The ambition is apparent. A pagan fever dream about witch trials and hysteria. I respect it more than I want to play it. Art score = 4. But here we go 2.
Tie for me with Dice Clay as best Rick Rubin production of '91.
Timeless. The product of collective genius. Imagine being in the room, hearing those first takes with Coltrane, Evans and Cannonball???
Forgot how much he was leaning into being an insufferable gink at this point in time...and he just kept going, huh? But damn the album is strong end to end.
28 minutes of intricate guitar work, faint piano, and Nick Drake's voice. Listening to that elemental palette never quite gets old.
A six-part jazz ballet with liner notes by his therapist...in 1963?! Thank you, KING MINGUS, for this symphonic séance of self-dissection.
Brings me back to the days of Kaiser Chiefs and Razorlight. Franz always felt a level sharper than those chaps, but once Arctic Monkeys landed a couple years later, they stole the whole scene. Franz just missed it for me. Maybe a bit too prancey.
Official rating is 4.55. I really do cherish Schmilsson and that vaudeville charm. Eccentric, funny, and yet still heartfelt...Nilsson that offbeat pop master at his absolute best.
A guy waltzed into apartheid-era Johannesburg, jammed with some of the best musicians on the planet, and came back to the States with an Album of the Year and one of the most beautifully built records of the decade. So vivid and radiant.