123
Albums Rated
3.47
Average Rating
11%
Complete
966 albums remaining
Rating Distribution
Rating Timeline
Taste Profile
1970
Favorite Decade
Soul
Favorite Genre
UK
Top Origin
Wordsmith
Rater Style ?
28
5-Star Albums
7
1-Star Albums
Breakdown
By Genre
Top Styles
By Decade
By Origin
Albums
You Love More Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Sweetheart Of The Rodeo
The Byrds
|
5 | 2.82 | +2.18 |
|
Bone Machine
Tom Waits
|
5 | 2.84 | +2.16 |
|
Will The Circle Be Unbroken
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
|
5 | 2.99 | +2.01 |
|
Music From The Penguin Cafe
Penguin Cafe Orchestra
|
5 | 3.01 | +1.99 |
|
Eternally Yours
The Saints
|
5 | 3.06 | +1.94 |
|
Hejira
Joni Mitchell
|
5 | 3.14 | +1.86 |
|
Loveless
My Bloody Valentine
|
5 | 3.18 | +1.82 |
|
A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector
Various Artists
|
5 | 3.3 | +1.7 |
|
Bitches Brew
Miles Davis
|
5 | 3.3 | +1.7 |
|
If I Should Fall From Grace With God
The Pogues
|
5 | 3.33 | +1.67 |
You Love Less Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
|
The Marshall Mathers LP
Eminem
|
1 | 3.47 | -2.47 |
|
A Rush Of Blood To The Head
Coldplay
|
1 | 3.44 | -2.44 |
|
Viva Hate
Morrissey
|
1 | 2.96 | -1.96 |
|
Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Country Joe & The Fish
|
1 | 2.84 | -1.84 |
|
Scott 4
Scott Walker
|
1 | 2.81 | -1.81 |
|
Trafalgar
Bee Gees
|
1 | 2.63 | -1.63 |
|
Haut de gamme / Koweït, rive gauche
Koffi Olomide
|
1 | 2.61 | -1.61 |
|
Rio
Duran Duran
|
2 | 3.5 | -1.5 |
|
The Suburbs
Arcade Fire
|
2 | 3.49 | -1.49 |
|
Parachutes
Coldplay
|
2 | 3.46 | -1.46 |
5-Star Albums (28)
View Album Wall
Popular Reviews
Coldplay · 4 likes
2/5
If Tofu teamed up with White Bread and formed a band.
Inoffensive but bland. Obviously plays well with some, but just seems dull.
Just when they get your hopes up and seem about to do something interesting - like in Shiver, which starts with a noisy bang - it doesn't last and slips back into blandness.
And the falsetto whining doesn't help.
Even Yellow - the big hit and their claim to immortality - is a pretty generic bit of anthemic rock that seems to aspire to U2 or Radiohead territory but falls short.
Just boring
The Electric Prunes · 2 likes
2/5
Proof, if proof was needed, that not everything recorded in 1967 is a classic worth remembering. Here we have an album that even the band thought was disappointing.
Rushed into the studio to cash in on the moderate success of their two singles, they had their own songs sidelined and were given a set of songs by commercial songwriters and, inexplicably, a cover of a 1932 show tune.
It seems to be a story of a band thinking they were important artists and the label seeing them as the songwriters vehicle.
The album is all over the shop. There's some Psychedelia, a protest song, some soft, chart friendly love songs, a couple of novelty hits and the one song the band did write pretty much convinces you that they were better off with the label's writers.
Probably the best things on the record are the two singles and Try Me On For Size, which is musically fine, although, to be honest, the lyrics are of the 60s, creepy, just-a-bit-rapey variety that passed for manly, tough guy that the girls can't pass up in 67.
So its a bit of a label cash on a sort of successful band, with the singles, some future singles and a bit of filler. To be clear, for every Revolver, or Blonde on Blonde, there were probably 50 albums made like this. The question remains, of course, why is it on this list? I pause for a reply.
Bob Dylan · 1 likes
4/5
Time was when Dylan was a prophet, writing songs that immediately became part of the language.
By the time this album came about it was 20 years since Desire - the last gasp of greatness. Then came a long string of mediocre albums that were notable more for how divisive they were.
But from the first notes of this you know you're back in the hands of a master.
Is it another Blonde on Blonde or Highway 61 Revisited? Well, no. But albums like that are few and far between
Here, a crack band slithers through blues riffs while Dylan sings about lost love. Highlights are Love Sick, Standing in the Doorway and Cold Irons Bound, but everything is good.
The last track - Highlands - is 16 minutes of certified Dylan oddness, but it's kind of magnificent.
It would be another 20 years until he produced an album anywhere near this good - Rough and Rowdy Ways.
Beck · 1 likes
3/5
Utterly beautiful sounding album. Richly produced with some lush string arrangements and lovely arrangements backing an intimately recorded Beck.
But what a misery. 12 slow to medium tempo ballads with more sadness than a country and western album.
And yes, he had just broken up with his long term partner and his heart was broken, but an hour of it is a bit of a trial to listen to. The comedian Bill Bailey said, "I wrote a song for Adele called, I Broke Up with My Boyfriend, But I'm Not Going to Go On About It" and really you could make the same joke about Beck.
I would certainly listen to individual songs again but sitting through the whole thing seems too much to ask.
Meat Puppets · 1 likes
4/5
On the first track they come on like Neil Young's noisier cousin, all discordant screaming and weird anger.
Then they settle down into the sort of thing punk psychobilly cowboys might line dance to.
The album is peppered with instrumentals, a bit of gospel, some Nashville, some flat out rock.
It's all over the place like a madwoman's undies and exactly how well known they'd be if Kurt Cobain hadn't announced them on the Unplugged album is up for discussion, but they're kind of fascinating in a strange "can't look away" kind of manner
1-Star Albums (7)
All Ratings
Paul McCartney and Wings
4/5
Beautifully produced
Lett me roll it to you is McCartney doing Lennon.
Lyrics are nonsense.
Paul probably needed someone to tell him "no" and John George and Ringo weren't around.
Bluebird is probably the best thing on the album.
The Flaming Lips
3/5
Sits somewhere between folk and 70s sci fi soundtrack. Like Cat Stevens had a baby with Barbarella
Amy Winehouse
5/5
About as good as albums get. Not a weak song on it and not a moment when her level of performance dips below brilliant.
What a tragedy we lost her.
Various Artists
5/5
Absolute gold.
Darlen Love singing Baby Please Come Home is a powerhouse of Yuletide heartbreak.
Silent Night, however, where Spector himself gives us a little cosy chat is a step too far into kitsch.
Soundgarden
3/5
Has all the 90s grunge cliches with Metal cliches thrown in.
Huge if you like that sort of thing and seemingly designed for disaffected young men.
The Police
4/5
Wildly pretentious (thankyou Sting).
A film of this being recorded would make Let It Be seem tame. They recorded their tracks in separate rooms "for social reasons".
When it's good it's amazing, but there's also a lot of dross.
And then there's "Mother", Andy Summers "Lets give Ringo a song" moment.
And just to point out, Stewart Copeland goes hard on this.
The Louvin Brothers
3/5
The body count on this is incredible.
Death bed confessions; a brother promising to marry the dying other brother's girl, who turns out to be unfaithful anyway; a seven year old has his heart broken when his girl - his one true love - leaves town; young lovers commit suicide because the girl's parents won't let them marry; a man murders a girl for no discernible reason and throws her body in the river, then regrets it because she was "the gal I loved".
I mean... what the actual fark?
The Cars
3/5
If you took a New Wave / Post Punk band like, say Talking Heads or Psychedelic Furs, then sanded off all the edges and applied a high gloss polish, you'd end up with something like The Cars. They're the Post Punk Monkees.
Perfectly crafted for FM radio and they're still being played today.
If you want depth then head to "More Songs About Buildings and Food".
If you want a party soundtrack then this is the one.
Ute Lemper
3/5
Just looking at the names of the songwriters on the album cover and you get a sense of what you're in for. None of them are "less is more" kind of people
Ute Lemper has a wonderful voice and The Divine Comedy is an all right band.
But the whole thing seems overwrought and a bit self-indulgent.
When Joni Mitchell did "Both Sides Now" - a similar "Diva sings with a big backing" collection of songs - she knew how to hold back enough to keep it tasteful.
This doesn't hold back at all and the result is overwhelming. And not entirely in a good way.
Megadeth
3/5
A lot of testosterone produces thr opposite of complex music.
Simple harmonies in 4/4 time and nothing much melodic, but the hook is that it's played fast and loud. They can play, but they fall back on a regular bunch of tricks- the chugging bass, the guitar triplets and so on.
They talk about "socially aware lyrics", but then put the vocals so far back in the mix and the singer is so unclear that you wouldn't know.
I can see the appeal, but it's not really deep. And it's amusing that this gets labelled "extreme metal" when real extreme music like Throbbing Gristle or John Zorn languishes at the bottom of the rankings.
Scott Walker
3/5
To most the 60s mean the Beatles, the British Invasion, The Summer of Love, protest songs, Psychedelia, long guitar jams and ever so groovy drum solos.
But this stuff - the male crooner - was huge. Sinatra was still having hits; Andy Williams and Tom Jones had their own TV shows; there were Engelbert Humperdink, Matt Monroe, Rod McKuen, Roger Whittaker and lots of others who all rode high on the charts at one time or another.
It's all desperately unfashionable today, but the people who say this sounds like unused Bond themes are right - but only because the Bond Producers knew what was huge and used it because people liked it.
Scott Walker is a bit different from the others. First, he was a big fan of Jaques Brel, a man who never met a simile he didn't like. Brel wrote songs that make Jimmy Webb and Jim Steinman seem like models of restraint.
Second, he wrote his own songs that were heavily influenced - oh all right, copies - of Brel. Only he was not quite as good at it as Brel and songs like "Plastic Palace People" are so over written as to be unbelievable.
As an artefact of its time and of a forgotten corner of sixties music it's valuable. 4 Stars.
But as a listening pleasure - not really. 2 stars.
Jack White
4/5
Skates close to pastiche, while remaining being something new.
A touch of Dylan, some Aladdin Sane, some country music flourishes, some roots and blues, a genuine R&B cover, maybe some Tom Waits, some big riffs, all played by a cracking band who steam along like a runaway train.
The lyrics contain some fairly lacerating stuff, directed against others (especially women) and particularly against himself. How much off this is due to his recent divorce is anyone's guess, but clearly it's not an album filled with happiness.
The Saints
5/5
If you look up "awesome" in a dictionary there's a picture of this album.
These guys are the band the Sex Pistols wanted to be - literally so, since The Saints had a record deal and the Pistols didn't.
This is purest punk. The sneering snarl of Chris Bailey's vocals; the power of Ed Kuepper's guitar riffing; the solid wall of the drum and bass driving everything on. It's like the fiercest of angry animals coming at you. And they add a horn section.
At the time that horn section caused some angst because "real punks don't use horns". The Saints, who WERE real punks (and Australian punks at that) just told them to stick their heads up a dead bear's bum and did it anyway.
This is real punk and if you've grown up with bands who claim to be punk rockers (looking at you Blink-182) then listen and learn.
Also, their first album - (I'm) Stranded -goes even harder.
Meat Puppets
4/5
On the first track they come on like Neil Young's noisier cousin, all discordant screaming and weird anger.
Then they settle down into the sort of thing punk psychobilly cowboys might line dance to.
The album is peppered with instrumentals, a bit of gospel, some Nashville, some flat out rock.
It's all over the place like a madwoman's undies and exactly how well known they'd be if Kurt Cobain hadn't announced them on the Unplugged album is up for discussion, but they're kind of fascinating in a strange "can't look away" kind of manner
Run-D.M.C.
4/5
One of the foundational documents of Hip Hop and the first Hip Hop album to enter the mainstream
The rapping is razor sharp and the rhymes are brilliant.
Tricky is the absolute, indispensable masterpiece, but there is a flow of bangers, one after the other.
Okay, Dumb Girl hasn't aged well and Walk This Way, while great fun, is cheesier than Nonna's lasagne, but these two aside, you'd be hard to find a dud track on the album.
Essential
Curtis Mayfield
3/5
Funk so funky you could eat it with a spoon. A beautiful voice so charged with feeling.
But the lyrics. From the man who wrote "People Get Ready" and "Move on Up" we get things like:
Can't be no fun
To be shot with a hand gun
Or
When cupboards are bare
Our love we can share
Truth is not the whole question
What is the answer you hide?
Or
Every time we kiss
It's such a pleasant taste
Or this pearler
Our love is your confession
That we're in love.
It's just not very good.
4 for the music
1 for the songs
Eminem
2/5
So it comes with a Public Service Announcement at the beginning saying Children Should Not Listen and Don't Try This at Home and proceeds to 90 minutes of songs that are so extreme in their homophobia, misogyny, social dislocation and violence that toy wonder what exactly was the intention of it all.
Is it some sort of Randy Newman satirical character study? Is it meant to be taken seriously? (A lot did) Is it a jet black humour performance in the vein of The Naked Lunch?
Whatever it is, it's hardly the most mature album ever, and some of the songs sound like the demo versions of songs from a better album.
Another reviewer here said that it was like being trapped in a room with a 13 year old obnoxious brat and they're not wrong.
The Police
3/5
Police Albums are weird beasts. All of them have one or two songs that are so well known that they're part of the DNA of popular culture.
Outlandos D'Amour has Roxanne and So Lonely
Zenyatta Mondatta has Don't Stand So Close to Me and Do Do Do Do Da Da Da Da
Ghost in the Machine has Every Little Thing
And of course Synchronicity has Every Breathe You Take.
But once you get past the songs everyone knows you get songs that no-one ever thinks about. When was the last time you heard Peanuts or Born in the 50s or Man in a Suitcase or Darkness or Tea in the Sahara?
Regatta de Blanc is the same. Any album with Walking on the Moon and Message in a Bottle can't be all bad and Deathwish, Bring on the Night and The Bed's Too Big Without You aren't far behind.
But then you've got things like a strange semi instrumental, the bizarre On Any Other Day, a bit of wannabe punk and whatever Does Everyone Stare is.
The musicianship is outstanding. Andy Summers knows no bounds in inventing guitar sounds and Stewart Copeland pounds the drums like a man possessed. Sting is... well... Sting and I'll leave it up to you to decide for yourself.
When it's good it's brilliant and it's brilliant for four or five tracks. But there are eleven tracks on the album
Tears For Fears
3/5
Probably could have been recorded at no other time than the 80s. Production that glows, it's so highly polished. Linn drums and synth along with a male voice that's filled with emotion to the point of melodrama.
On the surface these are bangers. Shout is a magnificent opener and there are tracks that sound amazing - Head Over Heels and Everybody Wants to Rule the World in particular.
The problem is, once you get past the surface, they're not really a lot of fun.
Deadly serious young men talking about pop psychology and the troubles of the world. And as deadly serious young men do they expect to be taken seriously, without a whiff of irony or humour.
Best enjoyed as a sort of darker Human League and don't think about it too much.
The White Stripes
5/5
This seems to sit somewhere between one of Alan Lomax's Smithsonian field recordings and the Velvet Undeground's White Light / White Heat.
It seems to have been recorded in a barn with the artists standing around a single microphone. If you're looking for slick, shining, perfectly produced, Brian Eno sound then go somewhere else immediately.
Guitars scream, voices howl, drums thunder. It's all just a bit glorious.
Exactly what those voices are howling ABOUT is open to discussion, but in this sort of thing it's the thought that counts.
40 minutes of pleasure.
Eurythmics
4/5
People saying that the Eurhythmics sound "so 80s" are kind of missing the point that not only did they dominate the 80s with single after single, but the dark, sequenced bass lines; the programmed drum machines; the obsessional lyrics; the hi-gloss production all set the template for a whole genre of 80s pop.
The two singles - Love is a Strange and Sweet Dreams Are Made of This - are so strong that they carry the rest of the songs which are, let's be honest, not nearly as good. Several aren't so much songs as extended jams, but with the power of Lennox's voice and the invention of Stewart's production they just about get away with it.
Essential for an understanding of 80s pop.
Dire Straits
5/5
When this came out in the UK in 78, Disco was at its peak with the release of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, ABBA were dominating the charts and first wave punk was in full cry.
So imagine having the confidence to release this as your debut album. A collection of fairly wordy lyrics with a bit of a Dylan edge to them, set to spare and restrained backing with a guitarist whose finger picking style is completely different from anything else on the scene.
The centrepiece is, of course, Sultans of Swing, but every song on the album is a winner.
Knopfler is at odds with the power chords and jangle of much of late 70s guitar. His playing is clear and spare with not too many notes and every note in the right place. He doesn't seem to be doing much, but that's the beauty of it. He makes it seem simple.
Dire Straits would go on to be the biggest band in the world and never really deviated from the template of this album.
The Byrds
2/5
If ever there was a recording of its time and place this is it. Summer of Love, west coast California.
There's Vietnam, Drugs, Psychedelia, Tribal Love, Visions, Aliens, All of us Coming Together and all the hippy accoutrements.
It's sung in the sort of lush vocal harmonies that were big at the time (see also The Mammas and The Pappas and The 5th Dimension) and combines folk, jazz, rock and pop and drenches it all in more phasing and flanging and production tricks than seems possible.
Imagine "Revolver" but dial it up to 11.
It's all very trippy and of the moment, but I think its moment us well past.
Also:
"I'm coming down off amphetamine
I'm in jail coz I killed a queen." Really??
Cypress Hill
3/5
I have never felt so out of place as I did listening to this.
I am completely not the audience for this.
I can appreciate it as an album. But I just don't connect with it
Love
2/5
Just when you thought the 60s couldn't get more self indulgent along comes Love with what appears to be a 17 minute song about oral sex.
The rest, which is, for a mercy, a further 19 minutes, is full of mind expanding poetry and music that goes from flute driven folk to garage grunge.
Not very good now and I suspect not very good back in the day.
The Strokes
3/5
We hardly need reminding that when this came out it was "the new Rolling Stones", "the new Velvet Underground" and a revolutionary new direction in rock and roll.
Of course it's nothing of the sort. It's a cool pop album that's recorded like a throwback to the sixties with a set of songs that, to be honest, all start to sound a bit the same after a while.
There are certainly worse ways to spend 40 minutes, but it's not going to change your life.
King Crimson
3/5
If ever there was an album that could be described as "awesome in parts" this is it.
The band is virtuosic tight, inventive and pretty much unlike anything else. Fripp's guitar playing is impeccable.
21st Century Schizoid Man is astonishing. Epitaph and the title track are equally brilliant.
But two problems exist.
One is the lyrics. The band had a member whose sole job was to write the words to the songs. And what a set of self consciousnessly arty, pretentious nonsense they are. YOU HAD ONE JOB!!! (Sinfield went on to write lyrics for Emerson Lake and Palmer and didn't get any better.)
And then there's the.band's fixation on pastoral, fey, mellotron love ins that, at the time, probably seemed like the music of tomorrow but now seem like unlistenable excess.
So 5/5 when they're good.
2/5 when they're being "artistes".
The Byrds
5/5
After listening to The Notorious Byrd Brothers last week I was not excited to listen to this.
Instead I was charmed from the first notes of Dylan's You Ain't Going Nowhere and held to the end.
Without an ounce of insincerity, The Byrds go to church on I am a Pilgrim and The Christian Life, suffer heartbreak, get nostalgic, go to jail and, on One Hundred Years from Now, even manage to sound like The Byrds.
Of course the Rock and Roll people didn't like it (Too Country!) and Nashville hated it (Hippies making fun of us) but at this distance it's clear that it's an utterly charming piece of Americana.
Keith Jarrett
5/5
The highest selling jazz album of all time, so pretty much bullet proof as far as criticism is concerned.
Whether it actually is a jazz album is up for discussion. Some people say that its complete lack of jazz rhythm, jazz harmony or ... you know ... jazz kind of rule it out.
If a solid hour of improvised solo piano in a kind of "70s modern" style sounds like something you'd run a mile from, then it probably is.
But you might find that on another day, in another mood, at another time this is the most sublime thing you've ever heard and might just change your life.
My Bloody Valentine
5/5
I was told, "It sounds like the cover looks" and it's true.
The first thing you notice are the washes and waved of noise that seem to cover everything.
But underneath those clouds of sound is a solid sense of melody supported by some great harmony choices.
The vocals are set way back in the mix but since the lyrics seem unimportant anyway, seemingly being there to add to the texture, this doesn't matter.
Comparison with Sonic Youth or Jesus and Mary Chain or even White Light/White Heat era Velvet Underground seems appropriate, but this is something lusher and richer.
Call it shoegaze if you want, but what wonderful shoes.
Coldplay
1/5
If you gave up on U2 because you found them too humble and self-deprecating, then this is the album for you!
Radiohead wannabes who seem to have genetically engineered VERY IMPORTANT anthemic songs for 90,000 people to sing along with at Wembley.
Not a single spark of life or energy anywhere, the songs just lie there, waiting to be played under the credits of a b-grade American police procedural.
Coldplay rode the inoffensive train straight down the middle of the road to become, for one brief shining plastic moment, the biggest band in the world, so clearly they knew what they were doing. But there's no excuse for it.
The Everly Brothers
4/5
Every boy who has ever picked up a guitar and sang about his girl dumping him in the last 60 years has owed something to The Everlys and the template they laid down.
It's a bit country, it's a bit rock and roll, a bit Johnny Cash, a bit Elvis.
They harmonise like angels about teen heartbreak and adolescent lust. These boys are horny!
Girls are made for lovin' (apparently), but most of them break your heart and make you their clown. You can imagine this playing on the jukebox in the corner of a diner in a David Lynch movie.
Not as angst driven as someone like Roy Orbison, but still filled with drama.
Cathy's Clown is the best known song here, but there's the whitest version known to man of Little Richard's Lucille and Love Hurts, later recorded by a string of others.
The whole thing is over and done with in less than half an hour and it's pleasant enough.
Radiohead
5/5
Hits the sweet spot between "just another rockband" and "avante garde tosser"
Full of experimental moments that don't overwhelm the basic listenability of the music.
There is something genuinely magnificent about it.
Arcade Fire
2/5
I have to admit that Arcade Fire are a band whose name I recognise, but whose music has passed me by. Having listened to this I see no reason to alter that situation.
I'm sure this all sounded original and exciting in 2010, especially if you hadn't listened to a lot of older, better bands. The Cars, Radiohead, Exile on Main Street era Stones, U2, Bjork all put in an appearance.
But I was surprised at how often it reminder me of Neil Young. And if I want to listen to a second rate Neil Young album, well, Neil has recorded several already.
Madonna
3/5
There was a time when Madonna was of universal significance, where everyone knew her, listened to her, bought her records. Even your Nanna knew "Material Girl"
In more recent years, everyone still knows her, but less as an artist and more as a punchline.
This album comes about half way between these two extremes. She was still selling records, still getting critical praise, but the days when a new Madonna Video was an event were long behind her.
She was coming off the success of "Ray of Light" and seemingly could do no wrong.
But Music is nowhere near as strong as that album. Ray of Light had similar studio production antics, but had them applied to actual songs, with Verses, Choruses and Bridges.
The tracks on Music don't seem like songs. They're more like beats with words over the top.
I imagine that Music is quite the influential album. If Ray of Light was a bit like Madonna catching up with what was happening at the time. Bjork had released Homogenic, Kylie Minogue had released Impossible Princess, Missy Elliot had released Super Duper Fly, all highly produced electronica.
But Music was Madonna pushing the things she tried on Ray of Light further into the future.
It's not as strong as Ray of Light, but it's probably more significant.
Foo Fighters
3/5
Makes you appreciate how important Kurt Cobain was to Nirvana as a creative force.
This is perfectly servicable, if fairly generic, 90s grunge. But it seem to be to Nevermind or In Utero what one of Ringo or George's solo albums was to Revolver.
Penguin Cafe Orchestra
5/5
Minimalist Avant folk pop not quite ambient music from another world.
Utterly charming and never quite heading in the direction you expect, this is full of beautiful surprises.
The Pogues
5/5
Like the best night you ever had at a pub. There's rowdy dance music, a song that'll break your heart, some politics, someone is reciting poetry and everyone is as happy and full of the joys of life as is possible.
And then, when things can't get better, someone puts on Fairytale of New York and it DOES get better.
And maybe it does outstay its welcome and maybe Shane McGowan's voice makes Joe Strummer sound like Doris Day, but this is obviously a master work.
Yes
4/5
Well, no-one pops fragile on so thry can specially listen to Tin Cans and Brahms or Five Percent for Nothing.
The album really consists of four songs - Roundabout, South Side of the Sky, Long Distance Runaround, and Heart of the Sunrise - with the solo bits and bobs thrown in as, well, not padding, but bonuses.
So then; the bonuses.
Tin Cans and Brahms is a surprisingly accurate transcription for keyboards of the third movement of Brahms 4th Symphony and, to be honest, is the sort of thing Wendy Carlos did better.
We Have Heaven is Jon Anderson being all hippy and cosmic, if you like that sort of thing. The slamming door and footsteps seem a bit Atom Heart Mother to be honest.
Five Percent for Nothing is a Bill Bruford drum solo that the band play along with: all tricky time changes and rhythm tricks.
The Fish is Chris Squire overdubbing unfeasible numbers of bass riffs.
Mood for a Day is a sort of folk flamenco guitar piece.by Steve Howe.
They're all short, they're all palatable and they're apparently there to save money on studio time.
The other tracks are group songs. This was Wakeman's first outing and he brings a level of virtuosity and classically trained skills that push the band into a new level of playing. Bruford and Squire have two of the most distinctive sounds in rock music, Anderson has a voice like no other (you may think this good or bad) and Howe is a guitar dynamo.
Of course the band songs are over the top and the lyrics are pretty dopey and it goes on too long and has pretensions to symphonic grandeur. But these songs rock like Grandma's chair.
I put down my hard earned pocket money when i was 14 to buy the vinyl and never regretted it. 4 stars, but only because you need somewhere to go when you get to Close to the Edge.
Green Day
3/5
Let's get this out the way first. This might call itself punk, but do yourself a favour and listen to
Wire: Pink Flag
The Clash: Live at Shea Stadium
Gang of Four: Entertainment
and see what punk can really be.
This is polished, slick and commercial. The political message is a bit obvious and tries to be angry, but doesn't bear comparison with Jello Biafra singing "Kill the Poor"
And then it decides to be "Rock Opera" and, boys, this is no Quadrophenia.
It's solid, well played, enjoyable rock posing as something that other people did better. Perfectly fine on its own terms, but with aspirations beyond its grasp.
Le Tigre
4/5
Like The Slits meet Tom Tom Club. In a good way.
I had no knowledge of this band, but read Riot Grrl and was expecting harsh guitars and angry screaming.
Instead this is unexpectedly sprightly and lively.
Actually, if the Slits and Tom Tom Club partied with DEVO and B52s. That's what it's like.
The Fall
3/5
The very definition of "Cult album"
Intense ragged, noisy with a Gome made aesthetic.
An acquired taste.
Billy Joel
3/5
Even if you don't know these songs, you know these songs.
Having said that, Ubiquity isn't Excellence.
The songs are fine, even if the backing is overblown, but in the pantheon of male singer songwriters you'd have to put Paul Simon, Randy Newman, Stevie Wonder, and Elton John (particularly the early Elton) well ahead of him.
And the songs that remind you of other, better songs (She's Always a Woman and Dylan's Just Like a Woman or Don't Go Changing and Stevie Wonder's All in Love is Fair) just show up his limitations.
You'll have a good time, but whether you'll be totally satisfied is up for debate.
Dizzee Rascal
3/5
Okay then. Once more out of my comfort zone.
Skittering beats that seem to be on the verge of falling apart under a UK rapper.
Held my interest.
Lupe Fiasco
2/5
Yesterday I was assigned Dizzee Rascal's Boy in the Corner to listen to and its invention and originality make this a hard listen.
The production on this is of the "More is more" variety. No kitchen sink could have been safe within a 5km radius of the studio, so many were thrown in. At times it sounds like a MOR sixties album there's so many strings and choirs happening. It's the Bert Kaempfert of rap.
And then the lyrics. Sincere, but awkward, hearing them is like finding a sensitive16 year old's secret diary under his mattress and when you read it it's full of serious thoughts about the world and all if it expressed in a self-important naivity that lands with a thud.
Lust, sometimes can override trust
So death might not let me live.
You're the starry skies above me
Won't you please come down and hug me
Are examples of the sort of thing.
Put it on while you're ironing your shirt and it'll be a fair background.
Listen to it as I think it was intended - as an important statement about the world - and its just ... not...
Bob Dylan
4/5
Time was when Dylan was a prophet, writing songs that immediately became part of the language.
By the time this album came about it was 20 years since Desire - the last gasp of greatness. Then came a long string of mediocre albums that were notable more for how divisive they were.
But from the first notes of this you know you're back in the hands of a master.
Is it another Blonde on Blonde or Highway 61 Revisited? Well, no. But albums like that are few and far between
Here, a crack band slithers through blues riffs while Dylan sings about lost love. Highlights are Love Sick, Standing in the Doorway and Cold Irons Bound, but everything is good.
The last track - Highlands - is 16 minutes of certified Dylan oddness, but it's kind of magnificent.
It would be another 20 years until he produced an album anywhere near this good - Rough and Rowdy Ways.
Miles Davis
5/5
One of the pinnacles of Miles Davis's career (and therefore, of 20th century music) this was both the birth and the peak of fusion music.
The idea that it was "experimental" or that it came out of nowhere is wrong.
The process of Miles giving the players a few chords or scales, saying what he wanted and then letting them improvise goes back 10 years to "Kind of Blue".
He'd been increasingly electrifying his band over his previous two or three albums and the editing together of several takes first appears on the studio album before this, "In a Silent Way".
The word "experimental" suggests that he was just putting things together to see what he got. The band recorded hours of material over three days and then this was edited down to form the final 90 minutes of music. Tapes were looped, effects were applied, takes were cut and spliced. "Pharaohs Dance" has 19 edits in its 20 minute run time, which cause quite the backlash amongst the jazz crowd. Only one track ("Miles Runs the Voodoo Down") appears on the album as it was played in the studio. Far from being improvised accidents, these things were meant to sound - were built to sound - exactly that way.
When the album appeared it received mixed reviews. It topped some Record of the Year polls and was sneered at by jazz purists. "Too jazz for rock, too rock for jazz."
Really, it's best to think of it as neither, but rather as a thing all to itself: expansive and twisting on the first two, long form, tracks and becoming tighter and more rhythmically focussed in the second half.
Expansive, explosive, one of the albums that changed music. Give it ALL the 5s.
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
5/5
What a box of treasures.
Perhaps not an album to play from start to finish. Better to dip into it and see what comes up.
But as a library of Americana greatness its irreplaceable.
Blue Cheer
3/5
Guys who just wanted to play loud.
They were loud, rough, drugged and nasty. And in 67 they went to the Monterey Festival. They say they saw Hendrix so they probably also would have seen rhe bands playing on the same day: The Who and Big Brother and The Holding Company. The fact that those bands could play them into the ground without raising a sweat didn't matter. Blue Cheer wanted to outdo them.
Their sound was louder, dirtier and more chemically enhanced. It was like a kick in the head. Forget the Summer of Love. This was challenging, vicious music. Is it the start of heavy metal? Well, no-one had played this hard before, so why not?
The trouble was that this came out in 68. In 69 another band that could play them into the ground came along. Led Zeppelin. Blue Cheer faded into memory. But you can't imagine Grand Funk Railroad or Black Sabbath or MC5 or The Stooges without them clearing the path.
Simon & Garfunkel
5/5
If you told the kids these days that the biggest selling album of the 1970s was by a folk duo they wouldn't believe you!
Of course this is bullet proof and anything anyone says at this point is hardly going to change its classic (mythic) status.
Fortunately it manages to live up to hype. One amazing song after another. Superb.
The Only Living Boy in New York is gorgeous
David Bowie
5/5
Immediate 5.
The fact is that without Low there'd be no Post-Punk - no Joy Division, no Smiths, no Cure - and no electropop - no Human League, no Gary Numan, no Ultravox, no OMD.
This album of brief songs and instrumentals was greeted by the Record Company, who were looking for another Young Americans - with dismay. The story goes that they thought it was unfinished. Where were the vocal? Where was the second verse?
The critics were divided, calling it either "pretentious shit" or "the ONLY contemporary record".
In the years since its reputation has grown to have it regarded as one of Bowie's very best. "Ziggy.Stardust", "Low" and "Blackstar" are the three where he amazed the world.
Iconic, influential, ahead of its time, and still as fresh as it was when it was released.
Tito Puente
4/5
Let's be clear. If you're not moving while this plays then have your doctor check that you are alive.
The sort of hot salsa music that is made for swinging hips, or ballads that lovers slow dance to while the waiters put chairs up and lean on brooms.
Puerto Rico shows up and shows us how.
OutKast
3/5
This started out as two solo albums and then got released as a double CD under the Outkast name.
To be honest, it outstays its welcome. It's not short of ideas, but I don't think all of the ideas are strong enough to sustain a 2¼ hr runtime. What with "interludes" and silent tracks, and recordings of babies and spoken word sections, theres quite a bit of self indulgent faffing about.
Probably would have been stronger if someone had said, "Give me your best 30 minutes of material and we'll make a single CD."
When it's good, it's excellent, but editing is always a good thing.
Funkadelic
5/5
No notes
No arguments
Give it a 5 and straight on to the next one.
Sly & The Family Stone
3/5
Like a last dispeptic burp from.the rich food of the 60's. Anyone going into this expecting another "Dance to the Music" are in for a shock.
By this point Sly Stone was drugged and angry. The promise of Woodstock had given way to Watergate and the Race Riots of the early 70s.
The personal and political darkness combined to make this an album of unparalleled cynicism and rage. Long sinuous funk workouts move slowly while half heard vocals say things like "They say time is the answer, but I don't believe it" or "The deeper in debt the harder you bet" through a production of such murkiness that nothing would rival it until "Exile on Main St" or Bowie's "Watch that Man".
It's hard to say it's an enjoyable album, but did set the scene for the sort of angry, political black music that led to Grand Master Flash and Public Enemy.
3/5
These guys can play up a storm and the idea of thrash grindcore jazz is fascinating.
The tracks are short and are all individually brilliant. But because they're so relentlessly aggressive, listening to the album straight produces diminishing returns. But include this in a playlist set to random and it will certainly add a little piquancy.
But now go and listen to Ornette Coleman's "Free Jazz", which is the album that should have been on this list, and see why these guys are paying tribute to him. (Spoiler: Because Ornette is better)
N.W.A.
3/5
How much of this was reality in 1980s Compton and how much is young bloke's chest thumping, peacocking boast is not for this 69yo White, middle class Australian to say. But it does seem to be the sort of record you might expect from a minority that's had enough of being discriminated against, profiled, disenfranchised and scapegoated.
"TIME TO PUT COMPTON ON THE MAP" and they're going to make you listen until you know the truth. (Or at least, their version of it)
And if the level of violence, misogyny and drug use is pretty confronting, perhaps life in Compton was just as confrontational.
Public Enemy is probably more sophisticated in their ideas, but this is pretty raw and angry.
Obviously important, if problematic.
R.E.M.
3/5
I understand that many think that this is the ducks guts, but it didn't do it for me.
There were several songs that were great - Drive, Nightswimming, Find the River.
But at least two of the songs - Man on the Moon and Everybody Hurts - have become such overplayed FM radio staples that if I never hear them again it will be too soon. And a couple of songs - The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight in particular - are weak to the point of filler.
So, good in parts
Muddy Waters
5/5
Anyone not giving this a 5 doesn't deserve music.
By the time Muddy and the band hit Tiger in Your Tank they are smoking hot and cooking. Then they going into Mojo Working and you can hear the crowd go wild.
You should too.
Hugh Masekela
3/5
If the jazz you like is Miles Davis's Dark Magus or Ornette Coleman or Sun Ra, then this is not going to attract you.
But if you like Chuck Mangione or Spyro Gyra then this is the album for you.
Smooth with a touch of African rhythm this would grace any department store background music playlist.
As an early example of a pervasive sound that eventually devolved into muzak this is, I guess, influential.
Elliott Smith
3/5
It's probably not for me, but I can see how this would appeal to a lot of people.
Enigmatic, sad songs sung by a almost whispered voice, set against minimal backing. And made all the sadder by the knowledge that this isn't an act. His life really was that sad.
Glad I heard it although I'll probably never listen to it again.
Teenage Fanclub
4/5
Little pop gems drenched in fuzz guitar and sung in harmonies so sweet that there's a diabetes risk.
Imagine if Simon and Garfunkel became the lead singers of the Jesus and Mary Chain.
Probably too much of its time to he celebrated these days, but a lot of fun.
Country Joe & The Fish
1/5
To the extent that Country Joe and the Fish are remembered at all, they are remembered for one song. And it isn't on this album.
This album has the distinction of being the first West Coast Psychedelia album which could go either way, depending on your tolerance for West Coast Psychedelia.
Personally, I think it's the sort of album that every musician should hear, if only as a warning to not do this ever again.
The best thing on here is probably "Love", but even that dissolves into a mediocre blues jam. The rest are the sort of thing that someone at the time might have looked up from their bong for long enough to say "Wow, cosmic," before drifting off into smokey dreams.
The lyrics are unrelentingly "mind expanding", in that they don't make a lick of sense, but they sound like they might mean something.
Probably the low point is Section 43, a multi movement instrumental of extraordinary banality that sounds like the sort of thing that a promoter who couldn't afford The Doors might put on and advertise as "A Freak Out".
1 star for being the first and a half for the vocals on "Love". I rounded down.
The Go-Go's
5/5
Coming out of the LA punk scene and settling into a sort of 60s retro, power pop, new wave sound, The G-Go's were probably more fun and upbeat than many of their contemporaries.
This, their debut album, has the two big hits - Our Lips Are Sealed and We Got the Beat - which remain little gems of joy.
The other songs on the album might not quite hit the same highs as those two, but are solid pop-punk delights with duds and no skips.
Thoroughly enjoyable even today.
Scott Walker
1/5
Oh lord. An album you need to hear before you die, but probably just so death doesn't seem so bad.
The guy has a baritone like honey and then uses it to sing lyrics torn from the pages of a sensitive 17 year old's secret diary, set against overwrought orchestral backing with formless, directionless melodies.
10 songs in 30 minutes, so at least it's short. But it still outstays its welcome.
Saint Etienne
4/5
Perfectly pleasant and engaging soft electronically.
Plenty of people doing this sort of thing, some (Everything but the Girl for example) probably doing it better.
Is this an album I liked? Yes.
Is it an album I'll play again? No.
Is it an album I had to hear before I die? I doubt it.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
4/5
It's easy to forget just how huge CCR were back in the day. They headlined Woodstock; they had hit after hit, both singles and albums; three chart topping albums in one year; their Greatest Hits collection has spent years on the charts.
No-one is going to confuse them for King Crimson. They're straight ahead, country blues Boogie with a dash of Tony Joe White. But they are experts at what they do. They turn up, they rock, they get out. They're not trying to expand your mind or change your ideas about what music is, or deliver a searing message about the dominant societal paradigm.
Even though this has Green River, Bad Moon Rising, Commotion and Lodi, it was their next album where they really hit their stride. But as moonshine liquor soaked good times go this is pretty good.
Johnny Cash
3/5
The Concert at Filsom Prison was an extraordinary album. Cash was coming off a drug addiction and the first attempt at a prison recording came to nothing because Cash was too "tired and emotional" to go on.
The Folsom Concert had the atmosphere of one man at the end of his tether talking to an audience of men at the end of their tether. It was raw, it was emotional, it was intense.
The recording revived his career and was a huge success. It's become legendary in the years since.
This San Quentin album has the slight whiff of another trip to the well. It's all a bit showbiz: bringing on the guest stars; the engineered encore of "San Quentin"; bringing on a guard with a glass of water (a repeat of a Folsom Prison bit) so the audience can boo; the fact that it was being recorded for British television. It just seems a bit more commercial and contrived than Folsom.
It's also not nearly as good. Folsom has the killer set list of:
-Folsom Prison Blues (I shot a man in Reno, he sings and the crowd goes wild
- Cocaine Blues, about a man who murders his girlfriend after taking cocaine
- 25 Minutes to go, about a man going to the gallows
- Long Black Veil, about a man who goes to the gallows to protect his lover's reputation
- Send a Picture of Mother (I mean, to prisoners in jail)
- Give my love to Rose - about a Manet out of prison who is killed before seeing his girlfriend
- Green Green Grass of Home, about a man returning home after getting out of prison
- Greystone Chapel, written by a prisoner sitting in the audience.
It's more a shared communion than a Concert.
San Quentin is entertainment. Even the song about Cash's arrest is presented as a comedy about picking flowers.
And then there's the pretty execrable Boy Named Sue. It hasn't aged well.
Folsom Prison literally changed lives - Not least amongst them Cash's own. San Quentin made a lot of money and landed Cash a network deal for his variety show.
It's all right, but it's not his best.
Big Brother & The Holding Company
4/5
Was there ever a luckier bunch of guys than Big Brother and The Holding Company? A fair to middling blues rock band - just another band in on the West Coast playing Psychedelia and they pick an unknown woman who turns out to be one of the great rock vocalists of all time.
They play Monterey, cause a sensation, record an album that's a benchmark for blues rock even today and then they're gone, leaving behind this.
Of course, it's the Janis Joplin show. Her voice is a raw miracle. The closest thing to it is probably Robert Plant, but Joplin makes Plant sound as smooth as Engelbert Humperdink, so smokey and emotional is her voice.
Whenever the album goes without her, in Combination of the Two or Oh, Sweet Mary you realise that they're not much without her.
The end of Ball and Chain - where she sings unaccompanied- makes you realise just how little they mattered. She's everything, with or without.
Of the five songs on the album where she sings lead, I Need a Man to Love, Piece of My Heart and Ball and Chain are amazing. Her vocals are transcendent.
Summertime is transformed from Gershwin's beautiful number to a slow, tortured blues. It's good, but not the greatest performance on the album.
Turtle Blue is an acoustic blues in the style of Bessie Smith or Mephis Minnie. It's pretty good, even if it stands out completely from the rest of the album.
The bands backing to Janis's singing is, perhaps, more enthusiastic than tight. At times it's downright sloppy as only 60s Psychedelia can be.
After this album Joplin left the band and burned brightly through a brief solo career. But what a performance she left.
R.E.M.
3/5
As is the way with REM this contains a couple of absolute Crackers (End of the World &The One I Love) ; a couple of things that make you go hmmm (Finest Worksong has you wondering how many tines they listened to U2. Lightning Hopkins makes you want to listen to Ligtning Hopkins instead) and a few songs that you'd cheerfully skip. (Looking at you Exhuming McCarthy)
Wouldn't be my first choice to play.
Duran Duran
2/5
If processed cheese formed a band...
Utterly without a trace of anything genuine. Completely without passion or emotion.
The instrumental tracks are good enough. The synth is pleasant in a retro 80s way although someone could have suggested trying something other than the arpeggiator. The bass playing is the star of the show.
They seem to be aspiring to Stranded - Siren - Avalon period Roxy Music, but don't really get there.
And then there's the vocals. Words are sung. Words of such banality and triteness, dressed up as big statements and emoted in Simon Le Bon's melodramatic whine.
3 stars for the playing
-1 for the songs and singing.
John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers
3/5
Two things worth noting here.
One is the amount of Clapton hate on this site. And Fair enough. Although if we're here to rate personalities there's quite a few artists on here that wouldn't stand up to scrutiny. So I'm going to rate the album, while noting that Clapton is "personally problematic".
The other is a comment Mick Jagger made once. "I mean what’s the point in listening to us doing ‘I’m A King Bee’ when you can listen to Slim Harpo doing it?" And that very much applies to this album. When you can put on Robert Johnson or Ray Charles, what's the point of this?
The first point is the playing. Clapton is pretty much on fire throughout, producing solo after solo of blistering intensity. McVie is no slouch on Bass either. The drumming serves to make you appreciate other, better drummers. Mayall's voice is, well, adequate. (Although he's stretched beyond his limits in the Ray Charles cover)
The second point is its importance as a gateway for so many to the Blues. Jagger's answer to the question he raised about "King Bee" was to say people might get switched on by the Stones and then go and find the original. Blues was pretty niche in 66 and if people heard this and then went to discover Chicago Blues for themselves, then well and good.
So, this is fine, but go and listen to Mose Allison and Robert Johnson and Little Walter and see why, as good as it, this is second best.
I'll give you a tip. Go and listen to Robert Johnson's two takes of Ramblin' On My Mind and hear why he's the REAL God.
Leonard Cohen
2/5
Coming on like the whitest version of Barry White that ever whited, or possibly your Grandpop's drunk impersonation of Nick Cave, all set against c-grade electropop backing that sounds like a Commodore 64 game soundtrack.
There are good songs here. Tower of Song, Everybody Knows, First We Take Manhattan are all brilliant - especially when they're sung by Marianne Faithful or Jennifer Warnes or Rufus Wainwright.
But then we have Jazz Police. Oh dear.
I think if they got Trevor Horn or Tony Visconti to produce then we might have had something.
But as it is it's kind of laughable.
Pet Shop Boys
4/5
If you're going in to hear more like Go West or DJ Culture or Let's Make Lots of Money then you may be disappointed.
More restrained than their precious albums, this still contains some gorgeous music. So Hard, Jealousy, This Must Be the Place are all excellent. And Being Boring is clearly the standout from this album, and, indeed, one of the standouts of their career.
October Symphony and Only the Wind drag it down a bit, but still this is one of the classics of 90s electro.
Stevie Wonder
5/5
It's agreed that this isn't quite as good as the other albums in his amazing run of five.
But being not quite as good as Innervisions or Talking Book means it's still better than at least 90% of the albums on this list.
By the way, "You Haven't Done Nothing" was written about Nixon. Still relevant.
Barry Adamson
2/5
So the conceit isbthat this is the soundtrack to a noir murder film that doesn't exist.
With sound effects, dialogue and atmosphere to burn, Adamson really commits to the bit.
Whether it's a bit that's worth committing to is kind of dubious.
What isn't dubious is that this is not an album I needed to hear before I die. It's never short of competent, but no more than that.
Meanwhile, Blind Joe Death and My Feet are Smiling aren't on the list and this is.
Sex Pistols
5/5
There's no way someone of my generation can give this anything but five stars.
The sheer power of its attack! Listen to Holidays in the Sun - the great guitar riff coming at you like a tank division while Lydon howls over the top.
The Sneering "We mean it man" in God Save the Queen.
The opening of Pretty Vacant (or Vaaaaa- Cunt! as Lydon insists on singing) inspired, according to Glen Matlock, by the beginning of ABBA's SOS.
The "No Future" chant in Anarchy in the UK
You can't help but admire the way no-one said, "What we need is a ballad." It's a furious, uncompromising, relentless wall of raw sound.
Some people will find it too angy and too much, but in Thatcher's England "too angry" was the only response.
But (and let's say it softly) other punk bands are probably better. Chris Bailey of The Saints referred to the Pistols sneeringly as "The Monkees of Punk" and suggested that the Monkees had better songwriters.
Of course he has a point. They were in many ways, the invention of Malcolm McLaren. He read the mood of the times and put together a band to play to it.
The songs are built to shock. The Holocaust references, the abortion song, the effrontery of God Save the Queen were all there to cause Pearls to be Clutched. Nothing sells like Scandal.
McLaren referred to the Pistols as "my Artful Dodgers" and the suggestion of them playing a part is significant.
"Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?" was the last thing Lydon said at their final concert, as the gig, the tour, the band and the music collapsed around him.
Some of the songs are pretty weak. Submission (about a submarine mission) is probably the least of them, but at this distance a lot of them read like the confused shouting of an angry young man who's had a few jars.
Look, it's vital record and about as influential as records get. But listen to The Clash or X-Ray Specs or Wire or The Ramones or Dead Kennedys or The Buzzcocks to hear what the hype was about.
Thelonious Monk
4/5
Monk is the piano equivalent of Miles Davis, John Coltrane or Charlie Parker: musicians who invented a new way of thinking about their instrument.
His playing is the opposite of someone like Oscar Peterson who played with smooth flow and technical virtuosity.
Monk is angular and anything but smooth. He has the technique, but the music is never just to show it off. His harmonies are almost to the point of atonalism, his playing sometimes almost childlike.
But his music is unlike anyone else's. On this album the first track needed 24 takes and the band still couldn't get it right.
It's an album to make you sit up and think, "What did he just play?"
It's like spending 42 minutes in another world. Just splendid.
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
3/5
A sort of honey trap.
You buy it for the singles and you also get the "experimental" stuff.
To be honest, the experimental stuff is hardly ground breaking. A lot of slow, noodling around on synths and mellotrons.
It's all a "bit We heard Bowie's Low and thought "Well we could do that"."
They couldn't.
The singles are okay, but really, Human League, Thomas Dolby, and Depeche Mode were doing it better.
Mariah Carey
2/5
All acrobatics and vocal gymnastics, Carey is the Nadia Comăneci of song.
It's impressive from the point of view of what one voice can do, but did no-one think to say, "Mariah, just sing the tune."?
Her singing style gave rise to a whole generation of women who gave us their melismatic performances on TV Talent shows, not being able to sing "Knees Up Mother Brown" without ripping up and down scales and arpeggios and showing all five octaves of their range in a single bar.
She may consider this her Magnum Opus, but the moment I turned it off I had forgotten it. It's icecream music - enjoyable at the time, but not really solid fare that sticks to your ribs.
Beck
3/5
Utterly beautiful sounding album. Richly produced with some lush string arrangements and lovely arrangements backing an intimately recorded Beck.
But what a misery. 12 slow to medium tempo ballads with more sadness than a country and western album.
And yes, he had just broken up with his long term partner and his heart was broken, but an hour of it is a bit of a trial to listen to. The comedian Bill Bailey said, "I wrote a song for Adele called, I Broke Up with My Boyfriend, But I'm Not Going to Go On About It" and really you could make the same joke about Beck.
I would certainly listen to individual songs again but sitting through the whole thing seems too much to ask.
Eminem
1/5
For the first time in 80 albums I couldn't bring myself to finish listening to the whole thing.
Just loathsome.
He had his moment in the 2000s where he sold albums hand over fist and won award after award, but how about we just leave him there with his homophobia and misogyny and teenager bravado and addictions?
Nice beats I guess.
There are, it seems, two albums from Eminem on this list and I have done with both of them. So let's move on.
Grateful Dead
3/5
Although I understand there's something of a culture / cult of Grateful Dead followers and completists, they simply never made it here to Australia.
They never toured, received little to no air play, had no hits and remain little more than a name.
So I went into this pretty much blind.
It does go on a bit. After an hour without a break you start to reminisce about the good old days of more modest, succinct records like Tales from Topographic Oceans.
The level of playing is fine and the level of invention is often high, but when they're stretching out Bobby Bland or Gary Davis to 10 or 15 minutes you can't help wondering if it's entirely necessary.
Not to mention that Reverend Gary Davis did it better.
And be honest, the Feedback thing is a pretty much a bit of silliness. Possibly it seemed like a good idea at the time, although it might have been the drugs talking.
I think if you worship at the shrine, or if you were there (or at a similar show) then it will seem like a life changing experience. But if you're coming at it cold, then it all seems a bit self indulgent and in need of a pruning.
Frank Sinatra
4/5
Well, this was unexpected.
Not Sinatra's very best (that would be In the Wee Small Hours) but there's no denying the Velvet beauty of his voice.
Set that voice against these lush arrangements and you are going to melt hearts.
It might be unfashionable all these years later, but it's worth remembering that it was nominated for Record of the Year at the Grammys, only losing out to Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band.
So, no slouch.
There are certainly better versions of these songs (Astrud Gilberto says "Hi!") and how well Broadway show tunes benefit from the Latin treatment is open to discussion. But it's still a pretty pleasant way to spend some time.
I Concentrate on You and How Insensitive are absolute standouts, it must be said, and just things of beauty.
The Who
5/5
Well, obviously it's 5 stars.
The run they had with Tommy, Live at Leeds, Who's Next and Quadrophenia is jaw dropping.
This ranges from huge anthems to goofy songs about your wife coming after you with a machine gun and caravanning.
The huge anthems are breathtaking. The goofy songs are fun. In between are some sort of mystical songs about ... um... love and music and ... mystical things?
It's all magnificent.
Mudhoney
3/5
Raucous noise, apparently recorded on Nanna's cassette player, lands somewhere between Velvet Underground and Nirvana. Which isn't a bad place to be.
Loose, grungey goodness.
Coldplay
2/5
If Tofu teamed up with White Bread and formed a band.
Inoffensive but bland. Obviously plays well with some, but just seems dull.
Just when they get your hopes up and seem about to do something interesting - like in Shiver, which starts with a noisy bang - it doesn't last and slips back into blandness.
And the falsetto whining doesn't help.
Even Yellow - the big hit and their claim to immortality - is a pretty generic bit of anthemic rock that seems to aspire to U2 or Radiohead territory but falls short.
Just boring
Sonic Youth
4/5
Yesterday I was complaining about this site giving me a second Coldplay album and having to listen to their bland vanilla.
Today, early Sonic Youth, which is the very opposite of bland.
There are recognisable song structures here, but they're overwhelmed by great waves of noise and feedback, guitars like atonal divebombing chainsaws, lyrics so indistinct as to be indecipherable, so that the songs just break down.
And yes it's not for the timid and faint hearted, but if you're timid and faint hearted have you considered that this might not be the Web project for you?
Personally I'd prefer this to a truck load of Chris Martins emoting "Yellow".
Violent Femmes
4/5
Played with all the attitude of the fiercest punks, The Violent Femmes play one acoustic banger after another.
If it just had Blister in the Sun and Gone Daddy Gone it'd be a classic, but the other songs aren't that far behind.
Bee Gees
1/5
Anyone remember Air Supply? Now imagine if they were worse.
First of all, 47 minutes. Really? The Beatles did Revolver in 34. And this, believe me, is no Revolver.
It's 12 slow ballads full of heart break and pathos, almost to the point of masochism. The one that is a little upbeat - The Greatest Man In the World - contains lyrics like "I'd be the Greatest man in the world, 'Cause I can say I've got the greatest girl." and runs out of words with a couple of minutes to go, so they just keep repeating the title over and over in a maudlin way. Oh, it's SO NOT Revolver!
It's emotional to the point of melodrama with lyrics that come close to self-parody, all sung in vibrato laden voices that are, at times, only more or less in tune.
The fact it is, they're not very good song-writers. And yes, I know they went on to write a lot of songs for other people, but does anyone really think Chain Reaction is Diana Ross's finest moment? Or that Dolly Parton couldn't have written something better than Islands in the Stream?
At times it's like Abbey Road, only awful.
And a song that's "a love letter to the Nation of Israel" hasn't aged well. "Israel, you make the whole world think about you." Well, quite.
Aerosmith
3/5
This is, we are told, Aerosmith "at their most raw and rocking" which is apparently another way of saying "sloppy and badly recorded".
Fairly generic metal-lite. Nothing here that others haven't done better.
They assure us, hand on heart, that the heavy drug use during the recording of this didn't affect them at all. Believe that if you want, but I think the signs are there.
Jimi Hendrix
5/5
You just know that there's some too cool hipster on here who's given this one star and just commented "Not for me". And I would invite that person to stick their head up a dead bear's bum.
This is Hendrix - the greatest guitarist of them all. No-one had played like him before and even though they all tried, no-one would play like him again.
Every sixteen year old who's strapped on a Stratocaster knock off and strummed E A B7 owes something to Hendrix.
The album contains - at least in this US release version - all the hits and then some. It's like a guitar sacred text.
Also, let's give credit where credit is due and talk about Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell. These guys stood next to the greatest ever and went with him toe to toe. The drumming and the bass on this are outstanding.
TL:DR version. Hendrix is a rock God. Give him every 5 there is.
PS: Hey Joe sounds brilliant, but those domestic violence lyrics have NOT aged well.
Sister Sledge
4/5
When you've got Nile Rodgers and Chic as your backing band then it's hardly going to be bad, is it? I mean, they produced Bowie's biggest chart toppers, didn't they?
It's easy to turn your nose up at disco and wave your "Disco Sucks" banner, but this is gold standard disco.
Four bangers in eight tracks.
"We are Family" is an anthem and 3½ minutes of purest Pleasure.
"He's the Greatest Dancer" is not that far behind. "Lost in Music" is driven along by Niles and his guitar and a thumping bass line. "Thinking of You" is a bass line Heaven.
Of the other tracks on the album only "Somebody Loves Me" drags a bit, although, as an end of the night, "slow dance before he takes her home" sort of thing it's probably peerless.
No-one is saying its deep. We're not talking Mahler. But it's an absolutely exquisite bauble.
The Replacements
3/5
It is, I suppose, the 2nd best album called Let it Be.
Is it garage music if that's where it sounds as if it was recorded?
Energetic and enthusiastic, sloppy stuff.
Apart from Androgynous, which sticks out like the proverbial, this seems a lot like stuff others have down more accurately.
The two covers are a case in point. KISS did Black Diamond and T-Rex did 20th Century Boy with a degree of polish these guys don't seem capable of.
It's enjoyable enough and simple, Dumb fun, but I might stick with the Rooftop Concert, thanks.
George Jones
2/5
Back when I was a young slip of thong, my friends and I used to try and dream up parody Country and Western songs for our dream band - The Hillbilly Cow Pokers - to sing.
If we had heard this album we would have hot the mother lode. Endless heartbreak, marriages split up, an excess of regret and she took our baby and left me her alone with nuttin'. And that's just the first song.
There's one song - Once You've had the Best - that's positive and another - that has a happy ending, although it's about a troubled marriage. But the rest are a compendium of misery.
30 minutes of infidelity and heart ache with overtime on the lap steel. Hot dang!
Jethro Tull
3/5
No-one's about to deny the level of Musicianship on this. Top notch playing with some killer riffs and solos.
Two things I find jarring. One is the general "I'm so much smarter than you" smart arsed attitude. There's a sort of Upper Middle class English sneering going on.
The other is a very 70s interest in school girls. There's a song about a school girl sex worker that is just unsavoury, post Jimmy Saville.
The stuff about God and Religion isn't anywhere nearly as deep as it would like to think it is and the whole thing seems a bit... up itself.
Hüsker Dü
3/5
The Beatles were arguing amongst themselves while the band was falling apart and produced the White Album, Let it Be and Abbey Road.
These guys were doing the same thing and produced a double album of 20 songs that all sound more or less the same.
The songs all chug along at the one tempo so that after a while they blur into each other. When something different, like "She Floated away, which is a different time signature, though still at the same tempo, comes along it's a jolt.
The lyrics might be different and might well be poetic gems, but they're often mixed so far down that they're often indecipherable.
This leaves "variety" to be determined by whether the distortion pedal is set at 6, 7, or 8.
And didn't we invent microphones, so that we didn't need to use two Campbell's Soup Cans joined by string?
The recording quality is pretty poor. I get that it was recorded in a warehouse, but was placing the recording equipment at one end and the band at the other, behind the pallets of building supplies, really the optimum plan?
I went back and listened to Zen Arcade and that really should be on this list. This, however, is nowhere near as good
And don't tell me that "She's a woman and now he's a man" doesn't lift the melody of Every Time That You Walk In The Room by The Searchers.
Aretha Franklin
5/5
Let's face facts.
Aretha Franklin does NOT have one of the great female soul voices.
She does NOT have one of the great female voices in 20th Century popular music.
She has one of the greatest female voices of the 20th Century in any genre.
She sells even slight material like Niki Hoeky so you think it's a great song and then, when working with a really great song like (You Make Me Feel) Like a Natural Woman it's transcendent.
And the way she takes People Get Ready to church is amazing.
Immediate 5 stars. And worth more if it was possible.
Janis Joplin
4/5
Janis Joplin is certainly one of the great voices of the 20th Century, but unlike someone like Ella Fitzgerald or Aretha Franklin, who seem to have every note and nuance absolutely under control, you feel that Joplin is skating on the edge and any moment could skid off the road into a pile up.
Of course there are great performances here. Bobby McGee, Mercedes Benz, Move Over are all highlights. But the passion and emotion in her voice, which, at times, seems about to overwhelm even her, make every note she sings great.
Perhaps the most affecting track is Buried Alive in the Blues. It's the backing track presented as an instrumental. She was going to record the vocal "in the morning", but died in the night, leaving it as a strak reminder of what was lost with her death.
Tracy Chapman
4/5
There are songs of grest subtlety and restraint here. Fast Car, Baby Can I Hold You, If Not Know are all gorgeous.
Talking About a Revolution is up there with Lennon's Power to the People, Smith's People Have the Power and Guthrie's All You Fascists.
But some other songs - Mountains of Things and Behind the Wall for instance - do get a bit preachy.
Absolutely heart felt and sincere.
Joni Mitchell
5/5
5 immediate stars, except that the stars are from a different, higher universe.
When Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature there were those who said, "Sure, but have you heard Hejira?"
Written at a difficult time of her life, this documents the physical and emotional journeys she went on after the breakdown of a long term relationship.
There are songs here so personal and intimate - Amelia, for instance, or Song for Sharon - that you feel awkward listening to her sing them, like you shouldn't be overhearing what she's saying. The fact that the man she broke up with and that some of the songs are about is playing with her in the studio makes it even more awkward.
The songs on here are lyrically dense and musically static. Few chord changes, lots of words and sung as though they're being spoken. Quite a bit of Coyote IS spoken.
Probably Blue Hotel Room and Black Crow come closest to being songs you can sing along with, while Hejira, Song for Sharon, Coyote, Furry Sings the Blues are their own thing, a whole different type of music.
On later albums she would go further in this direction and by the time she was recording Dreamland or The Dry Cleaner from Des Moines she was in a world all her own.
This is probably the best of her Jazz Albums. In fact, it's one of the best albums.
Gil Scott-Heron
4/5
This is exactly what I signed up for. Something I'd never even been aware of that turns out to be a gem.
Just great jazz piano playing with a soulful voice singing great lyrics.
Never heard of it before and suddenly it's a favourite.
The Who
3/5
Their first album, and it shows.
It's a scattering approach with covers an instrumental, and original songs a couple of which are as good as anything they ever did.
The anthem, of course, is My Generation, with its fuck you chorus of "Hope I die before I get old", Entwhistle's kamikaze bass line, Moon's "just hit anything" drumming and Townsend's self destructing guitar solo. Daltrey sings over the top of it all with supreme arrogance. It's the song that defined them and the beginning of Punk.
Then you have Daltrey indulging his love of Soul Music with not one, but two James Brown Covers. Perhaps they thought if they did two they'd double their chances of getting one right. They don't.
"The Kids are Alright" is another great moment. Chiming guitars and the first of Townsend's songs about men who seem lost, which would come to fruition in Quadrophenia.
The other original songs are a mixed bag. La-La-La Lies is more pop than rock. It's good pop, but you don't think of The Who (Maximum R&B) recording songs that The Monkees could sing.
Much too much is another of Townsend's broken men, complaining that he can't cope with how much his girl loves him.
It's not true is probably the least of the originals, almost a joke about a man denying all sorts of outrageous rumours.
There two songs about relationships ending. A Legal Matter has a young man who can't commit as the central figure. "Sorry baby," he sneers as he goes back to the pub and dumps the idea of marriage.
Then there's Good is Gone, about a relationship that's gone sour and sung by Daltrey in a sneer John Lydon would be proud of. It's a threat more than anything else.
And finally, there's The Ox, a bass solo jam that's loose and wild with everyone (including a guesting Nicky Hopkins) going berserk and Townsend coaxing a series of howls and yelps out of his guitar that probably had never been put on record before.
Is it a great record? Well, no. But when it's good it really is very good. And they'd only get better.
Ice T
3/5
So not my thing, but seems okay for something I've got no feeling for
Roxy Music
4/5
By the time they Roxy Music came to record this, their fourth album, Brian Eno had long gone and they were distancing themselves from the sort of 50s retro glam theatrics of their early period, transitioning into the sleek hit making machine they became by the time of the Avalon album.
This starts strongly with The Thrill of It All, All I Want is You and Out of the Blue. Three and Nine is forgettable enough and If it Takes all Night is a kind of bar room honky tonk.
It sags a bit with Bitter Sweet, where they go off to The Threepenny Opera for a bit of Weimar Cabaret and Triptych, where the visit the Renaissance Fair for a song about The Crucifixion of Jesus - bet you weren't expecting that - but gets back on the rails to finish with the excellent Prairie Rose, Ferry's ode to his then partner, Jerry Hall.
So not entirely good, but the high points are so good that you can forgive the lows.
3½ stars, rounded up because I've owned the vinyl for 50 years.
The Velvet Underground
3/5
After the relentless ferocity of White Light/White Heat they tone it down a bit to produce this.
What goes on is one of my favourite songs and Candy Says is a surprisingly lovely thing about a trans woman.
Sure, they veer off into 60s Psychedelia nonsense with The Murder Mystery. But that aside, this is a solid album.
The The
2/5
Three Inch Nails
The first track is a complete banger and a memory from late night TV watching.
But then it sags into self consiously arty lyrics and fairly pedestrian music that isn't nearly as interesting as it seems to want you to think it is.
It wants to be making a statement about life the, universe and everything but just isn't that good.
It keeps starting to do something interesting and then goes of the rails. Either he starts singing in a put on dramatic voice or thr lyrics land with a thud or suddenly he thinks its a good idea to mix in tannoy announcements.
Wastes a lot of potential.
Patti Smith
4/5
This may have the most startling debut album opening track since the Beatles went "1 2 3 4". What a calling card!
The cover photo, surly, defiant, tells you what you're getting.
Pantera
3/5
Well, it's not subtle.
I have a problem with this sort of thing. Distorted guitars, bass heavy mix, screaming, howling vocals. I really can't tell one from another. Not just one song from another. One band from another.
I was listening to this thinking, "This is really long album!" and when I checked, it had finished and Spotify had been other music for 20 minutes.
I'm sure there are people who can identify Groove Metal and Grindcore and Thrash Metal and Speed Metal, but I'm not one of them.
I'm not going to deny for a moment that the virtuosity on display is impressive, but to what end when the slow numbers all blend into each other and the fast numbers are SO fast they wouldn't be out of place on a Ravin' Rabbids soundtrack.
I can see the appeal if you're 17 and society sucks, man. But if you're a grown-up then it kind of seems a bit ... well.... vulgar.
Also, read the biography. What a great bunch of lads.
Massive Attack
5/5
So what do you get if you cross Music for Airports with I Feel Love.
Apparently this, eventually.
Takes all the EDM tricks and ticks, then slows them down and turns them in on themselves to have a good, hard meditation.
Safe from Harm:
A bass line that goes for miles with great vocals and rapping over a drum sample that drives it forward.
One Love
A track so minimal it threatens to disappear, then the horn sample appears so it can hook you in.
Blue Lines
Starts like the coolest jazz track then Tricky appears so he can rap about whatever his stream of consciousness throws up.
Be thankful for what you've got
A surprisingly faithful cover of William DeVaughan's 1974 hit. Massive Attack even sample the organ from the original hit. The message against consumerism is still relevant.
Five Man Army
Probably the closest the album comes to traditional rap. The members of Massive Attack take turns to boast and dis. All against the coolest nightclub soundtrack.
Unfinished Sympathy
The absolute masterpiece on the album. Shara Nelson's voice soars above a dense cloud of strings, voices, drum loops and keyboards. "Are you ready" they chant and Shara really is.
The Orchestra (not samples, but live) cost so much that the band had to sell their car to pay for it.
Daydreaming.
Again a minimalist backing track while Tricky raps over the top, Fiddler on the Roof and Beatles references and all.
Lately
Another Shara Nelson's soaring vocal over a giant bass line. Superb.
Hymn of the Big Wheel
Droning synths five way to Horace Andy's song about the Big Wheel. The environment, social inequality, greed all get a mention. It's a big song with a big melody, stuffed full of ideas.
This is a magical album there are people who prefer Mezzanine, but we're lucky to have both that we can choose.
Merle Haggard
3/5
"It gets longer in between each time you call me"
If I was going for the cheap laugh I'd make a penis joke about that line, but I think he means the time between phone calls.
Plenty of heartbreak, men a-doin' what a man's gotta do and jail time. Even, in If You Want to be my Woman, a bit a sexual coercion that really hasn't aged well.
"Mary's mine" brings a bit of happiness, about a man who was living a life without meaning, but who found a reason for carrying on in the love a true hearted girl gave him.
But the next song is about a man whose girl left him and now he's om skid row, so maybe Mary wasn't so true after all.
Then Jimmy Rogers song about a man who found a good woman but can't give up his rough and rowdy ways.
Then a song about a man who had his mixed up mess of a heart torn apart by a little bitty woman.
This guy really has some problems with his attitude to the ladies.
Seriously, it's probably A grade, old style country, but I admit I find myself listening to it as a sort of camp kitsch.
So let's give it a three and move on
A Tribe Called Quest
4/5
This had me from the first bass notes on the first track. And why not, when Ron Carter is playing?
This is cool, bebop influenced, laid back, minimal rap. The rhymes are witty. The beats are sublime.
Jazz (We've Got) is an absolute banger, but the rest of the tracks aren't far behind. Enjoyed this a lot.
Fela Kuti
5/5
Another of those "either you're dancing or you're dead" albums.
The sort of slinky hipped, sexy, slithering afro-jazz funk that Paul Simon dreamed he was making during the Graceland sessions.
And then you read the story of what happened after the album was released and you think "Holy Hell!"
And then you read about Kuti's life and realise that there's so much more here than a toe tapping good time.
No skips, no lowlights.
Talking Heads
4/5
The idea that these guys - all art school, jerky, nervous twitchy energy - used to open for The Ramones and shared a tour bus with them is hard to imagine.
The first album was "nearly, but not quite." A fine announcement of intent, but Jerry Harrison has only just joined the band and they hadn't quite developed complete confidence in their abilities.
But here, with the guiding hand of Brian Eno, they hit their stride.
From the first track, Thankyou for Sending Me an Angel, (what a title) they grab the listeners attention and don't let go. Full of Byrne's quizzical lyrics and yelping vocals Franz and Weymouth's solid, driving rhythm section and Harrison's decorative keyboards it's a hell of a way to start.
Byrne writes songs that sound like they ought to mean something, but whose key stays just frustratingly out of reach. The titles are no help at all. "Found a job" seems to be about a couple who view their life as a TV show and are hoping for a spin off series. "The Girls Want to Be With the Girls" could be about the differences between the sexes could be about lesbianism or could be about how girls are into abstract analysis. Or maybe not.
The crowning moment is their take on Al Green's up-tempo, horn driven, soul classic "Take Me To the River". They slow it down, strip it back, give it a monster bass line from Weymouth, fill it with electronic percussion and turn it into a song that seems more about baptism than love. It's an early direction sign towards what was to come.
Just a classic album. Is it for everyone? Probably not. But hlget on board and its a joy.
Steely Dan
3/5
Ideal for those who wish Joni Mitchell's jazz period albums like "Don Juan's Restless Daughter" and "Mingus" sounded a bit more like George Benson or Boz Scaggs.
Jazz Rock polished to the point of smooth sterility, it's an audiophile wet dream.
Magnificent playing from the very best session players, lush harmonies, but we're a very long way away from "Ricky Don't Lose That Number" or "Reelin' in the Years" and not necessarily the better for it.
The Electric Prunes
2/5
Proof, if proof was needed, that not everything recorded in 1967 is a classic worth remembering. Here we have an album that even the band thought was disappointing.
Rushed into the studio to cash in on the moderate success of their two singles, they had their own songs sidelined and were given a set of songs by commercial songwriters and, inexplicably, a cover of a 1932 show tune.
It seems to be a story of a band thinking they were important artists and the label seeing them as the songwriters vehicle.
The album is all over the shop. There's some Psychedelia, a protest song, some soft, chart friendly love songs, a couple of novelty hits and the one song the band did write pretty much convinces you that they were better off with the label's writers.
Probably the best things on the record are the two singles and Try Me On For Size, which is musically fine, although, to be honest, the lyrics are of the 60s, creepy, just-a-bit-rapey variety that passed for manly, tough guy that the girls can't pass up in 67.
So its a bit of a label cash on a sort of successful band, with the singles, some future singles and a bit of filler. To be clear, for every Revolver, or Blonde on Blonde, there were probably 50 albums made like this. The question remains, of course, why is it on this list? I pause for a reply.
Herbie Hancock
5/5
Miles Davis's Bitches Brew, In a Silent Way and Jack Johnson are like the Dead Sea Scrolls of Jazz Fusion music. They're foundation documents, but they were kind of overlooked at the time.
And they need a bit of work to get into. If you listen to an album like On the Corner, as brilliant as it is, you'll think "What is this?" on first listen.
Head Hunters manages the trick of being just as funky, just as jazzy, just as experimental as Miles Davis, (well, nearly as) while also being immediately appealing.
From the first notes, that skipping bass riff, it just tickles the ears and makes you feel good.
All four tracks have room to stretch out and try things. The blown bottles on Watermelon Man, the stop start nature of Sly, the slow build of Vein Melter, the synthy goodness of Chameleon. The way the whole album uses the clarinet.
The playing is virtuosic. Hancock, of course, can do no wrong, but the other players are superb.
This probably sold more copies than allbfour of Davis's fusion records put together and essentially took the ideas on those records and presented them in a palatable and brilliant way. A classic.
Morrissey
1/5
Well let's get the obvious out of the way. He is UK Kanye. Not Kid Rock, Kid Britpop.
And miserable? Sad, morose, self loathing. Is there any reason why people would want to listen to this level of depressing?
Here in Australia The Smiths and Morrisey didn't make a huge impression as far as I know. "How Soon is Now?" and "This Charming Man" were hipster fare, buy they were essentially niche. Too British, too introvert. Too miserable.
Sure, the playing on this is impeccable. The musicians are top notch and giving it plenty.
But the songs - the lyrics - are the sort of thing a self absorbed 16 year old might produce in order to come third at his school's Slam Poetry Competition. They thud out of the speakers like lead and just sit there, with a level off triteness and inconsequentiality that's extraordinary. Just appallingly badly written.
And then there's Bengali in Platforms. As someone said in another review: "Fuck that Racist Shit!"
It was bad anyway and the racism is the curdled cream on top.
Tom Waits
5/5
If ever there was a "not for everyone" warning needed, it would be for this.
By this stage of Waits Career he was doing exactly whatever he wanted to do. Coming on like a Gospel preacher, sideshow Carney, shouting about Tony Franciosa dating his ma, singing something as delicate as "Who are you" or howling that the Earth died or whispering about a man who can kill with a guitar stringg
The instrumentation is heavy on percussion- or at least, things being hit - and the instruments are banjos, Salvation Army brass and lap steel guitars. When someone does play a regular guitar it doesn't sound the way it should.
"I don't want to be a little Boy Scout," he sings. There's no chance of that. Exactly what he is, other than just Tom Waits, is a bit hard to describe. But we're blessed to have him.
Adele
4/5
Probably doesn't quite escape the charge of being "Amy Winehouse for nice people", but there's no denying the power of her voice, the perìfection of the production and the quality of the songs.
On the surface it's full of pretty songs, but there's real anger and strength in them lurking under the surface, the sound of a woman in pain taking back her independence.
Sure, at times (Set Fire to the Rain) it goes into melodrama. And perhaps the polish of the sound could have been grittier to match the content. She never reaches Etta James or Sarah Vaughan levels of power for instance.
And 11 songs about broken relationships is maybe going on a bit, particularly when it gets a bit mopey towards the end.
But it has to be said that Rolling in the Deep makes a brilliant single, Rumour Has It and Someone Like You are astonishing songs and this whole album is a hell of a thing for a 21 year old to produce.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
3/5
I mean, it's okay, but I'm fairly sure I heard all this back in the days of Ultravox and The Cocteau Twins.
The xx
3/5
I had never heard of The XX. From the name I somehow got the impression of something all doom and gloom and maybe metal.
Completely wrong. It was light, bright, poppy stuff that sounded enjoyable. The two voices thing was a nice surprise and the playing was pretty good.
Having said that, after listening to it, I am having trouble remembering anything specific about it.
So, light bright poppy stuff that went in one ear and straight out the other.
Koffi Olomide
1/5
Well let's say at the start that from the Wiki article he sounds like a pretty despicable person and when Papa Wemba is sitting right there, is this actually an album I need to hear?
Musically fine when it does the Afro-funk, but there are several tracks where it seems to aim at Afro-yacht Rock - more Charles Aznavour than Fela Kuti - and do we need that?