Own it (CD) - This album begins with a sample of one of the most iconic drum tracks ever laid down: "When the Levy Breaks" - and punctuates with a Black Sabbath guitar riff. The rhymes laid down over these beats, with the signature Def Jam scratches and hits...these guys arrived fully formed. The end of Side 1 - "Girls" and "Fight for Your Right" followed by the killer run of tracks on Side 2 - "No Sleep...", "Paul Revere", "Hold it Now...", "Brass Monkey" - just genius production. I remember hearing "Girls" as a kid at the neighbor's house and thinking it was hilarious. I love the aggression in "Fight..." and "No Sleep..." and the contrast in the sparse production of "Paul Revere" and "Brass Monkey" - that backwards effect in PR - so cool. Overall, just fun and listenable start to finish - 4/5
Own it. This is such a tight band. Listening to this, it's often hard to believe that this is live - while at the same time understanding that the outrageous choices made in improvised sections would only happen in a live setting. In the opening track, there are moments that harken back to Muddy Waters' work with Little Walter on harmonica from the early 50s - even though no harmonica is present. The seven tracks here are all blues - but unlike other live blues sets, each track has a unique identity. "You Don't Love Me", "...Elizabeth Reed", and "Whipping Post" are my favorites on this listen, but there is so much to find in the sessions that I'm sure that will change on more listens. As a curated and edited set from four shows, it's a five-star album. I give it 4 stars simply because it's something I have to be in the right mood for while also having enough time to listen to the extended tracks.
Own it (CD). I love Fatboy Slim in general, particularly because of the videos associated with this album. I'm not really in an EDM/House mood today - but I am enjoying some of the lesser-loved tracks here like "Kalifornia" and "In Heaven" I'm giving this 4 stars because of the classics on this album, but it's a soft 4 - more like 3.5-3.75 that's rounded up.
Own It (CD) - A lot of gems here. This is a masterclass in song interpretation and arrangement. Nelson Riddle and Sinatra created the blueprint for vocals and big band in Sinatra's early years at Capitol. After 1955s "In the Wee Small Hours," this album is decidedly more pop-oriented. It includes one of my favorite Sinatra/Riddle tracks in "Pennies from Heaven," as well as a masterful and overlooked interpretation of "We'll Be Together Again." As a curated collection, this album doesn't disappoint. And although I prefer the more introspective Sinatra, I can't give this less than 5 stars.
Do not own it. This is my first time listening to this album start to finish. Mark Knopfler is what I would describe as a guitarist's guitarist - like John Mayer - such thoughtful licks that add just the right touch without being overblown - and deceptively hard to play. I love "Six Blade Knife" and the acoustic touches in "Water of Love." "Sultans..." is a 10/10 song with a top-tier solo that is eclipsed by the outro! 5-star debut album, 4-star overall.
Do not own this. Lou Reed's voice is not my favorite - I understand the importance of his work with the Velvet Underground, but I just can't handle both Reed and Nico for the full run of an album. This album, however, has the ever-so-magical touch of Bowie and that makes all the difference. The romantic ode to "whatever works for you" in "Perfect Day" is lovely in and of itself. I'm drawn to the guitar tones in "Hangin' Round" - very fuzzy and warm while adding a jagged edge. The good stuff is pretty good - "Walk.." "Satellite..." - and plenty of campiness too in the tuba-heavy "Make Up" and "Goodnight Ladies" and whatever "New York Telephone Call" is. I know he's using what God gave him, but vocally, Reed just doesn't hold up to the energy in songs like "I'm so Free." 3 stars.
Own it (CD + LP). I'm always happy to take the journey through this album. And what a great way to start the week! How can you not feel energized by "I Feel the Earth Move"?! This album is an embarrassment of riches - a collection of songs that have become standards that every mom and grandma knows by heart, plenty of dads and grandpas too. The production on this album is so clean - with every instrument and vocal clear in the mix, shifting nicely around in stereo - like you're there in the room with King and her cat. I first heard "You've Got a Friend" as sung by James Taylor - and although I prefer his acoustic guitar arrangement - King sounds so much more sincere in her performance, they are her words after all. Many great albums are not for everyone, but Tapestry is objectively beautiful and if you don't like at least half of the tracks on here, maybe you just don't like music? 5 stars.
Own it (CD) - What is the best way to experience this album? I've listened to it in my car and through high quality headphones...The car sessions are most tolerable, but I don't think you get the best experience unless you hear all the nuance though headphones. BUT WOW - it wrecks your ears. I wish I had found this album in the 90s when it came out, but I went all in on grunge and if Walmart didn't carry the album - I couldn't really get my rural Idaho hands on it. Nevertheless, while I recognize the importance of this recording - especially now that we're going through a Shoegaze renaissance - it's not really something that I reach for on a repeat basis. It just demands so much from you as a listener - it's so dense and layered, but you have to dig through each layer deliberately since everything is compressed to the same molten lava level of intensity. Don't get me wrong, that opening track just absolutely crushes. It's soooo good. but my ears need a massage after a full listen of this album - some Brian Eno or Steve Reich to rinse off the fuzz. HIghlights - "Only Shallow", " When You Sleep", "Sometimes", "Soon". I'll still give it 5 stars - maybe specifically for that snare sound in the opener.
Do not own it. I'm not sure if I've ever listened to this album front to back, although I'm familiar with "Novocai..." and "Rags to Rags" (the latter of which I had on a Sampler CD from the very first issue of Maxim magazine called Chill Out with the Class of 1997 - an incredible collection and the best thing to ever come out of that magazine). There is so much to be said about the production and songwriting here. Mark Everett is such a smart lyricist - you get the sense that there is more to gleaned from each listen. I love the 80s-electric-piano-sitcom-theme-song riffs in "Susan's House." "Rags to Rags" has such a great chorus payoff with a nod to the Pixies or Nirvana in the quiet-loud-quiet setup. I love the vulnerability in "Not Ready Yet" - this songwriting is so incredibly gen-x. The critics that called it pretentious or out-of-touch were clearly out-of-touch themselves with the most introspective, self-deprecating, and sarcastic generation. That said, the second half of the album is a bit forgettable musically, and feels very of-it's-time 30 years later, although much more sophisticated than the other jangle-pop of the 90s. I personally love the work that Jon Brion and E.Z. Mike (of the Dust Brothers) did with the production - sparse at times, quirky, balanced, just right for E's rough-around-the-edges vocals. Really good with a handful of great tracks. 4 stars.
Do not own this one. I've heard Dr. John, but I've never heard this album. I immediately love this. It's weird, spooky, nonsensical. Dr. John himself is entrancing - with the chanting voices in the background swirling from right to left with the drums - that psychedelic mood all over the opening track. This is like all the lore of all of New Orleans coming together to conjure images that are far-distant and ever-present all at once. You can see the image of the candido moving in Congo Square to "Danse Kalinda Da Boom." These grooves are dirty and tropical, shadows on the edge of bright sunshine. There are traces of Van Morrison, Bernstein, Miles Davis, Varese, Howlin' Wolf, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, and an ever-present touch of Ray Bradbury. And I'm reminded of "Autumn Brown" by The Stranglers and "A Girl Like You" by Edwin Collins. I'm sad that I've lived so long without this voodoo magick in my life, but I'm stoked to have found it just as spooky season is beginning. I'm obsessed - 5 Stars.
Do not own it. I've been looking for this album for my collection for a while - still no luck. STAX was a magical place in the 1960s. This album, backed by the legendary Booker T and the MGs, also boasts keyboard work from Isaac Hayes?! AND it was recorded in two sessions over two days? Different times. But if you've seen Redding's performance at the Monterrey Pop Festival, you understand that this man was a live performer first and foremost - so the short studio time makes sense. Sam Cooke had been gone for just about 7 months when Redding recorded this album - covering 3 of Cooke's songs - with a very poignant version of A Change is Gonna Come. I've heard many of these tracks many times - still finding new moments to enjoy. This time through, the opening track and that odd modal guitar riff stood out the most to me. I have to wonder how the impact of James Brown might have changed had Cooke and especially Redding survived the 1960s. Redding was a young man and listening to this album you can hear that he was not far from the proto-funk sound of Brown's early 60s output. 5 stars.
Do not own this. This was my first listen to this album and these tracks. The opener - the lead single it would appear - has strong Carly Rae vibes - Like "Run Away With Me" maybe and Robyn too. Great combo for hit, dance-floor-ready pop - even if a bit derivative, that's pop after all. Interesting production by Jack Antonoff on these first few tracks - there's some fun little touches and quirky bits - like the little vocal explosion moment in "Homemade Dynamite" and the background vocal chanting in "Sober." I'm noticing that Lorde's songwriting has stayed strong and sincere, certainly not surface level, but Antonoff's approach is a bit more generic and even overshadows the clever lyrical content - not in a good way. So far though, the sparse yet melodic approach that worked on Pure Heroine is nowhere to be found. This album has some heavy lifting to do on the back-half to pull off anything extraordinary. "Liability" slows it down but is not particularly memorable - it didn't really hold my attention even on a second listen. Okay now - the back half delivers. "Writer in the Dark" is excellent, bringing that poignant songwriting together with production that actually fits really well. Strong finish. It might get better with multiple listens, but there's nothing too groundbreaking here. Solid. 3 stars
Own it (Digital MP3). I love Beach House. Back in the day I would have called this "indie" and left it at that - but then I learned that Dream Pop was a genre. This is a nice soft pillow for my ears. Shoegaze and Dream Pop tend to have this one-song-blends-into-another feel, and for me that's kind of the point. I want to put on a Beach House album or Sigur Ros album or MBV album or whatever, and be put in the same moody, lush, sound environment for 40-60 minutes. There's nuance from track to track, "Norway" has this wonderfully microtonal drone hanging out just below the surface; "Walk in the park" has a lo-fi drum machine beat to back up the pulsing keyboard; there's the shifting syncopation in "Used to be," and so on. If I had to pick a favorite from the album, I would probably go with "Lover of Mine" - the opening arpeggiation on keyboard is a nice break from the dreamy drones on preceding tracks, but I especially love the vocals in the pre-chorus, that harmony is stunning in contrast to the minor modal sound of the verses. I love this album and I am so happy to revisit it here. 5 Stars.
Own it. (CD) - Okay - I did not own this until today. I literally went to the Record Exchange and found a used copy for $4 after listening to it. I wasn't aware of this album prior to it popping up in this project. Well, that's not entirely true, I'd heard of this group as a reference point, but that's about it. To say that my mind was blown may be overkill, but as I listened through each track, it was like pieces of a much larger puzzle were falling into place. Not only are these tracks gorgeously presented, they mix the traditional sounds of British Isles folk tunes with drums and electric guitar in a way that American folk rock groups never did to that point. It highlights just how much American bluegrass and folk traditions owe to this British heritage. Further, "Bron-Yr-Aur Stomp" and "Gallows Pole" from LZ III and much of Nick Drake's output make much more sense in light of this album. I love the traditional instruments, mixed meters, and modes throughout - particularly in tracks like "Tam Lin" where stories unfold in ways that clearly paved the way for country artists like Marty Robbins to emerge as great story-tellers. There are few albums that look backward and forward with the same effect of Liege and Lief. One of my biggest issues with the American Psychedelic movement of the late 60s is that everything turned into a jam and the structure of that jam was aimed directly at the acid trippers. I was afraid at several points during this listen that the jam would go off on these rails and become the incessant generic noodling of Big Brother, Jefferson Airplane, or the Grateful Dead. But it didn't and the result makes me want to listen again and again. 5 Stars.
Own it (CD) - Well, this is quite a choice to follow yesterday's Fairport Convention album. The first time I heard "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" was on the Woodstock film. I had recorded it on a VHS tape from PBS and while I was originally amazed that naked hippies were shown bathing in a film that aired on public television, the live performances of CSNY, Jimi Hendrix, Joe Cocker and especially Richie Havens captivated me - opening a channel in my brain I wasn't even aware I had. Those harmonies! I immediately tried to find music to play the song on my guitar - I was in love with a girl named Judy at the time and I didn't even worry about whether or not her eyes were actually blue while I struggled to re-tune my guitar to whatever weird tuning was being used. Historically, there is so much of the 60s captured on this album - the later Deja Vu would provide a full epilogue - and a look forward to the singer-songwriter days yet to come in the 1970s. "Guinnevere," Wooden Ships," "Helplessly Hoping," - these are once in a generation songs just hanging out on a single album. "You don't have to cry," is a personal favorite for the guitar work punctuated by harmonics and a driving bassline - and again, those harmonies. "Helplessly Hoping" has such a great lyrical focus, I think of it as part one of Deja Vu's "Our House." The Byrds may have defined the start of folk-rock in America, but this album and its follow-up are the pinnacle of the genre in this era. 5 stars.
Own it (CD) - Admittedly, I've come to this album rather late. I was of the opinion that synth-pop wasn't legit unless it was from the early 1980s. And Depeche Mode had already released a number of comps, greatest hits, and singles collections from their work in the 1980s before this album arrived. "Personal Jesus" and "Enjoy the Silence" were of course all over the radio in 1990, but 1990 was a weird in-between time for music anyway. This glossy 80s sound had been done, dance-based house music like C+C Music Factory was intermingled with Whitney and GnR and Michael. Then the grunge thing happened and well...So for me, this album got left behind. Of course, now, returning to this album, the production feels crisp, meticulous, refreshing. The songwriting is deep and personal. It is brooding and heavy at times as in "Waiting for the Night" - and I love the pulsing synth bass in this track. That synth hook in "Policy of Truth" is peak - no matter how many times I've heard it. I think this album is a stellar culmination of the 80s synth sound - and there are layers to be uncovered on each listen. Listening to "Clean" through my studio monitor headphones, I notice the pop of the bass and drums in a new way - that Pink Floyd influence really coming through. Not a single track I would skip on here. 5 Stars
Do not own it. Everyone who loves The Cure seems to have a different favorite album. There certainly are plenty to choose from. RYM has this album as the 2nd highest rated Cure album - things tend to skew dark at RYM, so this isn't surprising. When I saw them live about 10 years ago, they only played one track from this album: "One Hundred Years". It's a killer opener and sets the tone pretty solidly. The frantic drum licks, the dark, dystopic lyrics...the distance from the New Wave sound of their debut album three years earlier to Pornography seems much greater than the distance from this album to their 90s output or even to their most recent album from a few years ago. "The Figurehead," for example, sounds akin to "Burn" from The Crow Soundtrack. But ultimately, I think that weighing one of the Cure's albums against another is less effective than looking at each album in relation to the time of its release. In 1982, there weren't a lot of other bands creating music like this, at least not with commercial success in mind. I do love Killing Joke's work in the gothic rock sphere and I hope we get one of their albums on this list. "Cold" is a fantastic track with that synth drone...I think it makes a far better closing track than "Pornography." I don't understand why bands put tracks with polarizing features or production at the end of otherwise stellar albums, like "Hats off..." on LZ III or "Pornography" here. Drugs probably. 4 stars
Own it (CD). I clearly remember VW's "Pink Moon" moment. I found a compilation of Drake's work while in grad school (shout-out Rodeo Records in Ellensburg, WA, RIP). This is magical music. And I discovered it around the time that I discovered Elliott Smith, decades apart - but linked so closely in my mind and the sound and sentiment, the tragedy.
Everything on this album seems just right - the production, the guitar picking, the strings, Drake's soft vocals. Nothing feels forced or contrived. I love how haunting River Man is, how Way to Blue swells and then abruptly ends, the urgency of the Cello Song. The authenticity of these songs reminds me of the spirit of Robert Johnson's recordings - the late discovery by the public, the eerie lyrical content, the way that Drake and Johnson inhabit their recordings as so much more than participants - like ghosts. I'm not sure that this is my favorite of Drake's albums, my favorite song of his, "Black-Eyed Dog," isn't on the studio albums, but it's still a 5 star effort.
Do not own this one. Another seminal debut album that helps to define an emerging genre? Okay! There was a point at which I was afraid of music like this. I mean, I bought Nirvana's Bleach a year after Nevermind and that combined with the back half of Incesticide was about as dark as I was able to handle as a young teen. Then, my older sister sent me a cassette of Killing Joke - and I realized there were worlds to explore out there beyond the safety of Nirvana. This album by S&theBs introduces noise and chaos without ever asking too much from the listener. Other post-punk and/or proto-shoegaze bands from the late 70s and early 80s can sometimes become too self-indulgent for me - but I don't think there are many misplaced notes here. The drums and bass stand out on tracks like "Switch" in a very effective way - tying the band to New Wave a bit more than punk. I love the echoey, repeating guitar riffs on tracks like "Overground" - each track here sounds distinctive and begs for repeat listens. I've always appreciated the way S&theBs shift tempos mid-song, particularly the gradual acceleration and deceleration present throughout this album. Nothing is "snapped to the grid" or "quantized" and that's such a great thing. 5 Stars.
In 1998, I was deep into my studies as a music student in undergrad - most of my listening time was spent with classical and jazz and whatever garbage Carson was peddling on TRL. So, I missed this album and maybe that's for the best. I was pretty depressed back then and Jarvis Cocker's lyrics would have likely hit me with a force I wasn't equipped for. I immediately love this, I'm a sucker for Britpop, Art Rock, theatricality, hooks, banality. Bowie is here, Talk Talk is here, Leonard Cohen is here, XTC is here, the Kinks. The production is so wonderfully layered and not overly compressed - I especially love how the vocals are always up front - Chris Thomas is a legend. This is the kind of album with enough variety to bring you back again and again, finding a new favorite track each time you listen. But each track is truly essential to the rest, once I hit play, I'm in it for the whole album. Once I can find a copy on CD, this will be in regular rotation for me. First listen was 4-stars - second time through and I'm convinced it's a 5-star effort.
