So, this my first album. I found about this project from a random Reddit post while researching Tim Buckley's album Goodbye and Hello.
Funky and chill, obviously I'm already familiar with three tracks out of nine. Solid tight dance-worthy stuff, but personally I don't often listen to something like this, too much repetition. It's tiring unless I'm in a specific mood. I had to skip the second half of all songs because there was not enough development. But I guess the contrast with Buckley is not helping here.
70's prog is my favourite genre, but I never got into Jethro Tull, I would enjoy them way more if it was a purely instrumental band. The flute is especially amazing.
The first part of the album was quite hard to digest, both structurally and meaning-wise. To me the whole first part of the album is way too built around the natural speech pattern, while I prefer instrument-first approach.
I usually don't listen to lyrics much, but for this project I'm reading along and looking up the meaning, as I want to be thorough. I definitely wasn't prepared for the Aqualung and Cross-Eyed Mary's meaning. I get what they were going for but I use art for escapism and I'd rather not listen about creepy men in song form, as there's enough of that irl.
My God is a little on the heavier side, I like it best, it has a tighter structure and more energy. Great flute solo. Hymn 43 is also pretty cool, reminds me a little of Dio's earlier band Elf. I have a thing for juicy rock'n'roll piano, so this is right up my alley. Locomotive Breath is also really groovy.
The lyrics in general, both the social criticism and specifically the anti-religious remarks, are not very subtle and frankly made me cringe more than once, but maybe for their time they were considered edgy as hell. A lot of the criticism is too obvious and at the same time separates the concept of god from the organised religion, as if protecting it, which is cartoonish to me. Come to think of it, in my playlist I have an example of these same topics being explored with way more grace by Fabrizio de André (e.g. Il testamento di Tito).
Incredible voice and incredible grooviness. "Good to Me As I Am To You" and "Ain't No Way" are especially delicious (love the backing vocals in the latter). "Chain Of Fools" is great as well, especially the beginning.
I've had the song "La femme d'argent" in my playlist for a couple of years already and heard "Sexy boy" years ago, but it's the first time I'm listening to the whole album. I like "space" music, the likes of Didier Marouani and Jean-Michel Jarre, so I'm pretty familiar with the sound palette. I don't enjoy all tracks equally, as I'm not a big fan of vocoder. For example "Remember" has some interesting sounds but the vocals ruin it for me, and the Beth Hirsh songs don't really do it for me either. Too much pop, not enough "space". I like "La femme d'argent", "Talisman", "Ce matin-là", the rest not so much.
Yikes, unlistenable
Even though the 70's is my favourite period this band/album in general doesn't really do it for me. I find that the song structure and singing is just too samey for my taste. Chest Fever has been in my playlist for quite a while though, because I'm obsessed with the electronic organ. Overall the album is not awful, but not exciting either.
I've heard about Prince so many times but never got the hype, so I tried listening to his album and it's really so sterile and vapid, both the music and the singing. Long, annoying, monotone, with stupid lyrics. I couldn't finish any of the songs. This is exactly what I mean when I say I don't like pop music.
Also, apparently this is considered "sexy"? Hilarious... I guess he does sound like cats in heat, so there's that.
I was enjoying the instruments quite a bit and then I heard the Stray Cat Blues lyrics which stopped my enjoyment.
I like electronic music, but Kraftwerk is normally too repetitive for me, which is the case for this album too. My favourite track on this album is Franz Schubert.
It's the first time I'm listening to Dolly Parton, I mostly heard about her from American media in context of philanthropy. I rarely listen to pure country, but I definitely like a lot of music with country influences (aka 70's rock). My favourite track from this album is Early Morning Breeze, which I'm adding to my "pile of music" playlist. The Coat Of Many Colors is good as well, and somewhat relatable, the rest are decent but a bit samey.
I find her descriptions of nature delightful, but the weird lover-related stuff is cringy. At the beginning I found her vibrato distracting, but by the end of the album I ended up liking her voice. Lyrically I was a irked by The Mystery Of The Mystery with its anti-science message, but I get that religiousness is a natural cause of her upbringing. However compared to some recent albums I had to review at least it doesn't make me want to throw my headphones into the wall.
4/5, with one star deduced for repetitiveness, but all in all it's a pleasant to listen album, evidently high quality for the genre.
Not my genre clearly, and having read the description apparently it's considered feminist? Well, the sexuality aspect is really far away from my reality, I get that many people care about it a lot, however it doesn't sound very empowering. Like having sex with a man to get something? Looking for a man to pay for you? That's kind of the most patriarchal model one could come up with. And then there's the obsession with money... If this is all earnest I'm quite sad for people who have such worldview.
That said, there were some catchy parts like the song Pick up your feelings and her voice is quite good too. Wouldn't listen to it again, but it's not completely unlistenable like some of the other albums I had to endure, therefore 2 stars.
Bob Dylan's "singing" was never my thing, but the music is nice. I like harmonica and the rest of the instruments, but to be honest the whole album sounds mostly the same. I can listen to it, it's decent, but I always feel the urge to turn on something more creative.
Mmm, finally something juicy. I love it, so many different sounds, weird twists and turns, groovy. Genuinely freaky, which is a compliment in my book.
I must admit I don't like punk 99% of the time, but this is great. Incredible energy.
Listened to this on a long bus ride, was tapping my foot all the way. Of course the lyrics are silly, but the music is wonderful, especially They Won't Go When I Go.
