Might be my favorite Neil Young album.
Starts strong. The Extacy of Gold to The Call of Ktulu to Master of Puppets is quite an epic run with the orchestral arangements and all. The whole thing gets a bit mushy down the line however, and the band and the orchestra don't necessarily compliment each other on all of the tracks. The band also struggles with some of the more technical passages wich is only highlighted by the orchestration. And what the hell is going on with James Hetfield and his adlibs? Turn down the rockabilly for fuck's sake. All in all just a rather exhausting listen.
It's just good time.
There are some nice hooks and I might even quite like some of this in smaller doses, but the production style and mannerism ended up puting me off to the extent I couldn't really hear anything else.
Well, a lot has been said about OK Computer. Personally I used to be more into it than I'm now, but it's still a great album, somewhere between 3 & 4 depending on my mood. While some ideas on the album feel a bit dragged out, instrumentation and arrangements are pretty great. Colin Greenwoods bass parts especially are worth a mention in their tastefull sense of space, movement and musicality.
It's charmingly wonky and I could see myself growing to like it for what it is. This time it just felt a little underwhelming. I'd like it to be even more maximalist and druggy – even more poppy, more experimental and more psychedelic. Sometimes more is more.
A treasure chest for samplers for sure. Grooves are cool, the sound is nice and full and the album has good moments. As a whole however, the thing gets pretty boring for me.
Production is nice, songs are nice, James's voice is honey. Not much more to say.
The beats!!!
There's probably decent power pop buried somewhere under the put-on punk flair. Unfortunately the thing lacks charisma. Punky, slackery, garage rock stuff usually only works if the vibe's the juvenile joy of playing guitars fucking loud, I find. I don't really get that from The Libertines unfortunately. Album feels undercooked in a wrong way.
Not an awful album, just not a very exciting one. As a pastiche it should've been way hookier to work (think The Dukes of the Stratosphear). Then again, it doesn't bring in enough new or fresh to work as a good revival album either (think Tame Impala and such.) There are some nice moments on the album, but mostly I was bored.
It's a bit of a mess both lyrically and musically.
With both What's Going On and Let's Get It On on the list, I would much rather see both an earlier Marvin Gaye record such as In The Groove AND a Marvin & Tammi album here.
Instrumentals evoke instructional vhs tapes for aspiring fusion noodlers.
