1001 Albums Summary

hey man what's up with that big gushy string section on A Man Needs A Maid? where'd all that come from? you get bored in the studio one day? this one is obviously a classic but upon re-listening i'm struck by how much of it kinda just washes over me. you would think that every song on here would be on the level of the completely inimitable Heart of Gold or the heartbreaking Needle and the Damage Done - and yet! maybe people are just remembering the extremely high highs and kinda glossing over the stuff that languishes in the margins. it's definitely no After the Gold Rush. now that is a fucking album.

by no means a real revelation to me but HEALTH really do owe kind of their entire contemporary career to these guys, don't they? put some slightly more punchy drums on it and The Things You Said would've slotted really neatly onto the B-side of any of those recent albums. anyway this one is a weird one. it doesn't feel as "complete" of an album as Violator, which felt on my first listen (and still feels) like a very singular, driven work with a tightly-focused vision. really excellent singles — Never Let Me Down Again is one of the best songs in their discography and a very powerful opener. To Have and To Hold is one of the most slaveringly erotic songs ever. which is why it's SO funny when you get to Nothing and the whole record just steps on a fucking landmine. one of the most jarring shifts in sound/tone i've heard in god knows how long. and then after that you get what sounds like 5 minutes of spooky haunted house music that somehow got put on the master before they shipped it out? very strange!