I read a review that John Lennon albums leave an impression, but probably more on him than on us. It sounds like he’s working out a lot of family and Beatles issues (as a result of his unfinished primal scream therapy) but for me a lot of rockier songs sound like the type of classic rock that’s a bit boring to me. Some of the slower songs I like, like Working Class Hero and Love. I also like Isolation, how it mostly sounds like a Randy Newman song but the middle is filled with shouts of anger and desperation.
Apparently you can tell this album cover apart from Yoko Ono’s album of the same name because he’s leaning on her in this one but she’s leaning on him on her album cover.
A really mind blowing opener (Baba O’Reilly) and closer (Won’t Get Fooled Again) and lots of other great songs in between. I love the synth organ sound mixed with the guitars. Now that I that this was from a failed rock opera (Lifehouse) I can’t help hearing how stage-musical some of these songs sound (even though they’re great). I enjoyed listening to it, but it didn’t really move me in any significant way.
In general I like downtempo electronica, but I found this album quite boring. Maybe it’s over-familiarity with the songs, but I think the fact they were all used in advertising probably says a lot about the bland universality of them. I thought the Pitchfork review was funny - describing this album as fun, functional and disposable - like a condom.
I didn’t realise until reading the Wikipedia page that Moby’s name comes from the fact that he’s a descendent of Herman Melville.
Parklife is technically excellent - great musicianship, cool genre-hopping - but it never quite clicked for me - back when it was released and it still doesn’t today. To me, Blur sometimes sound like they’re sneering at their subjects rather than being part of their world. That said, when they drop the smirk on slower tracks like “To the End” and “This Is a Low,” they’re genuinely moving. Strong 3 stars.
Not for me. I can appreciate her great voice of course, but she doesn’t appeal to me as much as other jazz singers like Nina Simone or Ella Fitzgerald. Vaughan really uses her voice like a jazz improv instrument, and I wonder if that removes some of the human emotion from it for me. She seemed like a really cool person though.
This could be a five star album for me on further listens. Bowie’s voice is ominous and otherworldly, and the freestyle avant-garde jazz is disconcerting. And the context that Bowie started writing this when he was diagnosed with cancer, and only lived a few days past its release, adds another level to baleful atmosphere - reminding me of Mozart’s Requiem and the fact Mozart believed he was writing it for his own death. I think the AllMusic review says it best: “it is music for the dead of night but not moments of desolation; it's created for the moment when reflection can't be avoided”.
I love her voice and the dreamy, spacey production, but overall not for me. I was into some of the songs but stretched out over the entire album I found the sound didn’t keep my interest.
I like the wall of sound, with songs inspired by (or copied from) T. Rex, Stone Roses, the Stones, etc. But I’d much prefer to listen to their influences than originals. Liam has a great voice, and some of the songs are a little catchy (if you ignore Noel’s lyrics), but I don’t really understand how this album made Oasis-mania take hold.
I liked the vibe and the music was great (the drums and especially, for me, Albarn’s piano and organ sound), but it sounded a bit samey over the entire album.
I’d like to listen to this more to see if it grows on me, but didn’t have the chance. I’m not sure rap is for me - the ability to write lyrics like that impresses me but I find the beats pretty boring and the subject matter isn’t for me.
Joan Baez once said, after hearing Dylan sing, “I couldn’t believe something so powerful could come out of that toad”. Not that my opinion counts for much in the light of all the praise that Dylan gets, but I feel the same way. There are some amazing tracks here (Rainy Day Woman, Visions of Johanna, Stuck Inside A Mobile, You Go Your Way) but there’s a bitterness, self-centredness, and dated misogyny to his lyrics that make it hard for me to listen to.
Really liked the psychedelic vibe of the sitar and loved the Moog. Probably not an album I’d listen to too much (and I find the Jumping Jack Flash cover a bit kitsch), but enjoyed listening to it.
I like the themes and the rawness of the albums, but it’s a bit shouty for me. Again, I think if I listened to it more, and if I was in the right headspace, I could rate this higher. Probably 3.5 stars from me.
There’s understandably some filler on this album but the highs are very high. I love the catchy pop, the creativity and breadth, the ironic humour, and the sheer audacity.
This is another album that I don’t mind listening to, but I would probably pick other albums to listen to instead. I enjoyed the blues rock guitars and the growling vocals. I also like that they have an image and the fact that Billy Gibbon plays with a peso. Maybe 3.5 stars.
Love the distorted mic and guitar, makes them sound like The MC5 or The Animals. Also love that this was probably an album about divorce when reviews for the albums were still calling them siblings. Listened to this a few times throughout the day and was looking forward to re-listening every time.
The discordant guitars at the start kind of decided for me that this wasn’t going to be an album I’d enjoy. But why do I like the Smiths and dislike this? Not sure - maybe it’s the absence of Johnny Marr that allows Morrissey to really embrace the mope. Some of the more melodic tracks I liked. I think the Smiths captures this ennui of young adulthood for me, but by this album Morrissey is just being a moaner and contrarian.
A bit too polished, bland, commercial, and some of the songs seem to just blend into each other. They also go on too long, and some of the synth and brass sounds dated. But there are definitely some catchy songs (“Money For Nothing” my favourite with Sting singing about MTV in the background) and Knopfler’s voice has a nice Dylan quality to it.
I don’t think I’d ever listened to a Grateful Dead record before, and it surprised me how soft and country their tracks were. I found this album just ok, maybe 2.5 stars. The musicianship I’m sure is very good, but none of the songs grabbed me and they all seemed to blend into each other.
Great, dark, but hopeful tracks. You can really still hear Bowie’s influence even though Iggy was trying to make his own mark. Passenger and Lust for Life are the highlights for me, and loved the mood in general, but the whole thing didn’t quite come together. Probably a 3.5.
Probably a 3.5. Has the sound of what I’d consider the 80s on an album from the 70s - synth and echoing vocals. There’s probably too much experimentation which results in an uneven album (some songs sound like parodies of Alice Cooper or Randy Newman) but Solsbury Hill and Here Comes The Flood are five-star tracks.
Great album. Not my favourite Smiths album but still great. I sometimes find Morrissey’s lyrics unsettling and he’s definitely a moaner, but Marr’s music is good (although I still like the older jingle-jangle guitar sound). Girlfriend in a Coma and Death of a Disco are obvious favourites, but I like Paint a Vulgar Picture too.
Musically experimental glam rock and a proto-Bowie sound. Started a bit better than it finished for me (Needles in the Camels Eye and Baby’s on Fire are highlights for me, not that the other songs are too far behind). I find it a pity that the lyrics are such nonsense and free-associative, although they do have a sense of humour which I appreciate.
Noisy post-punk. I liked Catholic Block but would like to give this more of a listen and I’m looking forward to going back to it again.
Starts real strong with the bluesy swamp rock number Born on the Bayou (full of Southern references but band were born and raised in California). Proud Mary is another good track (although slightly slower and less rocky than I remember it). Overall the rest of the tracks don’t live up to those tracks - the drums feel a bit plodding and there isn’t the same intensity in the guitar and vocals.
This album sounds like punked-up, glammy Stones-rock. I love their energy, their anarchism, and their individuality. I also love the context of the band - a bunch of heroic-addicted, sexually ambiguous young men causing people to walk out of their gigs - the fact the they were voted both best and worst band in the Creem reader poll - a teenage Morrissey being enraptured with them on the Old Grey Whistle Test - Bowie at their gigs taking notes. The story of Johansen falling asleep at the record company meeting and waking up when Todd Rundgren’s name was mentioned and him reluctantly taking the gig. The chaos of the recording and mixing sessions. The supposedly bad musicianship (but I guess it doesn’t sound so bad when you know what punk is) and, as Pitchfork said, “as if the lyrics in Grease had been re-written by Bukowski”. I love the whole package.
I quite like The Hives music, but I find it very hard to love. I’m not a fan of the early-2000s garage-rock revival generally, and the fact that they misunderstood the dictionary definition of “hives” and thought they were naming themselves after a highly infectious and lethal disease hints at their inauthenticity. All their commercialism and fame-seeking is a turn off to me. Some of the songs on this compilation are just slightly heavier versions of all that generic garage-rock that was around at the time, but some of the songs from their first album that appear on this compilation (Untutored Youth, A.K.A I.D.I.O.T) sound like 90s so-cal punk bands like Offspring. Apparently their live shows are great, but I saw them at Witnness in 2002 and don’t remember being blown away.
To my untrained ear they sound like a cross between Oasis and a sort of beige Stone Roses. That’s almost definitely selling them short - not just because of their commercial success and critical acclaim but because they do sound like they’re trying to make their own unique sound. It’s hard to listen to these tracks with fresh ears due to the amount of airplay they’ve gotten over the years, but even the hits do nothing for me. Wikipedia said people likened Ashcroft to early-80s Bono and I agree, but like Bono he sounds like he heads off on a deeply emotional journey leaving me behind. I like the (over) earnestness of Ashcroft’s lyrics and the fact that the seemed to care about making a good record, but this is probably a 2.5 stars from me.
I guess they’re my favourite band named after a gym teacher. It’s real good guitar and Ronnie Van Sant’s amazing vocals soaring over them. I love Simple Man and of course Free Bird. Won’t be reaching for this often but it was a pleasure to listen to. Probably a 3.5.
I guess like Billy Bragg from the same era, I admire more than enjoy their anger at the world. You can hear the bands they inspired for the rest of the 80s with their guitar pop sound, but I found Paul Weller’s bitterness and echo vocals to grate a little over the entire album. Would still listen to it again though, probably 3.5.
Of all the bands considered Brit-pop, Suede are probably my favourite. I was already familiar with this album and I love the glam, haunted sound of Brett Andersons vocals and the beautiful distorted guitars. While other Brit-pop bands were a mix of the Beetles and The Stone Roses, Suede feels more like a mix of Bowie and The Smiths.
I think it says a lot about the quality of song writing and the emotion in the performances that I can hear these familiar hits and I’m still not sick of them. Sure, there are still some Eurovision-quality songs in here (“Wish is was Dum Dum Diddle, your darling fiddle”) and there are few filer songs I think, but overall a record I’d be happy to stick on again.
The radio-friendly almost R&B commercial tracks like Juicy don’t appeal to me much, but I really like the storytelling and humour on the other tracks. There’s some grit or funk to this album that catches me more than other rap albums. Really enjoyed it overall.
I do like that blue-eyes soul sound, even if the only track I know from this album is Son of a Preacher Man. There is something lazy, loungy, longing about the songs. It was interesting to read about the temper tantrums she had during the recording, and I didn’t realise she was English, or Irish descent (Mary O’Brien!). For me lots of the tracks feel a little flat, but I’d love to have it on in the background during dinner.
I’m just not a jazz fusion guy. The album opens with some lovely synth and bass on Birdland, sounding like pleasant theme music to a 70s morning show, but then loses it half way through. There are some nice driving beats on the tracks, and I particularly enjoyed Rumba Mama. I’m obviously the one at fault here, but I don’t understand how musicians at the top of their game can make a sax-synth duet on Palladium sound like a duck quacking along to some elevator Muzak. Not for me - it sounds like the stuff Howard Moon listens to in The Mighty Boosh - but I’m glad there are musical tastes in this world besides mine.
It feels like you’re listening to David Byrne’s inner monologue on this album, in all its anxious glory. The drums and bass are a nervous heartbeat in sync with the agitated vocals, so when you hear the steel drums or marimba on some tracks it’s a jolt. I don’t warm to this album on initially, but by the time Psycho Killer game on I couldn’t help dancing a little. It’s funny to think Talking Heads were considered punk - performing at CBGBs and supporting the Ramones - there’s a lot more going on in their songs apart from rage and angst.
Great album - one of those where I started adding songs to my liked songs and then almost added every song. There are a few songs that don’t catch me, but overall it’s full of hits.
Really nice, chill bossa nova. Girl from Ipanema sets the tone and the whole album makes you feel like you’re winding down gently after a hot summer’s day.
Great album. Some good rock songs on it but my preference was for the slower songs. Still so much bitterness and a his naive sense of can’t we all just get along” while he lives in a mansion is still there, but I prefer this to his first solo album.
It has some really bongo-rific tracks, but I don’t know when I’d ever listen to this again. Not enough in there for me to sit down and listen to it, too energetic to have on in the background, too dated to throw on at a party. Most of its appeal to me is how recognisable its beats are after being sampled in hip-hop so often. Great musicianship, but it just sounds like the chase music for movies it was designed to be. Probably 2.5 stars.
I can’t really empathise with gangsta rap (I know Ice Cube called it “reality rap”, but the reality it glorified was the violence and misogyny of life, never the may other parts of reality) however, the energy and the healthy disrespect of authority are something I would have loved more when I was a teenager. The album started stronger with the first three songs (Straight Outta Compton, Fuck Tha Police, Gangsta Gangsta) but I felt a lot of the rest of the album was filler (with the exception of Express Yourself). Probably 2.5 stars.
I can’t help compare this to Joni Mitchell’s Blue, so I was surprised to hear they were being recorded simultaneously in the same studio. However, while Blue feels really heartfelt, for some reason this album doesn’t get me in the feels like everyone else. It’s nice, probably 3.5 stars, but I’m not in a rush to stick it on again.
I resisted listening to this album because I thought it would be it would be hard-to-listen-to experimental electronic music, and the first minute of the first track (The Robots) only confirmed my suspicions. But by the time we’d got to the instantly recognisable The Model I was in synth-heaven. You can hear the future influences in the music - Vangelis’s Balderunner in Metropolis, Gary Newman’s synth, the 80s techno-pop. Some of the tracks didn’t grab me (Spacelab felt like a retro-futuristic disco hit, and Neon Lights was a bit too simplistic), but overall I loved it.
For such an influential album - the album that brought blues to a suburban audience and across the Atlantic to the likes of the Rolling Stones - and for a live album of a reportedly legendary performance, for some reason I remained pretty much unmoved by this album. I don’t think I’m an electro-blues fan but I do love the energy of a live album, but this don’t sound like a live album until we got to I’ve Got My Mojo Working and you could hear the audience react. Until that point I hadn’t really reacted either. I guess not for me, but I’d happily listen to it again some time. 3 stars.
The opening track, White Light/White Heat, sounds like it’s had a few seconds trimmed off the start so you’re launched straight into a noise-rock hellscape. The level of distortion in the album reduces the quality enough that I initially thought this was a home recording made before their & Nico album. I love the rawness and weirdness and rebellion and defiance. And it’s awesome to end with Sister Ray, “the big bang of noise-rock”.
I feel all my friends had a copy of this in their car for a while in the early 2000s. Great album, loads of energy, funky slap-bass and edgy lyrics. Second half of the album tails off a little.
This album was fine, but it’s the sort of thing I’d have on in the background. I liked the violin on the first track, but the dissonance throughout isn’t my cup of tea.
I just love this slimy, sleazy, glammy rock sound. It’s tied up with memories of listening to T. Rex on cassette in my friend’s kitchen on our school lunch break, and so many of the tracks on here are favourites.
As a critic said about Newman’s sarcastic criticisms of society, it’s a dirty job but literally no one has to do it. Newman is like a tragic clown, he can’t help satirising the crowd even while they misunderstand him and throw stuff at him. His liberal armchair critiques probably don’t have any real effect on his true audience apart from make them feel better about themselves. His music is somewhere between dated piano bar songs, stage musical numbers, and catchy nursery rhymes. And yet I still love him. This album, with the explosive Rednecks opener, paints a vivid picture of the south and its characters, with bravado and sadness and everything in between.
When Gloria and Redondo Beach come on, I wonder why I don’t listen to this album more, but as the album goes on the spoken word begins to grate a little. I think this deserves a closer listen to me, then maybe it’d be a 5.
A friend burnt me a copy of this in the early 2000s because he thought I’d like it, and I wore out the CD. Some of the critical reviews I’ve seen were that they just ripped off the sound of other famous bands and don’t have a style of their own, but I love the 60s psychedelic sound mixed with sea shanties and ska. I love the eclecticism, and the saltwater soaked and threatening sound in the tracks is totally my jam.
I was only familiar with the title song on the album but I wish I’d discovered it sooner. I’m always in the mood for a bit of nostalgic melancholy. Although I wish one review didn’t point out that you could play “kids” bingo with this album - he does says “kids” a distracting amount of times! It does feel like it gets a bit samey towards the end and the run length could have been cut down. I’m looking forward to listening to it more.
One of my favourite albums. I read in a 33 1/3 book about the album being recorded during the Cuban missile crisis - the idea that all the people in the crowd were living under the imminent possibility of mutually assured destruction adds a mania to their cheers and screams. James Brown brings so much energy it leaves you breathless and the hits just run into one another. My only complaint is that it’s over in a shot.
Bluesy carnival music heard in a bar at 3am. I love the dark humour in the lyrics, and the tribal percussion under the swaggering guitar.
