Sweet, late 60s original hippy vibes. Easy to listen to, but nothing really stands out for me on this. I feel they have their best work very much ahead at this point!
Some beautiful sad, real sentiments and washy lush sonic-scapes. The wrestling with God is both appealing and off-putting for me. I got quite bored and had to take a break about 2/3rds of the way in though. I had listened to some of the somgs off this before but not the whole album. Quite samey in places with occasional flourishes. Feels like it would benefit from cutting down to the old school 45 mins maybe. Again very of its time.
Very much what I think of when I think of dad rock. Only 30 mins but I got pretty bored. American Girl at the end sort of brought it back. Quite catchy and the sort of thing I could (and probably have) enjoy dancing to at Dad Rock at the Hope and Ruin. Over all though, this just entrenched me in my feelings on Tom Petty.
I wouldn't really listen to this now, but it was something I loved and was surrounded by 20-odd years ago. It was funny to revisit it. Energetic and throw away and big. Death drives and love-woes under the indie-club lights. It's not for me now, it's for me and my friends in our early 20s. And some music needs to be for odd, jerky, awkward kids. I think it holds up better than a lot of indie from that time, but that's probably not saying much.
Evocative. Miserable. Enjoyable. An emptiness in the sound that feels intentional and like a grey 80s day on a boarded up highstreet with towerblocks. Swishy synth sounds. Drained vocals. The hits are songs I have played and heard a million times. I mostly kinda enjoyed the rest but also felt a bit weighed down. I liked the abstract number at the end, which I hadn't heard before.
Great to revisit this. I still love the straight-up, dramatic, brilliantly executed instrumentation and wild, dark, playful poetry. Gloria and Land: Horses.. were always my favourites and still still stand out to me with their 60s R&B/soul references, semi-religious/sacrareligious vibes, and particular playfulness in the lyrics. There's something really brilliant for me in how it plays with and twists rock'n'roll story tropes and imagery, and that was certainly a lot of the appeal when I was younger and more obsessed with that stuff. I enjoyed the whole thing though, just as it started to get a bit samey something shifts up, a well structured album in that way. Kimberley and Elegie also stood out. I'd like to spend some time with other Patti Smith records, I haven't done much of that.
This album still absolutely kicks it. So fun and bolshy. Of its time in a fun way. Nostalgic for me for several periods of my life, and I think also just a solid album. Well structured. Entertaining. Well put together, exciting, mid-90s (popish, rapish)rave. Playing at shock value in a way I find myself throughly respecting looking back at how rave culture was perceived at the time. Tbf this came out a month or two before my 15th birthday when i was already obsessed with their hits off this and Music For The Jilted Generation, and loving it in that teen way and then again later as a raver through my late teens, 20s and 30s defo plays into it, but yeah. It does exactly what it sets out to do with aplomb. Banger.
Started out well. Into the opening track, didn't mind it being long at all. Golden Years is one of my all time favs. But felt boring and self indulgent by the end, last track reminded me of the music of boringly self-indulgent friends. Overall gonna give it a 4 because it has one of my favourite songs on it and was mostly enjoyable.
Fine I guess, for what it is. Nothing to write home about. I was trying to think what might be interesting about it beyond just being connected to CSN... I guess maybe 69 is early for this sort of thing, particular style of solo guy from band does kind of dull meander album. Maybe? I can't say it feels like something that needs marking anyway. I wrote the above before Arlen did their digging out from the book. Gonna leave as is. Lol.
Found this pretty boring. Miserable drunk white boomer men music. Claiming to give itself knowing glances, but they feel not very knowing. Of its time in a bad way. Trundled along ok I guess, and something in his vocal style appeals to a part of me... but not for me.
Ah, oof, it's amazing pop music, mostly utterly brilliant with a couple of clangers (no one needs The Girl Is Mine and it peters out kinda floppily after being so strong and ordered in such an engaging way for almost the whole thing). It's so tied up in my past. I love the intros (Billie Jean!), outros, nonsense "youa vegetable!" Also tho it's not just PYT that sits different now, and it'sgard yo feel the wild abandon it was all about. Oh Michael, you talented creepy pedo. I think that review Felix shared can't be bettered tbh. Classic album, but pedo. But with some reticence I'm giving it a 4.
Plenty to like about this and also a bit dull in places. Nice to hear something new that caught my attention. Hallucinations was a highlight. I loved the percussion and weird sounds on that. The late 60s vocal styles and sensibilities appeal to me. The warbling about a woman and fantasy wotsits a bit less so. I would give this a 3.45 if I could.
I love this album. Part of that is nostalgia from my childhood and from various phases of life, returning new and different each time. Part of it is the imperfect connection it gives to South Africa through the amazing musicians he worked with to make it, a home in that for me due to my own complex relationship to that part of the world. A lot of it is their contributions and the wild expansiveness in much of the sound, the musical dances and interplays. Something too in that 'working together', the interweaving. It's also the mastery with which it's crafted as an album imo, the way the ordering of the songs adds and builds and takes you on a proper journey. I find a playful, emotional, expansive, every day human religious undercurrent in it that is right up my alley too. Some aspects of the context of this album and some of the lyrics on some tracks seem very of their time and a turn off, but in general it's just so damn beautiful imo.
Chugger chugger yellow howl proto-punk/driving garage that I feel has its place but not so much in my life these days. I Need Somebody stood out as being a bit of a change in vibe. I think there are times in my life I would have enjoyed the excitement in this more, and I can defo hear its influence on some bands I liked in my youth (elements of Primal Scream in particular) but tbh it feels like fairly pointless messy swagger. There's better Stooges available too.
I liked this! Wild, fun drumming and rhythms. Manifesto-like vibes at times. Playfully insistent. A strong start for The Fall that seems to lay out their ways and intentions. I'm into it.
Interesting! Glad to have encountered it and to have heard something new. I'm not so into the metal/punk slap bass, jangly guitars and swift changes thing, it just doesn't do it for me, although it was interesting to hear in this more punk rock context that felt like it bridged something in that direction in Beefheart and the way it develops later. The tracks that were doing other stuff (sudden surf rock! Ooh, oddly sincere accoustic moment) I really rather liked, and there's an open playfulness in the lyrics and approach that's fun! Even within all the irony. Overall though, too long imo and lots that I just wasn't that into.
Yes! I like this a lot. Album tracks and all. The singles are stand out bangers I have heard and played a million times, and not tired of. It feels accomplished for a first album. I feel I would listen to the album as a whole again and will probably come back to some of the album tracks in their own right. I've Got An Angel, Jennifer, This City Never Sleeps. This is bold and bright. Strong, emotional pop. Sad and ecstatic. Great vocals. Some cool instrumentation (although also a few moments where it's a bit sleasy/much). More of an album album than I anticipated.
Possibly my favourite album by possibly my favourite band. It was always going to be a 5 from me! What a treat to listen to it all again in all it's glorious silliness and deep feeling and fairground music hall and wild innovation. I love it so much. The playful, perfect instrumentation. Sublime and ridiculous. The way the tracks play off each other and make something much bigger than even these dear songs in some kind of wild emergent process. Joy and dramatic despair and freedom and expansiveness opening up. What a gift to folks who going through (and who have been through) big conscious changes in wide-eyed, already world weary, messy ways. The sound of shedding your skin, shaking and shuddering through the changes.
Some beauty here. Some tragic in love with/shocked by the story he's a part of that I found kind of annoying as I encountered it yesterday, but is also an amazing situator into the moment it was created I guess. Weird echos and shadows that feel seen in it. I was a bit reactive to this yesterday, but it's still a bit on the trite side for me.
Yeah. Good for a worn out train trip home. Probs more like a 3.6 but that gets it a 4.
Not my favourite Beatles album, but this is beautiful. All My Lovin, You Really Got a Hold On Me and Money are highlights. Beautiful harmonies, expressions of caught up yearning and devotion. Some tracks hit it less for sure, but yeah, overall a banger.
What a timeless banger of an album. It has really grown with me over the years in different phases of life, and expresses so beautifully a lot of what life is, layers and different parts of experience. It's worth listening to many times over time. Accomplished, beautiful, far-ranging music. Real, expansive, devotional. Brilliant record.
Lush and lovely, expansive, playful, innovative hip-hop. Great to revisit this band and hear the whole album. Cheered me up on a bit of an urgh work day, but really this should be for lounging about in a park on a hot, bright day feeling free I think. I found it a bit long, but I don't think I would in that context. Eye Know is such an amazing tune.
Quite dire. The level of careless abuse and misogyny in the lyrics is something else. Some of these songs I used to bop along to and not think too hard about the lyrics. Cor! That seems messed up now. Some of the music is OK, but only OK really. If Paint It Black was on the version we were looking at that would have raised it a point. That's a banger. But my god.
There are elements of this I like. It's fun in places, and teenagers need something to let it out with. But it just feels a bit empty to me, and did even when I was young, when it came out. I enjoyed the rhythm section this time. I didn't finish it but that's more to do with how impossibly busy I was yesterday. It's more of a 2.5.
A bit dreary and bland mostly. Mix feels off. Quite liked the first track and a few others. Interesting to hear their biggest album all thr way through, as I never have. They've never really landed for me and this didn't change that. I won't be repeating the experience.
Beautiful. Two sides doing different things. Miles Davis' playing is unreal in its gorgeousness as ever. I love the antsyness in the drums and swirly intense Hammond on Shhh / Peaceful. Miles weaving through it and then leaving and returning. In a Silent Way is so beautiful, gentle and then not. Surprising and steady and full of gorgeous melody. I hadn't heard this one before and I can tell I will return to it again and again.