There's a lot of energy in this album, but that's pretty much Little Richard in a nutshell. Some classic Rock 'n' Roll, and tunes that kick-started an entire musical movement. My rating : 4.5 of 5 stars.
While I'd call myself a blues rocker at heart, I was introduced to Jazz (alongside several other genres) when I was quite young. My grandfather was something of an aficionado of the genre, and whenever we'd go to visit my grandparents he'd almost always sit me down and play his latest favourites for me, and as a result I developed a bit of a taste for it myself. Sarah Vaughan is one of the vocal artists I remember most clearly from those visits, alongside Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, and Ella Fitzgerald, and listening to her, or any of the others, always brings back fond memories.
This album is quite possibly Vaughan at her absolute best. The original 1957 release only covers the first half an hour of the session at Mister Kelly's, but even in those nine short tracks you can hear just how relaxed she is, how much fun she's having with the songs being played, and how in sync her and the band are. The extended version of the full set released in the early nineties just adds to this, and brings home just how amazing Vaughan's voice was.
My rating : a solid 5 out of 5 stars.
The first of three albums Bowie recorded in Germany, this one sees him making something of a departure from the style he'd previously developed. Less psychedelic prog, less guitar rock, more avant-garde experimental.
Co-produced by Tony Visconti, and made in collaboration with Brian Eno, it's definitely one of the stranger Bowie albums. It only produced one charting single (Sound and Vision) and to be honest that doesn't surprise me, as it's a bit of a marmite album, with people either loving it or hating it.
From a pop perspective it isn't all that accessible, with its mix of vocal and instrumental tracks, and its (at the time) unprecedented use of synthesizers and harmonizers, but from a technical perspective it's simply amazing, with what I personally think is some of Bowie's most groundbreaking work.
That said, it's not my favourite Bowie album, and while it's definitely an important one where the evolution of his art is concerned, I'm only able to give it a rating of 4 out of 5 stars.
I've had a pretty mixed relationship with goth music over the years, first loving it, then getting bored with it, then being indifferent towards it, and then slowly drifting back to (selectively) loving it in the last decade or so, and through all those phases The Cure has been one of the few goth bands I've continued listening to. Yet until today I don't actually remember listening to this one.
This is quite possibly The Cure at their darkest and most fkd up. A lot of fans class this as one of their greatest albums, but if I'm being honest, I can't see it myself. Sure, it's a good album, but it feels way too self-referential, way too spaced-out, to be a truly great album. It carries a lot of the hallmarks of early Cure, with the distorted guitar and the almost tinny electronic-sounding drums, and for that alone I'll be adding a copy to my physical music library, but It doesn't quite hit the full five stars for me.
My rating, a steady 4 out 5.
