High quality big band and blues. Great production given the year. Timeless will be revisiting
I grew up with 80s ZZ Top, so wasn't really looking forward to this.
I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised. Yes it's common-or-garden blues rock, but it's very good common-or-garden blues rock.
Kind of annoying spotify only offers the mono remaster, but I can see this getting another proverbial spin.
A classic from back in the day.
I recall the lengths they went to in order to get that warm analogue production quality reminiscent of recordings from the late 60s early 70s, and there they truly nailed it, this album sounds great, the drums really sound like drums, not bass infused explosions, the guitars warm and fuzzy, the vocals clear and crisp.
Why it was touted by the critics as the saviour of rock music I've no idea given the quality of music coming out in the late 90s early noughties. Maybe they just missed the charts being dominated by it?
Well Seven Nation Army certainly caught the imagination, if only on the terraces, and it still holds up just about, but the rest of the album meanders a bit. It certainly doesn't make me want to go back to it, even though i loved it back in the day.
Good but probably overhyped, influential without, you know, influencing much as music became far more eclectic in its references as it moved forward rather than rooting itself in a bygone past, where this album now resolutely sits.
Elvis Costello is one of those artists i constantly feel bad about not having got into.
His brand of cerebral pub rock is apparently influential and he is often cited by musicians as a favourite.
Ive tried a couple of times but have always been left a little cold during my attempts. Maybe he's too clever for me, but for all the musicianship, the snarky lyrics, the songs themselves didn't hook me.
So here we go again. And so it started out as I listened to the first couple of songs and breathed a heavy sigh.
But then something weird started happening. Song by song I started enjoying it more, started listening to the lyrics rather than letting it wash over me.
I guess there lies the rub, he takes a bit more effort, I imagine the rest of the albums are growers, not something to dip into in the hope that a magical appreciation pops into existence.
Ill definitely give this more listens and who knows I may progress to other records and even become a fan? It could happen
I have this thing where i discover amazing music and then everyone else finds it, and then they become successful and i shun it. I've been doing it for like 45 years now.
Arcade Fire were classic example of my preaching this amazing indie band, and then I think Suburbs is when they became massive and I started to sour on them, and I don't think I've heard any subsequent albums.
In short, I'm a twat.
I'm going to try and strip away my prejudices (especially given subsequent events) on every album, and starting with this, it's an absolute banger of an album.
Every song is tight, well crafted, brilliantly executed, hook laden and full of euphoric highs.
Lyrically it may be trying too hard to be anthemic, but they probably succeeded as you can't help but sing along to the repeated choruses.
Best track...No Cars Go.
The only weak track, weirdly enough is the title track.
It's a 9 out of 10 but will err on generosity.
Honestly it's really hard to be truly objective about an album like this withouth letting Spinal Tap colour your judgement, but I'll do my best.
Quality, overblown heavy space prog rock. The musicianship is solid, the production impacrtful, especially the rhythm sections, though the whole shebang can veer to self-indulgence or noodliness at times, although that's probably the point.
I've no idea what the songs are about but she's a great set of lungs.
If this had been in my prog canon when younger I'd almost certainly hold this up as a true classic, but as it is it somehow passed me by.
As it goes I really enjoyed listening to it, but would I voluntarily decide to listen to it these days? Probably not, I'd be more likely to whack Rush tribute act, Castle Rat on the stereo 'cos boobs.
Still i can recognise excellence even if not entirely my cup of tea.
Here's another one who is deemed "important" and "influential" and held in near reverence by her fans. I own this and have tried over the years to try to like it, but I just haven't.
So with a weary sigh I gave it another go. It's funny I must have played it often enough that some of the songs felt like, if not exactly old friends, then definitely acquaintances from way back when, where the nostalgia almost compensates for the fact that you were always trying to ditch them back in the day.
The other issue I've found is that with my new hi-fi I'm picking out layers of sound that never existed for me before. So with a few of these songs I was actually enjoying the sound of the string arrangements, if not the songs themselves.
The album does benefit a bit from the better soundtage, or should I say it probably suffers from being played on a tinny radio or kitchen alexa, perhaps more than most would.
But the problem is still there, it's just boring, and I'm someone generally inclined to like female singer-songwriters. Maybe you need a womb to connect with ther brand, I failed to do so again.
Wow, it seems Bruno Mars built an entire career ripping Prince off then huh?
Prince is another revered artist I've spent a lifetime criminally underappreciating, so I was looking forward to this.
Look, I'm an indie kid who grew up in floppy black jumpers moping to the Sisters of Mercy; tight, fun, funk-rock steeped in R&B was never going to be my thing.
It can be toe-tapping, but for my tastes it was patchy, I liked some songs, the more self-indulgent and jazz-noodly the better other;s were, well hard work, I may have strained my eyes rolling at all the "oohs"...a double album of this was purgatory.
Maybe i need to be in the garden chatting to mates on a sunny day, enjoying gin and tonics, to get on the right side of the vibe, it would definitely land much better.
The individual songs vary from 2 to 4 but the album.en mass is just too much for me.
I'm not overly familiar with MSP beyond their coffee table fare so dominant in the 90s. I was always vaguely under the impression that there were 2 bands, a pre and post Richie version that werre chalk and cheese.
This isn't what I found. Sonically this album was very much of the same monotone plaette as their subsequent albums.
Lyrically it's obviously pretty brutal, and obviously there's no hint of insencerity about it given his suicide, yet somehow the delivery set against the backdrop of bog standard, dull identikit, paint by numbers rock left me completely cold.
The whole album just sort of merged into a mulch of power chords and i doubt i could describe any of the songs to you to differentiate them from any of the other songs.
Will not be playing this or any other Manics songs again in my lifetime if I can avoid it. Get's a 2 for not actually being offensively unlistenable in any way.
I remember m brother getting this on vinyl, and everyone raving about it. I tried hard to like it but struggled a bit, I recall feeling it was too sparse and clinical, and I haven't listened to it in the intervening years.
Revisiting it however I actually quite liked it. Much as nu-gaze has struggled to get out from under the shadow of Lovelss & Souvlaki, so goth has never really managed to shirk Souxie, The Mission or Sisters, and both genres still feel like cliche even when they're good.
Listening to this I realised that someone actually managed a goth album that completely avoids those traps. The sonic landscape is abit flat, but the songs themselves are solid.
I genuinely enjoyed it and whilst the album might not get a load of future spins, I'll definitely chuck 2 or 3 of these songs on some playlists. A generous 3 5
She had me at "Hello", though strictly speaking she had me hoping a piano would fall from the sky on to my head and put me out of my misery.
I don't like syrupy heartfelt ballads and I really didn't want to listen to an album of them. I'll be honest, there was more variety than I was expecting, Send My Love had an almost post rock undercurrent going on, and was that almost a bit of psychogeography going on in River Lea (or just a rubbish metaphor)?
I guess the moments of respite from ballad hell just reinforced how much i hated the album. Can she sing? Sure she can, but so can every light entertainer on a cruise ship endlessly banging out her songs.
God I hope she hasn't got more than 1 album in this list.
I genuinely quite enjoyed this apart from the turgid Without You, and I can only assume rmtheres a video somewhere of Harry performing Coconut live in blackface.
Those issues aside, yes its a shameless beatles ripoff, but I guess that's acceptable, look at Oasis.
I'd noticed Sleater-Kinney getting rave reviews on their last couple of more recent albums. I delved in but wasn't immediately taken and put it down to old critics with nostlgia or younger ones holding them in some sort of reverence, so wasn't really expecting to connect.
I have to say II'm pleasantly surprised and I very much enjoyed this.
Musically it sat somewhere between the indie rock of the likes Belly and riot grrl, with more introspection, less anger at the man.
The drumming was fab and i liked the guitar work. Interesting vocal juxtapositions, one affecting boredome, the other one going more for a constipated Fergal Sharkey.
Still nothing not to like, I might give their catalogue a second chance
It's swampy blues rock.
I quite enjoyed the swampy blues rock. It's Led Zeppelin with fewer hobbits.
I'll admit I had no idea they did the original Rollin' on the River, and it's actually significantly less annoying than the Ike & Turner one, huh, who knew.
A stingy 3.5
Firstly, what a great sounding album, well performed and of course her voice, buut the quality of it all is pretty amazing, so kudos to the sound engineers.
The music is absolutely quintessential for the era, no wonder so many are staple in period soundtracks. Whilst most of it is night club fare, I very much preferred the more orchestral or funkier tracks rather than when it veered to Nana Mouskouri.
Son of a Preacher Man is ubiquitius for a reason and Windmills is the other obvious standout, and whilst there is filler, the album never outstayed its welcome.
Post surfer Punk Pop or something. What amazed me was how timeless the album sounded compared to its new wave and post punk peers.
Catchy, fun, infectious and rocking. I really enjoyed it. A solid 4 stars, a bit more variety might have been nice but a cracking album.
Again, an earnest attempt to be objective, strip away all the cult of celebrity and just address the music.
And you know what, over the years ive done alot of driving to Irish radio and its vanilla tastes and in the last few years he's done the odd song I haven't hated.
So I was all open ears; maybe ive been doing him a disservice all these years.
Fuuuuuuck.... Basically it was all (and I mean ALL) the sweaty, winky eyed oohs from Prince's overlong Sign'o'the times, condensed into a purgatorial hour of torture.
I literally hated every song.
And I get it, SOTT is the 3rd highest rated album of all time on Album of the Year, so I get people like this stuff, and I understand that this album will appeal to the same crowd but im currently undergoing hypnosis to wipe this from my memory so pretty soon I won't have...
Erm, a spice bag and saveloy please.
This was a fantastic "Greatest Hits of the 70s" compilation, which is weird as i didn't think Greatest Hits albums were on the list.
I particularly enjoyed the Sister Sledge songs
I was something of a latecomer to rap and hip hop in general, the first wave having largely passed me by.
Whilst a friend induced a fondness for WuTan Clan, I suspect that was more a mutual love of Samurai manga and cinema over an embrace of the plight of the Black Man in an America where civil rights had failed to bear the fruits of its promise, and neo-liberalism was doing its best to keep minorities oppressed through a denial of opportunity rather than cruel oppressive legislation.
I did dip into what might be termed gangster rap, but didnt like it; essentially a pornographic music industry commoditisation of economic oppression, sidestepping the political grievance that fuelled the birth of rap, glorifying violence and pretty much every form of discrimination and hate available, neatly packaged for white kids in untroubled suburbs.
More recently my son's love of modern hip hop, especially UK grime, but including the likes of Drake, Travis Scott and Kanye West has done little to endear the genre for me.
Whilst I appreciate the more social and political messages of grime, I find it musically monotone and hard to engage with, whilst the current wave of US artists mask their vacuous content with slick production, that fails to overcome my distaste for their self regarding dross.
Apocalypse 91 is definitely rooted in that first wave. When I managed to concentrate on the lyrics it's great. Yeah sure there's a some of the usual farting on about what they're going to say, and how they're going to say it, rather than, you know, saying it.
But when they do, they don't hold back, full of visceral anger and astute observation about the structural nature of their plight. More relevant now that the KKK aren't just wearing three-piece suits but are actively running whole States, the Federal administration and obviously Space X and Palantir...but I digress.
The production and interplay between the artists is engaging but, and there's always a but, whenever I drifted away, cos things to do, work to solve, it all just becomes a homogenous loop of "boom boom chooom chikky choom" ad infintum. And i think that's why I've almost never really reached for rap in my day to day, you get out what you put in, and if it's just going to be music to work to, or cook to, it doesnt really float my boat.
So basically 5/5 for lyrical content, 3/5 for musical, giving a nice round 4 overall.
An actual 10/10 album.
Also my friend is his first cousin once removed, she is an incredible singer and didn't accidentally overdose on opiates.
Another tricky one to rate. Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground are the absolute staple of boring middle class kids going to university and briefly growing their hair long, smoking weed and debating the relative merits of Satre and Proust, whilst bandying their seed about like a cross between Koresh and Don Juan, before turning up to graduation in expensive suits and haircuts, and decamping to an internship at KPMG and a housing estate on the outskirts of Basingstoke.
Also Reed's brand of art-rock is undeniably hugely influential, albeit influenced in turn by Bowie, so being objective is really hard.
Stripping away the mystique we have an album of well produced, beautifully executed music that's genuinely hard to categorise. I'd go with "cabaret pop" but it's mostly stripped bare, in turns playful and soulful, and I'm so Free is probably the only moment that qualifies it as rock in any meaningful way.
Also, for an American album it's suprisingly whimsical, even if that whimsy is expressed through the life of the seedier leftfield of New York than Britains penchant for surreal suburbia.
There are three undeniable stone cold classics in Perfect Day, Satellite of Love and Walk on the Wild Side. It's probably harsh to describe the rest of it as filler (although New York Conversation doesn't even qualify for filler it's so irritating), engaging as it is, but, well, it's not really brilliant either preventing this from being a classic in my book even if there are accountants in Hampshire having to suppress an atavistic urge to give me a darn good telling off deep in their mediocre hearts.
3.5, will lean towards a 3.
I must say, looking at the cover and the year, this absolutely wasn't what I was expecting at all.
Lyrical garage rock with a kitchen sink full of influences from blues, psych folk, through punk to new wave. It started slowly but just seemed to get better as the album wore on. I loved the almost epic Beast, that could have snuck into a Wishbone Ash record unnoticed.
It weirdly reminded me of Second Coming in that you could almost pin each song aginst a different band, with one of the later ones having shades of Pulp, which was unexpected, maybe they had a musically talented clairvoyant amongst them.
3.5, will lean towards 3, but felt like a real grower, so would probably get a 4 next year.
Edit - gave it another play on the proper stereo and it has been promoted to a 4
Sparse Dub, needs more Step.
Intro is nice, but that minimalist approach, only really bucked by Crystallised and Islands, just means I lose interest as the journey goes on.
Maybe this is by design, an album designed to help you sleep perhaps? But just too front loaded for me to last the duration by choice.
Another tricky one to be truly objective about.
I've absolutely nothing against Taylor Swift, if anything she seems like a pretty good egg. My issue is that she is a huuuuuge global superstar, overshadowing far more talented artists in a manner which I reckon is probably quite exclusionary for many of her fans.
And that success mystifies me, not quite in the way of Sheeran who I think is actually a bad artist, but because aside from a couple of genuine bangers, I find her music very humdrum indeed.
But maybe I just haven't heard enough of her stuff so here's a good opportunity to find out if I'm prejudging it all.
Well, that's done. And my opinion that she isn't bad is confirmed. There's nothing especially wrong with her music, that at least some less-is-more production (it sounded so clean that it was devoid of any character whatsoever) and straying from a very noticeable formula couldn't improve upon. But it really isn't brilliant. The whole album felt like it was created by a computer programme designed to produce industry standard, inoffensive, moden pop where the parameters were adjusted a bit for each song.
I listen to **alot** of female singer-songwriters, and if this precise album belonged to someone called, say "Jemima Frome", I'd skip through a few of the songs, give her a follow and almost certainly never listen to her again except when she pops up on my release radar with another pleasant but forgettable song.
So the whole thing is solidly 2.5 middle of the road...do i go 2 or 3. Heart sasys 3 because it's all awrighis'pose; head says 2 because it resents the distortion in the fabric of musical space-time that gobbles everything up.
soooo.....head...2
Just a fabulous album that perfectly straddles 70s guitar music,
Weirldy I hear as much Who or Wishbone Ash as I do Talking Heads or the Ramones.
Like Roy Batty they burned so beautifully and briefly, though admittedly Roy didn't go on to do years of Jazz noodling.
An easy 5/5
I have a friend who hates the B-52s with every fibre of his being. I honestly don't know much about them beyond Love Shack being a staple of the pub I used to go to when I was 16 and 17, so if nothing else it has fond associations for that.
I found this album hard to like. Trying a little hard to be quirky and immersing itself in the sounds of 60s surfer rock, it ended up sounding like the Munster's opening theme as performed by the Sugarcubes.
Whilst I didn't hate it, I understand why my friend does.
This was a strange old fruit. A 1967 album with a cover like that, immediately launches into Zombiesesque psychedlic folk rock, i was figuring this would reflect free love and tune in drop out side of the sixties. Instead we got the real sixties, all violence, seismic cultural changes and dissillusionment.
I liked it a great deal, it started out really strongly but it tailed off as the album continued, preventing it from being a classic of the genre in the vein of say Nick Drake's Bryter Later.
Still, this is the sort of thing this exercise is all about.
Cohen is another big name that has by and large passed me by.
This definitely has late stage Johnny Cash vibes, less playful perhaps, but Cohen's voice having got richer rather than Cash's increasingly reedy one.
On this album Leonard has found his groove and by god he's sticking with it.
And it's a jolly nice groove, late night, smoky, melancholic fare. One to read a book to whilst snuggled up to a fire.
I didnt find it hugely compelling, but it's also not, not up my street.
- Edit, it grew on me on a 2nd listen, and I really liked the last couple of songs, plus I finally worked out he reminds me of Mark Lanegan. I'm feeling charitable so might bump it from a 3 to a 4.
I listened to this twice through amd o still had absolutely nothing to say about it as it failed to male any impression on me.
2.5 for innofensivemess
I literally knew nothing about them except their name. I vaguely always thought the Mamas and Papas was some Motown outfit....couldn't have been more wrong.
Much of it is a warm psych-folk, but much poppier than many of their peers more faithful to the folk influences. Incidentally I'm guessing Stuart Murdoch is a massive fan, so much of it makes me think of Belle & Sebastian, or now I think of it, their contemporaries, The Vaselines.
Clearly The Beatles cast a big old shadow over the period, Straight Shooter sounds like a straight up cover of a lost Beatles song.
Hell, I think Abba were probably a big fan too.
As it goes I really really like it. No especially weak tracks, quite a bit of variety such as the quirky ragtime/showtime blues of I call Your Name, but a consistent quality of songwriting and I love the harmonies.
Ooh, California Dreaming, I know this song obviously, clearly I never knew who sung it. An absolute classic of the period obviously, at least I think it is, maybe I just know it from a million adverts.
I think I may even stick a 5 on this album, class.
What can I say, it's Sgt Pepper's, one of the most universally revered albums in history. ONe I've listened to so often it's hard to listen to it objectively.
Is it perfect?
Not really, on the one hand it depends on your tolerance for George Harrison's hippified sitar outings or Paul McCartney's whinmsy.
On the other hand it also needs to be in context of how ground breaking it was even amidst the more experimental outings of some of their peers at the time.
And sitar's apart it does have a timeless quality, even the "ooh we take pyschedlic drugs" song.
PLus a Day in the Life can still make me choke up, so intertwined is it with memories of childhood.
It would take a braver man than i not to award it 5 stars.
Phew.
On the one hand I really enjoyed it. On the other I breathed with a sigh of relief once it had finished.
Maybe this wasn't the ideal backdrop to resolving quite difficult technical problems at work.
I'm never really going to reach for this voluntarily, but I enjoyed my time with it. On Fire will make it on to my alt rock playlist too.
Hard to mark, but taking it as much as i can on its own terms, I think a 3 is reasonable.
There's nothing terribly wrong with this as such.
I mean, it couldn't sound more dated if it tried, and that date had already expired by 1989.
The rapping isn't very good, and when she trots out that cod New Yoik accent it's a little painful.
Then there are loads of more standard pop, which again, isn't bad but didn't offer me anything, and that bright, 80s chintz is actually hard on the ears.
It's a 2.5, it doesn't offend but it's not very good either. I was done with it long before the half way mark.
I'm not sure why it's on this list. She was very good looking, I'm guessing the compiler had a poster of Neneh on his childhood bedroom wall.
Ooh, 2 good Beatles albums in a week.
Once again, how do I even begin to parse this from the nostalgia fabric within which it completely enmeshed?
Trying to be objective it's just an effortless piece of pop rock. The songs are deceptively simple and not a weak track to be had, and utterly ground breaking when the rest of the industry was still doing riffs on "love me do".
In a discord someone apologised for the Rolling Stones patchy albums by saying that the idea of an album full of good songs hadn't been invented yet, and yet this was 1965.
What can i say, a timeless classic of pop perfection and easily their best album.
Musically, I guess groovy would be the best description.
Before I dive into lyrics and nuance in music, the first test it (usually) needs to pass is does it work as background.
And this album very much does. The often annoying skits aside it's got good production and a satisfying thunk in the beat. BIG has a melodic approach to his rapping which is very effective.
Whenever I managed to delve into the lyrics though, yeesh. Sucking cokc, shooting guns yawnnnnn. Gangster rap, as I often say, was an exploitative colonisation of a genuinely angry, political art form, packaging it up mostly for middle class white kids in suburbs. It's so tedious.
So pluses for the music, minuses for the content, it just about hangs on to a 3 just because my toes tapped and my head bobbed throughout. Actually, no, a 2
