Is this secretly a soul album? The piano crisply bounces like it's being played by a church organist (well, maybe a Unitarian church) who finally gets to let loose on the piano. Bowie sings like he's trying to make sure his neighbors on Mars hear him. He's smooth and raspy simultaneously, sometimes rambling like a preacher who just HAS to get this sermon out before they keel over. The electric guitar sounds like it was possessed by a higher power, with the solos searing atop the rest of the instrumentation (reminds me a lot of guitar solos in Usher songs).
I'm certainly familiar with David Bowie, and have heard this album before, but I've never really sat down and LISTENED to it. There's not a ton of classic rock albums from the early 70s that I'm super into, but with this certainly having a lot of unorthodox influences and the expansive vision of Bowie as he wrote and recorded, maybe that's part of the reason that I am finding myself enjoying this more than I expected. I don't know how "revolutionary" it sounds as I listen 54 years after it's release, but it still sounds fresh and interesting. It sounds lively and important. It just sounds GOOD.
I love the first song. This production is great. Everything sounds really clean and crisp, each instrument shining through. It has a really cool new wave feel to it that I enjoy... and then, the next song. Some bullshit fake ska/sea shanty shit, but this third track is growing on me as it keeps playing.
As I continue on, I can hear some connections between this and some of the emo/gothy bands that came a decade or two later. Big AFI vibes on tracks like "Never Had No One Ever". That vibe carries over onto "Bigmouth Strikes Again", which along with the title track sound like really interesting U2 b-sides. This album came out a little later than I expected, and contextualizing it as a 1986 album, the germs of college rock being planted here are evident and welcome. I expected Morrissey's vocals to wear on me eventually, but they never did. They really fit the sound.
I don't know how often I'm going to listen to this in the future, and the second + third song were a real letdown after that killer opener, but all-in-all, I enjoyed this more than I expected.
Alright, I have definitely heard this album but I don't remember anything about the songs (minus the ubiquitous "One"). I know it's infamous for having very little bass in the mix, and it's the first album with Newsted on bass after Cliff Burton died. In my head, the album's not much of a departure, if at all, from what came before it.
I don't know, maybe it's the mood that I'm in, but I'm just not really feeling it. I'm not a huge metal guy, so maybe that factors in. I can hear the riffs, and I'm bobbing my head to them. It definitely grooves. Songwriting-wise, it doesn't feel like they've missed a beat here (and I honestly probably like it more than Master of Puppets). I think it's mostly the production. It's like ALL treble, no low-end at all. Is there a remaster of this that improves on it? Is this pretty common for thrash? It's honestly just really hard to listen to. I think I would like it more if it sounded better. Probably could have just been eight tracks as well, this thing is over an hour.
Well, at least I always have "One".
What can you even say about this album that hasn't been said before? It's damn near perfect. Every note, every flourish, everything is immaculately placed. Even a goofy-ass song like "The Girl Is Mine" works because Jacko and crew took it so seriously. This is genuine art. I never get tired of listening to it.
I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about this. I'm not a big classic rock guy in general, and what with having heard a bunch of these songs so many times over the years on classic rock radio, I wasn't expecting to really get into this album. Boy, was I wrong! This truly took me on a journey. The production was really unique, in that it didn't feel like a modern recording in any way, and yet it still felt relevant and important. Definitely not dated at all. The songwriting was really good, and even the songs I've heard a million times just made more sense with their place in the tracklisting. I wish I could have listened with the lyrics to get the sense of the full story, but I was working and that just wasn't an option. I really enjoyed this. A pleasant surprise.
Okay, so as it turns out, as I was getting ready to listen to this, I realized I was confusing them with The War And Treaty this entire time. I knew this was a band of white guys and not a Black duo, but I was expecting a more folk-y sound. Imagine my surprise when "Under The Pressure" kicked in!
This is really cool. I can hear a little Springsteen in the vocals, and a little Death Cab-via-Jimmy Eat World in the music. Not listening the closest to the lyrics, but they give off a really isolated and lonely vibe.
Is this one of those bands that has kind of a different sound every album? Not sure on that one, but they feel like they'd have the ability to do so if they desired.
A little bit of 80s too, as "Disappearing" has a big "Running Up That HIll" vibe to it.
Yeah, I was straight up vibing to this. This felt really good, really haunting and I can see this, after a few more listens, just crawling into my guts and refusing to leave. I'm normally not a fan of a lot of multiple 7+ minute songs on one album (I definitely said "ugh" out loud when I first saw this album was an hour), but the time flew by. This is great.
Okay, so there are some interesting grooves on this album, but as a whole this album is kind of boring. I was kind of excited as it started - "Chic Cheer" is a fun opener and it was cool to hear the source of the sample of this Mary J. Blige song from my high school days. "Le Freak" is obviously a classic but it goes on for too long (although I suspect this is partly in order to help get more play in the discos back in the day). It just kind of gets boring after that. A lot of these songs are long but to no end, there are no dynamic changes or big musical mix-ups in them... they just sort of keep going and going. "At Last I Am Free" is one of the most boring songs I've heard in a long time, it just does NOTHING. I appreciate Nile Rodgers and certainly respect the career he's built and the influence he's had on so many songs and musicians, but this album just doesn't do it for me at the end of the day. Honestly, if all of these songs were no more than 4:30 in length, I probably would have rated it a little higher. I think the only tracks I would listen to again are "Chic Cheer", "Sometimes You Win", and "(Funny) Bone".
Quick review before bed: This was a very enjoyable listen. Good production, good songwriting. Didn't get to pay close attention to the lyrics, but both the words and the music felt upbeat and melancholy simultaneously, which is something that I LOVE in music. Will absolutely be listening to this again. I knew the name and the genre, but never the music, and now Joe Ely has a new fan.
