I never was a metal guy but if nu-metal had been the thing while I was coming up, I might have been a fan. Lots of low-key murmuring a la Deftones here along with Deftone repetitive riffs and effects, using the patented 90s quiet-loud-quiet formula. Not diminishing them though. They seem to have touched all the bases, sounding at points like Korn, above-mentioned Deftones, a little Incubus, maybe even a touch of Tool. However, 90% is unrelenting. It's high energy stuff. Maybe for workouts? Any band that tended towards a shoegaze vibe had a better chance of catching my ear and my money. Even screamed vocals can work if you're not 110% rage throughout the track, just ask Trent Reznor. Anyway, it's fine and I'd be equally likely to listen to Tool, i.e. not likely and wishing Clutch had come up in the algorithm.

Gorillaz, Gorillaz, 2001 ☆︎☆︎☆︎☆︎☆☆︎/☆︎☆︎☆︎☆︎☆︎ Six stars, why not? You didn't even have to know they would be prolific to accept the talent and concept here were spot-on. I like the fact that in a defining judgement of 90s Britpop, this album far outsold all of Blur's output combined, and you obvs could probably add like Pulp and some others in there and still have room. Fun shit, eh? Albarn was serious in his desire to bring forth all stripes of music in this band: Del the Funky Homosapien (who had already burned his delivery into our brains via Tony Hawk video games), his generous use of melodica (relegated to the background till now, used only by New Order and various ska acts) and this sort of hey guys, trip-hop doesn't need to be this dark, too-stoned sludge message made Gorillaz like really fun and genre-defying. So what if the alter-ego comic book stuff was maybe alienating to those of us well into adulthood. The graffiti vibe and modern day punk element all blended well with their output. Barely a poor track on the thing. I've got friends, former loves, who will pine about days of listening to Portishead and Massive Attack in chillout rooms and while I see the appeal, why stop there? If Massive Attack's Mezzanine is your glass of bourbon after a long day, once you're settled: come on, get happy with this record.

Elvis, Elvis Presley ★︎★︎★︎/ ︎★︎★︎★︎★︎★︎ Dammit, there's not a single song by The Clash on this whole-ass record. I've been had. Right, I get it. Father of your rock'n'roll. Maybe the first rock star, right? Kinda a non-dangerous rockabilly. My review: It's fine. Elvis, whether or not he's your hero, never meant much to me. So, like John Wayne, I just let his enjoyers do their thing. Is he all that much more than a sexy Pat Boone, when we ask ourselves seriously? Like a girlfriend said when I pulled the other Elvis's records off her shelf, "Elvis Costello, I sure thought he was important [in the 70s/80s]... Was he though?" And that's where I file Presley. We sure a lot of us thought he was important.

My Third: Note: I am in no way competent to review a jazz record, but we all have to step up when it's time. Since it's a trio playing well and riffing on some recognizable content (aren't all the good jazz tunes starting with a composition your mind can recognize? or making up a melody someone could turn into their own structured number? that's how jazz works, right, it's this fluid or energy like plasma that can express itself and be measured in numerous fashions?) it avoids the pitfalls of anything experimental or avant-garde (i.e. people saying _I don't understand it_ or _I can't dance to it_ or _jazz is stupid—why can't they just play the right notes?_) and instead evokes a scene in a subterranean club in Greenwich Village. If you can't picture Greenwich, it's a brighter, not-built-so-high part of Manhattan, but maintains its charm by crumbling and being bustling like the rest of New York—think some nice neighborhoods, some low-rent tenement porn on display, pizzerias and whiz-kid chefs on the same block but most importantly: there be artists here. Comics, creators, musicians shooting their shot and often within spitting distance of greatness. A Cincinnati office clerk might have spent her vacation to come and do stand-up at a club for two nights for no pay _but_ a shot at being seen by Marc Maron or Jimmy Fallon. Not only is it worth her while but it's fun to see someone live that dream in realtime. In the 40s, 50s, 60s, you're really playing among and for the musical elite if you've got a spot playing a set for New York bohos and the elites who slum it alongside them. And I donno Bill Evans from anyone but he's practiced and riffed and soloed all his life to be this fixture here and put it on wax, and nothing's off, it's really quite pleasant. If that sounds boring it's because those jazz acts that make this sound easy have made countless appearances in scores and soundtracks and movies and TV and being played on the sound system of your restaurant or coffee house or public radio station playing in your kitchen—the sound is ubiquitous, but it's talents like this trio who made it so. That's why I say: forget comparing this to pop music or other jazz you're familiar with and sink into the frame of the picture. Can you be Kerouac snapping his fingers at a dark table at the Vanguard? Can you be a CBS Records exec just stepped out of a cab and down half a flight of stairs below the street, sipping gin and smoking and feeling very accomplished, having brought this sound to the fore, to the masses? Can you be the person for whom this was the leading edge of culture, and you get to witness it in that basement? That's what this record is trying to do for you. Should you let it.

4/1089 Scroobius Pip: _The Beatles? *Just a band.*_ Have they got some bangers? Definitely, and this record is no different. Hugely influential? Undeniably. A PBS kids show version of rock'n'roll? Assuredly.

My one two three foe five FIFTH Sufjan Stevens: Illinois 🌟🌟🌟🌟 This period of music—that is acoustic guitars and choirs and horns and handclaps—I ignored or missed out on. All I'd ever heard was All Things Go. Wow, most of it is really powerful. Particularly John Wayne Gacy (though morbid, it of course wonders how'd this happen? and mourn the children) and then, WOW Cassimir Pulaski Day, which I don't totally get but holy shit it's sad. So I was listening to Crazier Things, Chelsea Cutler and Noah Kahan's tear-jerker and I thought Cassimir is like that, but here's the kicker It seems real. Cutler/Kahan are singing something that maybe happened. But it's young love whatcha gonna do. Sad regardless. Stevens is singing something that probably happened. Even if it's just a poem though, it's deeper. That might be the whole album. A poem that might have happened.

Day Six: Thelonius Monk, _Brilliant Corners_ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Getting through the jazz records. Not qualified to speak on them. But I guess Monk was the second-best-selling jazz player of all time. And you know: good for him. That he was born as jazz was in its nascent phase and had his influences and his training (classical training that he eventually withdrew from, and playing in a high school he dropped out of, by this time knowing his path to playing the unorthodox and becoming his own style) knew what he wanted and pursued it. I like to think he had the edge and the talent and vision of, say, Dizzy Gillespie without the _put on a kind face and play for the people, get the job done and be upright and personable_ (he didn't, didn't have the time nor patience for the people or the press or the critics, had his style and his music and that was that) and the fire and fury of Miles Davis but was reticent. While neither suffered fools, Monk seemed to have his private _pride_ in a take-me-or-leave-me way... none of this _motherfucker! ain't a backstory to me: I'm just good!_ seething that Davis was known for. So flamboyant Miles Davis has some funny anecdotes to his life (breaking his legs because he crashed his Lamborghini so decisively) but Thelonius Monk is solely known for upholding a jazz man's mystique and proving his chops, if eventually also nbeing known for demanding and unstable ways. I assume the only doubters were outside of jazz circles and that every family member, friend, musician universally loved him even as his genius gave way to irascibility and madness. Again I'd say: imagine his charisma, bringing the talent together that he did, the records he sold and legendary shows he played and imagine the power he conveyed at his piano and in this way you maybe feel the full force of him even when you're listening to a 70-year-old record like Brilliant Corners.

Jacques Brel, _Olympia '64_ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I thought _Good God, more jazz??_ But no, definitely more along the lines of French folk balladeer. What would this sound like if he wasn't speaking incomprehensible gibberish? Well, Leonard Cohen obviously. Man, this is great cigarettes and coffee music. This would be the soundtrack to my life as I cross bridges with _mon petit ami_ on chilly morning walks. Even the opener, Port d'Amsterdam (though to Anglais-speaking ears, words that sound like a pet rodent) conjures images of sailing and coastlines full of mystique and bustling Euro towns and music and art that are simultaneously evolving independent of/ influencing/ being influenced by American folk and bohemian culture. I'm honestly shocked I never heard of the man before. Recommended.