Like a cross between landfill indie and yacht rock whatever this is deserves an even more derogatory genre name. It’s this sort of stuff that made watching Grey’s Anatomy so hard to watch. I keep getting visions of Ellen Pompeo emoting in a rainstorm while this bloke witters on (That’s the genre name - it’s ABC Soundsystem) Night and Day is a bit of a banger, though. (Lest you think I only wanna dance my favorite Hot Chip song is Made in the Dark.) If it wasn’t for the grating effect of his voice it would be too featherweight to make any impact at all. The only reason to hear this before I die is as a warning that this might be playing in purgatory and I need to up my karma points sharp-ish in order to skip the waiting room.
Look Bob Marley is good and important and all that but I’m never going to choose sit down and listen to an album (unless directed to do so). The big hits have been omnipresent since, well since he died at least. Three Little Birds is taught to schoolkids! For me the band’s a little too tight, the production’s a little too clean, the tunes are a little too catchy, and the lyrics a little too….what? Outside my expererience? A little too spiritual (for me, personally). I can recognise it’s a good album, but it’s not my bag, man.
Never loved Morrissey. Maybe I was one or two years too young, or maybe he was too hard to “relate to” (relate to for boys into music means - “wants to be” or “wants to fuck” - neither of which was a very appealing proposition for me) Maybe I was too swept up in the popular trope of him being a fey miserabilist. For whatever reason, I was never “into” The Smiths. I liked the singles and Johnny Marr okay but never really went deeper. So sitting down to listen to this for really the first time the first thing that struck me was how rocking the bass and drums are. Well done! Obviously the jangle of Marr is the perfect complement to the whine of Morrissey. It is known. The album rattles along pleasantly with the occasional example of (what critics are contractually obliged to refer to as “mordant wit” cutting through. I actually enjoyed it much more than I thought it would, and am tempted to delve deeper into to the catalogue despite his unsurprising (to some of us) lurch to the right.
Now this is what I was hoping for from this project - an album I’d never heard (and would be unlikely to listen to unprompted) from an iconic artist! Sadly, I don’t much care for it. It’s much sloooower than I was expecting, and um….mushier? And his voice, though excellent I’m sure, is a hard sell for me.All in all, it’s well done but not my bag. Man.
Do you ever wonder if you even like music? I think what I like is songs i.e Words. A lot of instrumental music does little or nothing for me. Jimmy Smith was obviously hugely um….instrumental in popularizing the organ as a jazz instrument, thereby creating a sort of jazz/soul crossover that presaged the whole acid jazz thing, but we can hardly hold that against him. This album works best for me when it’s at its, and I can only apologize for this, funkiest, which is to say the two tracks he wrote. It is inescapably cool, it’s the sort of album I’d like to be caught listening to more than I’d actually like to listen to it.
I did not need to hear this before I died. In fact, by about halfway through I was actively wishing I wouldn’t make it. This, AT BEST, belongs in the book 1001 Albums to Hear Before You Turn 12. Just when you think it can’t get worse than Charlotte the Harlot, they hit you with the 10 minute long opus Phantom of the Opera (fast twiddly bit, dramatic bit, fast twiddly bit, repeat until will to live is fully sapped) which is enough to make you reassess your relationship to the work of Andrew Lloyd Webber. I imagine this is suppose to represent a turning point and the start of the new British metal scene or whatever, but really who cares?
To be honest having read about it I was expecting this album to be much grittier and searing than it is, but I guess that’s what you get at the Newport Jazz Festival. Probably I would prefer “Muddy Waters at Some Dive with Sweat Running Down the Walls 1955”, but still, it IS pretty good although the live element doesn’t add much for me.
I was just assigned Exodus the other day so this is coming at a good time for me. I prefer this one, but whether that’s because I’m a simple man with simple tastes, have bad taste or am just incredibly shallow I couldn’t tell you. None of which is to say its themes are any less heavy in places just that they’re wrapped up in catchier tunes - but again I am just a simple creature of the heath.
I’ve been meaning to get round to a deep dive into Elton John albums for a while. People always rave about his early 70s work but I’ve never really heard anything except the omnipresent hits. After this I’m still not convinced there’s a non-omnipresent hit worth listening to. Look I’m no different to anyone else we all like screeching Benn-ay at the top of larynxes and laughing at the weird squelchy 70s synth sounds but what else are people getting out of this? ‘Cos I’m not getting it. It’s vaguely interesting how even to my cloth-ears the opening instrumental is immediately recognizable as an Elton John song though. Not bad for a lyricist. Also, why does he repeatedly say I’m batshit during “Dirty Little Girl”. Also, do you think they had The Who in mind when they recorded Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting because if so it’s a perfect pastiche, possibly even more than The Who’s version of it.
Such a piece of its (and my) time - BIG drums! shimmery guitars! Incomprehensible yelling! What a time to be 18! This album was always on in someone or other’s room but I was never really into it or really listened to it until now. It’s surprisingly good! I reckon the girl goes onto become quite successful in her own right and the others fade into obscurity
This doesn’t change my opinion that there are no Elton John album tracks really worth bothering with, but it comes closer to changing my mind than Goodbye Yellow Brick Road did. Tiny Dancer is so good that not being able to resist singing “Hold me closer, Tony Danza” doesn’t even ruin it.
I knew I was supposed to like this album but Brett Anderson’s voice has always been too hard a sell for me to ever engage with it. I don’t mind a bit of seedy self-pity but this more than enough for me. There’s no truth to the rumour I just made up that The Verve’s The Drugs Don’t Work was written after listening to this album for a week.
When this came out I read the reviews and thought it was going to be some sort of whiny, miserabilist, folky experience. And then I heard Chicken Bones. The lesson is either don’t believe reviews or I should work on my reading comprehension.
This album smacks of they got to album number 1000 and realized they should have another country album in there, found this one and thought “that’ll do”. Maybe it represents a major leap forward in the creation of “outlaw country” or something but listening to it with my 2026 ears it’s fine, nothing special
I admit I’ve never really got why Wonder’s run of 70’s albums are all so highly rated in the pantheon, but I’ve also never made myself sit and listen to one either and you know what they say about “contempt prior to investigation” (Can you tell me because I’ve always concluded that line is bullshit so I’ve never got to the end of it).Anyway, I could live without the soppier ballads, but outside of that this is good and Superstition endows whatever it comes into contact with an en extra star (I don’t make the rules. I mean, I do but I just make them up without thinking about them)
I’ve always (at the risk of being thought a massive weirdo - as ever) thought that there’s a chance Paul Simon is UNDERrated as a songwriter. Maybe because he hasn’t made that many good albums - but this might honestly be my favorite. What’s not to like? Mother and Child Reunion? Good, Me and Julio? Good. Meat? Good. Hang on I thought I was Joey Tribbiani for a minute. Duncan? Good. Are thise pan pipes sort of cliched and annoying? Sure, but they’re only cliched because of the phase he went through of slapping them on all over. It’s kind of slight, but also kinda great.
