Prog that rocks and a very oily album cover! I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this review, as I’ve listened to this album a few times before. A few really good songs, some songs I can appreciate but don’t really like or dislike. I like the juxtaposition of different styles but I feel like their next couple of albums really brought everything together into a more impressive whole.
The main thing about this album is that there's just tons and tons of energy in the room. I was surprised at how uptempo the whole album is. Even what he refers to as the "romantic" material is performed with a driving feel and a lot of momentum. At first I thought a little more contrast in intensity would have been better, but Cooke clearly knew his audience and the crowd's response is unequivocal. He's known for his smooth, sweet voice but the slight gravel apparent here heightens the urgency he gives his performance. From listening alone, there is a direct and immediate sense of his presence in the room. This record is almost as interesting for showing Cooke as an expert entertainer as it is for the specific musical performance.
The call and response sections with the audience and his overall demeanor are very preacherly. Cooke and a lot if his soul and R&B contemporaries got started with gospel music and Cooke's father was actually a preacher. This started me wondering if Cooke was the inspiration for "Son of a Preacher Man" (written for Aretha Franklin but first released as sung by Dusty Springfield). It's rumored that Cooke wrote "You Send Me" for Franklin (who would have been 15 years old when it was released).
The band is cooking but they're not always captured very well. The vocals are way out front (rightly so) and the drums and guitar are always present, but the rest of the band is not consistently heard. Sometimes the horns are playing hard and punchy but at the same time they sound weak and far away. Obviously, if this was recorded today with the intent to release a live album, it would be done differently. At least they put the recording aside rather than destroying it with studio overdubs so now we have this document of the lesser-recognized side of Sam Cooke. It's impossible not to imagine what it would have been like to have been there that night.
Also: King Curtis!
For what it's worth, the version available on Spotify (as of summer 2026) seems to be the 2005 remix, which according to Wikipedia "generally splits the difference" between the raw 1985 mix and the more polished 2000 mix.
I personally reach for Hunky Dory first, as it has more songs I absolutely completely love. I almost gave this a 4 to leave room for better albums or at least albums I like more, but I gave it another listen and it is undeniably a 5-out-of-5 album even if it doesn't have as many songs that I couldn't forgive myself for leaving off my best-of-Bowie playlist.
Duran Duran was a guilty pleasure during the years when I thought I had graduated from Top 40 radio but at the same time couldn't keep my eyes off MTV. Not that I listen to Duran Duran much nowadays, but I can appreciate their music a lot more now. Rio is insanely catchy, a tour de force. The bass is constantly percolating throughout the length of the song, never letting up.
As an album, there's always something interesting going on if you listen closely, but nothing has the same energy as Rio. The second half actually drags a bit, especially New Religion. The album closer, The Chauffer, makes better use of the less-frenetic pace, creating a moody almost menacing piece that feels like it belongs on an episode of Miami Vice.
All in all, though, it's just an OK album, more interesting than it might seem but with only a few standout songs. I can't really consider it essential listening.
Well, despite liking the Chili Peppers earlier in my life I don't think I've ever listened to this album before. The songs I heard when it came out just turned me off the band completely, and I haven't really looked back. (That said, "LA Lakers, fast break makers, kings of the court, shake and bake all takers" still goes through my head pretty often.)
I'm going to try to give this a fair listen. Here goes.
The Power of Equality - good bass playing up front while the guitar repeats the same minimalist "Hey Batter Batter" part until the chorus, very effective way to build energy and anticipation, but the vocals are terrible and and the bridge is ???
If You Have to Ask - eh, OK groove but boring as a song, kills all the momentum from the previous song
Breaking the Girl - the chord progression is interesting, some flute sounds (mellotron?) and other interesting production choices (hammer-on-anvil sound mixed in with the drums?), I don't like the song but can see how someone could, the vocals feel like they have some sort of emotion to them
Funky Monks - there are hundreds of better funk bands, bands that literally make you want to stand up and dance
Suck My Kiss - no, just no
I Could Have Lied - not inherently terrible, the singing is a step up from the usual talking loud/almost rapping
Mellowship Slinky in B Major - and once again the vocals just ruin it, both the lyrics and the delivery, the band sets up a nice groove that would be fine but as soon as the vocals come in...
The Righteous and the Wicked - absolutely shit vocals, basic groove with some interesting sections, the first part of the chorus is the worst, the generic and repetitive metal riff that comes in later in the song brings it down too
Give It Away - OK this is a truly great bassline, guitar part really works, drums are solid, the weird nasally vocals are surprisingly not terrible, the psychedelic guitar solos make the groove that much more undeniable when it comes back, apparently this song was written by Flea and Frusciante for another band and repurposed for this Chili Peppers album
[Damn, there's 8 songs left!?!]
Blood Sugar Sex Magik - the vocals are just so, so bad, there's nothing musical about the flow, just say whatever word comes on the third beat a little louder and angrier, musically the least interesting song so far
Under the Bridge - pretty catchy and while I would never call Keidis a great singer, this is so much better than the other vocalizing he does on this album, the quiet transition from the verse into the chorus is nicely done with the rimshots, the bridge at least tries something different
Naked in the Rain - if you're looking for a blend of funk and hard rock this has potential, combines a decent groove with a scratchy guitar dancing around the beat, the chorus is really terrible though, a band like Living Color could turn this into something good
Apache Rose Peacock - pretty boring musically although the guitar is not bad, lyrics and vocals bring it way down, no energy and then the metal guitar at the end is just... what?
The Greeting Song - trash
My Lovely Man - more trash? I'm trying but someone stuck these songs at the end of the second side for a reason, Wikipedia says the album is 73 minutes and 56 seconds long, exactly 4 seconds short of the maximum length of a CD, it seems like they thought they had to fill the CD or they wouldn't get paid?
Sir Psycho Sexy - the closest they get to a p-funk sound (sonically, not musically, mostly because there's a wah-wah or something like that on the bass) but as with almost every song on this album, the vocals are intolerable
They’re Red Hot - throwaway, I hope Robert Johnson didn't leave his royalties to the devil but he probably did
If you made it this far, you probably know exactly what I'm going to say now. This is not good and it's mostly the fault of Anthony Kiedis. The rest of the band has talent and Flea is really one of a kind, but the result is less than the sum of the parts. On the songs where the band is best, it still feels like they are leaving a lot of space for Keidis to shout. The lyrics are mostly really bad (at best well-intentioned but not well-expressed) and even worse, they are soooo in your face. When Keidis actually sings, he is capable of imparting some emotion and musicality to the slower songs. Unfortunately, that doesn't play to the strengths of the band, the high-energy, hard-hitting grooves, but I guess they're now more popular for their rap-rock ballads?
I went back and listened to their earlier albums and Keidis can actually sing and rap decently, (although most of his lyrics couldn't be called decent by any definition). Every album before this one also showed some artistic development for the group too, including the one after Hillel Slovak died. This one's a big step down from Mother's Milk in almost every way. While I'm not sure Mother's Milk or any of their other albums are truly essential, saying someone should spend 73 minutes and 56 seconds with THIS album before they die is downright sadistic.
I know a lot of these songs but haven't listened to this album as an album until now. I like just about every song I haven't heard before. There's definitely a big change in their sound, only part of which is the lack of John Cale. It's also what Lou Reed felt like he could do without John Cale looking at him like Snape glaring at Harry Potter. It's hard to believe that this is the same band that made Venus in Furs, Heroin, The Black Angel's Death Song. Gone are the slow haunting drones and gone too are the frenetically strummed scrabble-scrabble guitars accelerating into storms of feedback. On the other hand, the band was never defined by any one style. Some of their songs only sound like they're by the Velvet Underground because they are by the Velvet Underground.
Interestingly several of the songs on this album have a subtle country influence to the guitar and there's something about the bass playing that sounds more like a progressive country studio session than the proto-punk of the first album. I don't think that's really true on any of their other albums. Murder Mystery is fun. I feel like a lot of later bands must have used this template for quirky story-songs, but then, a lot of bands have used the Velvet Underground as a template for a lot of stuff, so that makes sense.
It's a good album and I'm glad to have listened to it even if it will probably never be my favorite.
Essential Listen: Borderline but no
Desert Island Disc: No
Well, another album I know but don't know. Five of these songs I know (well) and five I might as well never have heard before, even though I'm pretty sure I've listened to this album all the way through a few times in my life.
Listened to as an album, a singular theme really comes through. Neil's been treated badly and now "a man" needs a pickup, a new place to live, a farm, a maid, or something or someone. I guess he's not really sure. Should he keep searching for love? Is he ready for the country? Does he need a preacher? Is it time to die?
A lot of this feels on the surface like a yearning for and maybe even a celebration of a simpler time but the message throughout is that the promise will not lead to fulfillment. The introduction to "A Man Needs a Maid" is so reminiscent of "After the Goldrush" from two years before, both heavy with melancholy. The lyrics start out with him rejecting love for a seemingly more pragmatic arrangement, then he falls in love with an image on a screen, and he ends with a forlorn "When will I see you again...?" It's a surprisingly sad album as a whole, sort of Neil saying "we reap [harvest] what we sow" and maybe in that sense "A Man Needs A Maid" contains a note of self-recrimination, too.
I'm not sure I fully understand what the song "Harvest" is about, but it evokes regret over something that didn't turn out well, whether it is the relationship of the girl with her mother or the narrator with either or both. The "promise of a man" is a lie, at best a well-intentioned one, but it never had a chance of bearing fruit.
Musically, it is surprising that this acoustic "country" themed album ends up having some songs with simple instrumentation, like "Harvest," and some have far more complex arrangements and meandering structures. Only a few of the songs rock, and nothing rocks even close to, for example, "Cowgirl in the Sand." It makes sense if you think of it as an album about being lost, paying the price for your decisions in life, and starting to lose hope of ever finding your way.
A good album that was a lot more than I initially took it for.
Essential listen: not sure, probably not
Desert Island Disc: no, too depressing for someone who is already lost
I was never a big fan of Dylan as a live performer, but someone recently directed me to The Bootleg Series 2-disc set of the Rolling Thunder Revue from 1975. At some point between 1966 and 1975 Dylan came into his own as a singer. He's no Roy Orbison, Marvin Gaye, Freddie Mercury, Jeff Buckley or anyone you’d call a great singer, but this collection of live performances completely changed my impression of him as a performer and especially as a vocalist. His singing draws you into every song, and he basically never fumbles or breaks the spell with a bad note. He leads the band with a clear, musical, and at best I would even say nimble style and doesn’t fall back on the mannered nasally sing-song style he had earlier in his career. And these recordings were drawn from just a few nights of performances, so not cherry-picked from thousands of mediocre or worse nights.
On to the current selection from 1966, there’s plenty to like, especially in the first, acoustic set. “Visions of Johanna” stands out as a great performance. In the second, electric set he leans heavily on that vocal style that you would immediately think of if you wanted to impersonate Bob Dylan for a laugh, slurring and swooping around the notes with long exaggerated nasally whines. If you can look past the vocal style, the second set is an interesting look at a critical point in Dylan’s career. The band is good, and the songs are great. Not an essential listen but an important historic document. HOWEVER, the official release is not even an important historic document as almost all the audience response has been edited out.
Essential listening: Interesting yes, essential no
Desert Island Disc: No
I feel a little bad about this because I like a lot of other stuff by these guys, but this is just not that great. They sing together pretty nicely, and I like a lot of the guitar work. The problem is the material: there are one or two standout songs, a few OK songs, and the rest are forgettable or even kind of annoying.
"Carry On" is a good example. It's pretty catchy, but except for the vocal harmonizing it's similar but slightly lesser than what other groups were doing. Nothing sticks with me after the song's over.
"Teach Your Children" - I like the sentiment but I don't think much of the song.
I like the feel of "Almost Cut My Hair" although again it is nothing too special and the lyrics are insufferable.
"Helpless" is a pretty song but would have been kind of middle-of-the-pack on a Neil Young album from this era.
"Woodstock" really works for them as a group, but I don't give them as much credit here since they didn't write it. Maybe that's not fair.
"Deja Vu" - Here they try something more ambitious and I think the result is by far the best song on the album. The vocals, the guitars, the changes, the overall feel, everything works.
"Our House" - I hate this song and always have since I first heard it. Maybe it's a "me" problem since everyone else seems to like it.
"4 +20" - I like this song but it doesn't stand out. Might have fit better on a Stills solo album?
"Country Girl" - It's fine I guess. Trying to turn scraps of different songs into one song can yield great and unexpected results, but here it's just proof they didn't have a lot of strong material for the album.
"I Love You Everybody" - In theory, it should give the album a bit more punch to bookend it with two upbeat rockers, but this song is just so forgettable. The album ends with a rocker but it feels more like a sad whimper. I guess with 36 minutes of music, they needed every song they could get.
Essential listen: no
Desert island disc: no
I've never liked Elliott Smith much, not that I exactly dislike him. He just leaves me cold. His music has a lot in common with other music I like. There's something flat and unexpressive about his airy singing that almost prevents me from hearing him at all. As human beings our brains zero in on human voices so automatically it can be hard to tune them out when we want to concentrate on something else. For me at least Elliott Smith is the opposite: his voice is like the hum of tires on the road, a drone that is hard to pick out unless you really focus your attention on it. When I do, I can tell that he sings specific notes, with some dynamics and inflections, and occasionally variation in timbre but the overall effect is still flat.
After hearing a few songs from Songs: Ohia over the last few years, I listened to Axxess & Ace straight through earlier this week. His voice is fairly plain and he doesn't do anything fancy with it, and he doesn't do the common vocal emotes that signal "I'm so sad" or "I'm bitter and angry" but the emotional immediacy is almost overwhelming. Smith has been compared to Nick Drake, but if Nick Drake was making soft noises to a squirrel in the middle of the night six houses down, I would wake up from a dead sleep to go see what the entrancing noise was.
The music on this album is varied and well-crafted, but like his singing it lacks any sense of immediacy, presence, urgency, or strong emotion. I wasn't surprised to see that he played almost everything himself. While most albums aren't recorded live in the studio nowadays, there is something about playing off other people, even asynchronously, that gives a spark to a musician's performance.
I noticed on Spotify that none of the top 10 most popular songs are from this album. I listened to a few and I noticed that some had simpler arrangements but with more complex fingerpicked guitar and often a bit more immediacy overall. Maybe the Beatles-esque baroque indie pop sound of this album is a critical favorite but not necessarily a fan favorite? I think the reviewer from Trouser Press had a similar reaction, describing it as "a record that feels very different from its predecessors.... brisk and busy, up front and confident, upbeat. While nothing here fails the consistent artistry of his work, neither does any of it make the direct connection to a soul and heart."
Obviously some people get something more from this than I do. To some he's like a romantic poet, and I don't think it's simply how he dressed and how he died. I guess it is because they connected to the lyrics first and that prepares them to respond to the music?
Anyway.... I've listened to this album three times today. The more I listened, the more I appreciated the music (but not his voice). I'm going to give it 3 stars even though in terms of my personal enjoyment it's probably closer to 2 stars. Also, the little Nutcracker bit at the end softened me up.
Well, this wasn't what I was expecting at all. I had the idea that these guys were some sort of mid-90s radio-friendly alternative like the Eels or Space or Spacehog or Superdrag or Gorillaz, something like that. I mean I wasn't too, too far off, but the sound is more like Cheap Trick by way of Green Day, ie, hopped up on goofballs. I can't see myself going back to this but it was fun and pretty OK.
Essential listen: no
Desert island disc: no
OK, I like this album but maybe a big part of it is nostalgia. I think the prominent basslines and just generally strong rhythm section sets this apart from being a generic jangly guitar band. There are only a few songs that stick with me though. If it's enjoyable in the moment but doesn't leave anything behind, that takes away from my appreciation.
I like REM's early stuff, but it's pretty weak compared to Life's Rich Pageant or Document where I think they locked in together and the vocal lines were more powerful. I'm not as much of a fan of the more wistful moods represented on this album.
Essential listen: no
Desert island disc: no
Hey, this isn’t Zounds!
I want to say “This isn’t terrible…” but it’s not very good either. The singing's not awful but I really don’t like it. The sax adds something but the lines sound like they are played out of an exercise book for first or second year musicians. Most of the songs have something good about them, a little hook or interesting drum part or overall feel, but it just doesn't add up to much and the quality of the songs as songs drops as the album goes on. It's not like I want to stab my eardrums, it would make pleasant background music if they removed the vocals, it's just not very interesting, it doesn't inspire much response. Definitely a puzzle how this got included.
Essential listen: not even close
Desert island disc: no
This isn’t my usual kind of thing and I guess I kind of tuned it out when it was released, although a few of the songs were quite familiar from, you know, when you walk into a deli to get a turkey sandwich and the music’s on the radio. I was kind of getting into it and then… well, it just went on way too long. After “Independent Women Pt. II” it got really dire. That was the natural ending of the album! How did they miss it?
After 9 songs of sultry R&B (with a fair amount of variety within that), we get a Euro dance club track announcing the beginning of a random collection of songs of various styles that don't seem to have much to recommend them except "more Destiny's Child." It gives the impression of a demo showing their versatility ("available for bachelor parties and bar mitzvahs!") put together by their management or songs that one member insisted be on the album even though no one else thought it fit or was good enough.
While the first half of the album could be considered over-produced, with beats that change up constantly, layered vocals panning from side to side, synth strings, interpolations (of 80s songs of course), a lot of the back half of the album is stuck in the worst of the 80s with generic-sounding keyboards, laser sounds, and thin, uninspired beats. “My Heart Still Beats” is obviously intended as a showcase for Beyoncé’s voice but that doesn’t make it enjoyable to listen to. And give me a Destiny’s Child gospel album but leave “Gospel Medley” off. Almost 20 producers and they couldn’t do better than this? Well, that's a big part of the problem I guess, no specific artistic vision.
Essential listen: no
Desert island disc: no
This is pretty new to me except "Waterfalls" and "No Scrubs" which I now know is from the next album. It's all high quality stuff, except the skits, which are terrible, as I guess was required. The rapping is much better than you'd expect from a non-hip hop album. The production is pretty much perfect. There's a coherent feel across the whole album but each song has it's own cool details that don't get in the way of the song or the album. The fact that Prince's "If I Was Your Girlfriend" fits in so naturally on this album is a sign of the care that was taken in putting every musical element in it's right place.
I wasn't expecting the album to be so consistently slow and languid. It's full of slow headnod grooves that gently pull you back and forth. The surface of the water is smooth but you can feel the power of the waves below. It's a strong album and probably deserves a 4, but it's not really my vibe. I'm glad I had a reason to listen to it closely, but I'm not sure I'll seek it out in the future, so it's a 3 for me personally.
There was a time in my life when I probably would have found it hard to disagree with someone who claimed Exile on Main Street was the best Stones album, although Sticky Fingers has long held a place as my personal favorite. And honestly, I don't really think of the Stones as an "album band" at all and have probably listened to the Hot Rocks collection more than any single Stones album (whoops, Stones fans will probably discount everything else I have to say now). To be fair, basically no bands were "album bands" when the Stones got started and they produced some albums with a very respectable quantity of excellent songs before the album era. Exile on Main Street though definitely should be considered as an album, even though several of the songs were written and recorded during the Sticky Fingers sessions.
Most importantly, the album has a great feel throughout, blending blues, country, R&B, and gospel in a way that feels natural most of the time, highlighting the common origins of American music. There's so much more to say about this and the Stones' role in particular, both good and bad, but I guess I'll save that for my blog.
As far as songs, a real standout for me is "Shake Your Hips." It was a good choice in every way for them to deliver a souped-up cover and give full credit to Slim Harpo rather than make a few changes and call it their own. "I Just Want to See His Face" is another track with a great groove that feels like they are just enjoying playing together rather than trying to create a hit song.
This really highlights the big weakness with this album though: It's a great listen, but the songs are mostly just good, not great. Out of 18 tracks on the album, I don't know that there are any that I would nominate as among the Stones' best songs. By contrast, out of the 10 songs on Sticky Fingers, I would argue that all of them except 2 or 3 should at least be considered for inclusion in that category.
Essential listen: yes
Desert island disc: borderline, depends on how many discs I get, who makes up the damn rules about how many discs you are allowed when stranded, is there electricity or what?
<frantic drum fill>
Now, I rock a house party at the drop of a hat, yeah
Now, I beat a biter down with an aluminum bat
A lot of people they be Jonesin' just to hear me rock the mic
They be staring at the radio, staying up all night
So like a pimp, I'm pimpin', I got a boat to eat shrimp in
Nothing wrong with my leg, I'm just B-boy limpin'
Got arrested at the Mardi Gras for jumping on a float
My man MCA's got a beard like a billy goat
"Ooh-ooh" is my disco call
MCA, I'm gettin' rope, y'all
Routines I bust and the rhymes that I write
And I'll be busting routines and rhymes all night
Like eating burgers or chicken and you'll be picking ya nose, man
I'm on time, homie, that's how it goes
You heard my style, I think you missed the point
It's the joint!
<weird distorted bass>
I'm inclined to like this album, but it's not immediately irresistible. It has a lot of elements of his older material and elements of where he's going next, but it kind of neither/nor. I've actually listened to this album before, thinking along the same lines, "This was pretty good, I'll have to give it another listen some time," but then I didn't. I guess it's either just pretty good or it requires you to put more into it. I'm only giving it a 3 but I am making a point to listen to it again in a few days.
Essential listening: no
Desert island disc: no
The definition of inessential--and I say this as a White Stripes enjoyer and a Jack White respecter--Jack White's first solo album. First of, he's obviously a good guitar player (overrated for sure but I'd rather listen to Jack White than Steve Vai). He's an OK singer, but his singing worked better for me in the context of the White Stripes. Who decided to open this album with a vocal that falls on the barely side of serviceable? Most likely it was Jack himself, so what were you thinking, Jack? Listen to his shaky voice used to perfect musical effect on "Dead Leaves" and then listen to the same voice on "Missing Pieces" and you'll see what I mean.
In his defense, at least he didn't listen to everyone saying he's some sort of guitar god and record and album where the music is obscured by endless guitar histrionics. The thing I like about Jack White is that he can take a few seemingly random musical scraps and magically bring them to life by pure enthusiasm for music. His best songs keep introducing new elements as they go along with a feeling of childlike excitement, something perhaps modest but fun and creative, rather than just repeating a hook over and over.
Most of the songs on this album have cool parts, cool sounds, but they repeat themselves too much and never really feel alive like his best songs. The addition of more vocal lines is promising but could have been done better. The second vocalist on "Love Interruption" seems to be following the main vocal very closely at a fixed interval rather than with the uneasy (dissonant?) closeness that you often get with bluegrass music. I think it would be so much better if the voices were equal in the mix with some pull and push between them harmonically rather than almost equal but with the second voice more like an embellishment to the first. The vocal harmonies used in the final song on the album are more interesting though. The use of piano and various organs on most (maybe all?) of the tracks adds a lot to the songs. I particularly like the ascending piano line in "Weep Yourselves to Sleep."
"I'm Shakin'" sounds more like schtick than a song and, "Trash Tongue Talker" just feels like a lazy throwaway, maybe written in the studio. "Sixteen Saltines" is the closest thing on the album to a White Stripes throwback, but the falsetto makes me think he should have given this song to the guy that makes those Eagles of Death Metal records. "On And On And On" is the title to the second-to-last track on the album and maybe that wasn't the best choice sequencing wise. It's mournful and kind of boring and it would be tempting to just switch it off at this point. Fortunately, the album ends with a song that is kind of a smorgasbord of different styles. I wouldn't call it a good song (kind of reminds me of Beck, not in a good way), but it's a lot more lively than most of the album, bringing in more interesting harmonies, marimba, slow and fast sections, etc.
If I was familiar with Jack White's later discography, maybe I would recognize this album as an important step artistically. It's far from a failure, but it doesn't feel like a classic and it could be a lot more fun. While I was listening, tracks from his next solo album Lazaretto came on a few times that were intriguing, stronger, and more fun. "Temporary Ground" from that album has a really nice vocal duet (not sure if it is the same singer).
Essential listen: no
Desert island disc: no
Proof that humanity didn't need AI to create slop.
I liked this better than I thought I would, based on the few songs from her second album that I've heard but never listened to very closely. I listened to this album a few times and Back to Black once or twice as well over the last few days. During that time, my impression of her has shifted from a pop singer being used to promote an R&B revival dreamed up by someone else to a talented musician, singer, and songwriter trying to create her own musical style rooted in jazz, 60s R&B and soul, and hip-hop.
Focusing on Frank, she clearly takes inspiration from the classic jazz vocalists like Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, but the overall feel of the album is post-Weather Report fusion incorporating hip-hop and pop influences. There's a bit of a mismatch between the "frank" sentiments expressed in the lyrics and in the expressiveness of her singing on the one hand and the overly slick production that the songs, some more than others, are buried under, on the other.
It's my understanding that she wrote most of these songs herself but more and more producers kept adding to them (gaining writing credits along the way of course). The productions are not bad, they're mostly quite nice, but they overwhelm and deaden some of the songs. The stripped down versions on the deluxe version of the album and a video I saw online of her playing Take the Box that was just her singing and playing guitar are much more appealing to me and suggest this could have been a very different album that I would have liked a lot more.
Not to blame all the missteps on others: sometimes her vibrato is over the top and distracting (although I have a lower tolerance for this than a lot of people). And sometimes her delivery is mush-mouthed and her enunciation is slurred in a way that must be an aesthetic choice but a baffling one to me. Mostly she uses her vocal techniques in ways that serve the music and add to the overall expressiveness of her singing, but once in a while it's just like a needle scratch.
I don't know who advised her to put "I Have Daddy Issues, Part 1" and "I Have Daddy Issues, Part 2" as the first two tracks on her debut album, but the fact that it might have actually been her daddy is a little disturbing. It's hard to separate the idea that her songwriting is so direct and honest about her difficulty in getting what she needed from the people in her life, and in particular from the men in her life, from the appearance that this presentation of her to the public as a "beautiful disaster" was encouraged by some of those same men.
Frank seems to me to be the result of her having a lot of skill as well as confidence in her own artistry, wanting validation while loudly proclaiming that she doesn't need anyone's validation, deferring to producers who think they know best how to present her art, and making some artistic choices along the way that seem more like the result of insecurity than confidence.
I'm rating this album as a 3 simply on enjoyment but it's interesting and I can imagine that it will grow on me over time.
Essential listen: yes, even if it's flawed I think it's more than worth a listen
Desert island disc: no
For a while I have considered this my favorite Beatles album, but listening to it today, it doesn't feel obviously more enjoyable than some of the other Beatles albums that are also my favorites. Lennon's contributions stand out to me: "I'm Only Sleeping," "She Said She Said," "And Your Bird Can Sing," and "Tomorrow Never Knows."
Essential listen: yes
Desert island disc: yes
I've known for a while that the Bee Gees were more than Saturday Night Fever, but I didn't know exactly what. I'm not sure I’ll ever know. It turns out that they made 14 albums before Saturday Night Fever. After listening to this one, I don't see myself diving into their back catalog.
This is their 6th album, released in 1969. It’s not all terrible, but what isn’t terrible is still pretty boring. Some of the songs are reminiscent of Genesis, Jethro Tull, early Pink Floyd, except more boring. Some of the singing feels like it is intended for the stage rather than for the radio, jukebox, or dancehall. In fact, at times the whole thing feels like a terrible educational musical theater production. That actually makes it sound more fun than it is. It’s not over the top and hilarious, it’s dull and detached. There are some ballads, some country songs, some instrumentals with an orchestral feel, a lot of strings on top of everything... I don't really know what to make of it all. This is the first album where I wasn't sure how to rate it but I wasn't intrigued enough to listen to it a second time.
I did listen to a few songs from "Bee Gees 1st" which was their third album but their first released outside of Australia. Those songs were more engaging if maybe a bit derivative, with obvious influences from the Beatles and the Zombies. Not bad though, even if they lacked the spark of those other bands.
Essential listen: no
Desert island disc: no
This is a strange one. It sits in a weird place between something mundane and something that keeps hinting at being more without giving you much more. I think the band is pretty good as far as that goes. They have a good sound and create a cool atmosphere. When there’s a breakdown, the bass has a cool tone, the drums are heavy with minimal cymbals. The guitar parts can be really cool, sometimes more in your face, sometimes more understated. But in the end that’s pretty much it. The songs range from completely generic to pretty good with one or two that stand out. The vocals very rarely draw me in and they are very samey from song to song, with similar phrasing and everything.
This is not a bad album. I never felt like I was waiting for it to end. It’s more like it’s an average album that gives you a lot of hints that it could be better but then disappoints you in the end.
Essential: no
Desert island disc: no
The first and maybe biggest problem here is that I don't like her vocal performance on most of the tracks on this album. Generally, it's weak and wispy, like a dissipated cloud. And the music is just barely there. There are a few artists that I like despite employing a similar minimalistic approach, but here it just doesn't do much for me. The guitar parts are surprisingly nice when you can pick them out, shimmering and slinking along behind the mouthful of cotton gauze that is the rest of the music. In contrast to the guitars, the piano just plods along without the tiniest hint of musicality. It's much better when she uses something closer to her full voice, like on "Let Me Love You Like a Woman," "Dance Till We Die," and "For Free." Just to show that I am a self-contradicting, complex character, I will say that I do like "Yosemite" which has more of a delicate, airy feel.
Since there's not much appealing to the music or the vocals, I was thinking maybe the lyrics are good. Listening to the first song I was wondering why she has to say "Down at the Men in Music Business Conference" so many times. It doesn't flow well. But then I thought, maybe that's the point? Unfortunately, that might be the peak lyrically. A lot of the lyrics are like the music, evocative at times but mostly insubstantial, at worst awkward and lazy.
From the title track:
"Drag racing my little red sports car
I'm not unhinged or unhappy, I'm just wild"
"Under the chemtrails over the country club, yeah
You're born in December and I'm born in June"
I guess being wild is her theme song. References to astrology, the archetype of feeling meaningful despite not having any meaning at all.
Here's anther track, "Wild at Heart":
"I left Calabasas, escaped all the ashes, ran into the dark
And it made me wild, wild, wild at heart
The cameras have flashes, they cause the car crashes
But I'm not a star
If you love me, you'll love me
'Cause I'm wild, wild at heart
If they love me, they'll love me
'Cause I'm wild, wild at heart"
When the album finished, another song came on Spotify:
"I get wild on you, baby
I get wild and fuckin' crazy like you never knew, knew, knew
I get wild on you, baby
I get wild and fuckin' crazy like the color blue, ooh-ooh"
The lyrics range from impressionistic to overly concrete. Sometimes there are a lot specific details, quotes from other songs, and various cultural references that don't add anything in particular to the overall meaning of the song. They refer to things without saying anything about them.
"Summer, sizzling
Listening to jazz out on the lawn
Listеning to White Stripes when thеy were white-hot
Listening to rock all day long"
The first part is obviously a reference to Joni Mitchell's "The Hissing of Summer Lawns," an obvious influence, but any specificity gets lost when jumbled in with the other lines. I think the main point of this song is her wondering if maybe she was better off when she was young and naïve, but the way it is put together is awkward and lazy. I mean, I guess "listening to rock all day long" is something you might do when you are young and naïve, but come on... While "listening to jazz" is something someone might say because they don't know jazz so it's all just "jazz," listening to rock is something no one would say unless they are older than a baby boomer or younger than 5. It sounds stupid coming from the mouth of the narrator of this song about the music business!
"Yosemite" also plays on this theme of naivete:
"Seasons may change
But we won't change
Isn't it sweet how we know that already?"
Obviously, we aren't meant to take that at face value. But instead of making it tempting to believe, to have some tension between the naivete and cynicism before pulling the rug out from under us, she immediately makes the narrator sound stupid.
"Not All Who Wander" is just a bumper sticker followed by a bunch more clichés. This (and the astrology from a philosophy graduate who specialized in metaphysics) makes me start to wonder if there's not a deeper layer of cynicism behind these songs. Like she comes up with a basic concept for a song, free associates a bunch of words, puts the words into lines without considering how the lines work together, then calls it done because she cares that little about it.
"It's beautiful how this deep normality settles down over me
I'm not bored or unhappy, I'm still so strange and wild"
I've enjoyed plenty of music with stupid lyrics, but usually the lyrics were fun to sing or shout along with because the music was fun. That's not the case here. I'm giving this album a 2 because I think the music deserves a 2. She has a good voice and can sing if she tries. I don't usually pay a lot of attention to lyrics unless they are particularly good or particularly bad. If I hadn't paid so much attention to the lyrics to write this review, they wouldn't have bothered me.
Essential listen: no
Desert island disc: no
I first and last listened to this album on a borrowed cassette. I wonder if I wore out the tape with fast forwarding before I returned it. The popular songs are still fun, but some of other material falls short. Not that it's bad. Depeche Mode are very good at creating and developing moods with interesting and unexpected sounds. That's probably their greatest achievement--taking music that might at first sound mechanical and robotic and investing it with a strong sense of humanity, grounding it in human emotions and behavior.
Overall the album is very dark but there's a lot of variety in the feel of the songs. Some of the songs that are not as immediately engaging definitely get more interesting as they go along, with changes and new layers added. But some of them just seem to noodle around and go on too long (maybe not long enough if you're dancing but too long if you're just listening). "The Things You Said" is on the slower side but has a really engaging vocal. By contrast "I Want You Now" is just boring and feels never-ending even though it has a relatively short run time. Some of the songs that are dirgey and/or contemplative and/or experimental just don't have enough payoff musically. I mean, I'm glad they got to mess around and create "Pimpf" but I don't know how anyone can listen to it without laughing. It can't be taken seriously and it's just not fun.
Essential listen: I guess I think "Depeche Mode" is an essential listen and this is probably the best place to go for that listen, but I would personally go for a greatest hits compilation or playlist.
Desert island disc: no
This album feels like it was made just for me. It's got everything. Punk, post-punk, new wave, surf rock, 60s garage rock, R&B, funk, some rockabilly/country twang here and there... . And more! Along with great guitar lines and rhythms, fantastic singing and vocal harmonies, along with squeaking, soaring, and growling... along with some screaming and plain old hollering... along with a good sense of humor and style, a unique sound, and fun songs... along with... well, I'll just stop here. The worst thing I can say about this album is that the song with the best title, "There's a Moon in the Sky (Called The Moon)," is not one of the best songs on the album. In fact, the whole second side is weaker than the first side, especially "Lava" and "Downtown," the latter of which seems like it should have been a great cover but somehow they sound bored. Still, a great album with a unique sound and great performances.
Essential listen: yes
Desert island disc: yes
This is fantastic. It starts off blazing and hardly lets up. The track titled "Frenzy" isn't really much more frenzied than any other track on the album. If there's any downside to this album, it's that the horns can be A LOT and kind of shrill at times. Not sure if that's how it was recorded or just my sound setup. There's actually a lot of variety between tracks despite the intensity, and even some slightly more laid back numbers, like "Blues a la Machito." I swear I've heard "Congo Mulence" sampled in another context, but maybe it was just something similar. A lot of the Latin Jazz I've heard is more like jazz plus Latin percussion or Latin dance bands with a big band format, or schmaltzy novelty stuff. I really like later stuff like Jerry Gonzalez and the Fort Apache Band, which feels to me like an organic blending that shows the common roots rather than a mash-up, but now I know I have to spend some time digging into and listening to earlier stuff like this. Great find for me.
Essential listen: definitely glad I listened to this before I died
Desert island disc: no
I assume it was a coincidence, but I received this album on the day after Dolly Parton’s death was announced. Even if her death was not so recent, it would be hard to rate this album without some sense of sentimentality and some difficulty in rating the album rather than the person. So I’ll try to get that out of the way first: Parton’s a good singer and an even better songwriter. She puts so much of her personality into her songs that even though she’s not one of my favorite artists, not even one of my favorite country artists, in a way she is one of my favorite artists. Dolly Parton, 5/5.
This album has some really good songs and quality playing and a feel that is modern (for 1971). It’s neither the “too much studio” highly arranged version of country music nor the sentimental, performatively old-timey country. Musically it's pretty simple but really well done. Where it stands out is Parton's songs, a lot of which of sung in the first person. Whether or not she is speaking directly of her own experiences and worldview, her songs feel like the honest thoughts and feelings of a real living person. She doesn't populate her songs with caricatures or present herself that way. Beyond the specific songs, the implication is that the stories we tell through music don’t have to be literally true but they can communicate honestly. Over the course of her career, Parton gradually began to write more and more of the songs on her albums, and with this album if feels like she crossed a threshold where the album is her artistic statement.
Purely based on listening to the music, I could rate this album as a 3 or 4, depending on how much I was enjoying it at the moment, but I think that undersells the importance of the album. Parton has been involved in so many aspects of country music, from Nashville and the Grand Ole Opry, various television variety shows, country pop (and even mainstream pop), blue grass, etc. but I see this album as a part of the changes in country music that lead to the emergence of outlaw country and later alternative country.
Essential listen: yes
Desert island disc: no
This is the sound of someone so far up his own ass that his friends gave up on him and wedged a piano up there to keep him company. Yet somehow this the album that made Nick Cave a critical darling. Go figure.
I like a lot of Nick Cave's stuff. His band always includes terrific musicians, and he has a beautiful voice. While I prefer his earlier records, his voice is really suited to somber ballads like the ones on this album. The problem is that the songs here are just weak. I read that this was the first album where the Bad Seeds didn't contribute much to developing the music and arrangements. The music is very minimal and mostly boring but the lyrics are worse, weak to terrible. He sells them, more or less, with his emotional delivery (and I guess that is the crux of why people like this album so much), but they are mostly solipsistic and trite, with awkward rhymes when it would be perfectly fine not to rhyme, and references to religious and philosophical themes making them seem like more than they are.
There are a few songs that stand out as better than the rest, mostly "West Country Girl," but a few others have nice musical touches here and there, like the violin on "Idiot Prayer." There's plenty of proof he could have done so much better, but I guess not this time.
Essential listen: no, stay away
Desert island disc: ha ha ha
A lot has been said about this album, and I'm not sure I have anything to add. Lindsey Buckingham's songs are particularly great, both the mellower ones that would have fit in on the previous two Fleetwood Mac albums but especially the ones that make this album different. On some of his songs, he played all or most of the instruments himself and got some really interesting sounds. The bass (or is it a guitar?) on one song has a bit of the "blat" and slur of a tuba or trombone. The iconic drums on "Tusk" are a 15-second loop on top of which they layered all sorts of additional percussion and other sounds. They spent over a million dollars to inspire the lo-fi home-recording bedroom aesthetic that took off in the 1990s and 2000s. It's like Fleetwood Mac crossed with the Talking Heads crossed with the Beach Boys. What's not to like? The Stevie Nicks songs are good, but don't stand out against her contributions to previous albums. The songs by Christine McVie are fine but feel uninspired compared to the rest of the album.
Essential listening: absolutely
Desert island disc: borderline
This is my least favorite of the first four Springsteen albums. Greetings from Asbury Park and The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle are surprisingly funky albums, with the bass bubbling up front and the drums locked in, jazzy with a 70s TV soundtrack feel. Darkness on the Edge of Town is a very straightforward rock album. I'd call it post-honky tonk bar-band rock. Not that it's bad, not at all. As a band, they are pretty close to perfect, including Springsteen as a vocalist, but for example, the horn arrangement on "The E Street Shuffle" is replaced by a couple of 8-bar saxophone solos on Darkness at the Edge of Town. This is a super competent band with good chemistry that occasionally catches fire but doesn't really take any chances. It was probably smart for the band to hone in on a specific sound that worked for their strengths, but it's also not surprising that after one more album with the E Street Band, Springsteen recorded Nebraska with them but then decided to release his solo demos instead. Then, after he recorded Born in the USA, he didn't officially release another studio album with them for almost 15 years.
You could make a case for his lyrics maturing as the music was becoming simpler. In the beginning you can hear him trying to be clever and poetic, trying hard to get noticed. His earlier songs are full of his observations of wild characters, rooted in New Jersey, but in his later songs he inhabits characters instead of observing them. And he speaks more generally about the world, or at least the US. His more plain-spoken lyrics are just as profound and poetic and perhaps more effective--you can't ignore that the band got a bigger and bigger audience and became more and more commercially successful as they went down this path. But if Springsteen is remembered in 200 years, I'm pretty sure it will be for Nebraska, not Darkness on the Edge of Town or for my favorite, Greetings from Asbury Park.
This is a hard one for me to review, as I'm not familiar with the music of Senegal. Baaba Maal is an incredible singer and the percussion throughout is great. The talking drums on the second track are really amazing and they come back a lot. The third track starts with a unknown (to me) string instrument, then a wind instrument comes in (some kind of flute maybe), and then an electric guitar is added. The vocals are building and building and have a quality I associate with North African music. Toward the end the flute pulls out all these overtones and brings it to a close. It's just an incredible piece of music. The next track starts with some funky electric guitar and adds percussion, bass, and vocals. The guitar is pretty great through most of the song but ends the track with a corny solo that kind of ruins the mood. The next song really highlights the vocals with maybe two instruments (at least one seems to be a guitar) playing a quiet but intricate part in the background. Then comes electric bass, percussion and mallet percussion (or a synth imitating a xylophone?) which kind of transforms the song into something else, not necessarily for the better. The next song has some interesting percussion and what I thought at first was a sax but is probably another synth. A few different keyboard parts are going on and some really nice guitar too. There's so much that's good here, but many of the songs have sounds and parts that feel random, at least to me. One of the songs starts off with a keyboard part that sounds like you are about to have to switch off an infomercial for a timeshare on a tropical island.
I take it Baaba Maal is a legend in Senegalese music comparable to Youssou N'Dour, and I love his voice, but I'm skeptical that this album in particular is the best introduction to his music or to Senegalese music in general--not that it was supposed to be but it was for me. The best aspects easily deserve a 4 or 5, but the weaker aspects make it less satisfying as an album. I'm glad I heard this music and now that I know about Baaba Maal, I'll keep an ear out for his voice.
I didn't have that much time to listen to this one, but my first impression was really positive. I'm glad I got to listen to it. The music is sparse overall but the sounds are rich and strong. The arrangements were interesting and not as predictable as a lot of more traditional R&B. I didn't spend enough time listening to the lyrics but I think that is a big draw for people and what I did hear sounded OK. The arrangements leave a lot of room for his voice, and he's got a great voice... but I didn't always like what he was doing with it. For one thing, there is just way too much falsetto for me. On at least one of the songs, he spends more than half the song in falsetto. It became a bit irritating to me. Mostly his singing really seems to work with the emotional core of each song, allowing you to feel what it's about without reference to the lyrics. I think that's a real talent separate from singing skill or technique.
Essential listen: yes, this is a really different and modern take on R&B. I hear it's influence in a lot of places but this is better
Desert island disc: I definitely think I will listen to this a lot more but I'm not sure I'd need it if I was stranded on a desert island
Almost every song on this album is great and the momentum from the first track carries all the way through to the end. It feels like it is over so fast, but I can easily just hit play and start it again. There are not many albums I can say that about. The bass playing is particularly good but everything works great together. If I was rating this just on the music at any given point or averaging all the songs this could end up as either a 4 or 5 but as an album it’s a clear 5.
Essential listen: yes
Desert island disc: borderline but I’ll say yes
