just made me feel nothing.
This album is full of hits like take on me and... well that's it. Starts strong but nothing else lives up to that track. Its not bad, but its not good either. But what an opening track.
A far more mature album from these dudes. You can see they've come through the 60s drug error and survived to tell the tale. The lyrics are far more interesting, though there is still fun such as Octapusus' Garden. Instrumentally, they are in top form, and I particularly enjoyed the drumming here. A great album from start to finish
How high was the critic who claimed this was one of thr greatest debuts of all time. Or was this a critic who has listened to F-all music. Its not to say the album is bad. Its alright, nothing special. But it came our in 2008 and sounds very much like albums that came out decades before. It doesn't break new ground, its just the same old indie folk. A couple catchy tunes but most was not my cup of Tea. Others have done it better.
This album reminds us of the power of the EP. Take your best tracks that represent where you are and put them together. Or thay some artist suit the singles driven craze that comes and goes in music, and is back now with streaming amd the ease of playlists. Unfortunately, this is an LP and the non single tracks struggle to live up to the hype of the singles. Knowing how many early iterations there were of songs like Kids and Electric feel, and the time and effort from multiple parties and producers that went into refining these tracks, you have to wonder if more time.could have been spent on the rest of thw album. Likely other albums on here. When its good, its great. But when its average, its average.