Reviews by abrisskull

Two months ago, I listened to Heartattack and Vine and enjoyed it, acknowledging that it was a transitional record in Tom Waits's catalog and that I was looking forward to what happened next. Well, here's what happened next...

After completing a soundtrack album for the film One from the Heart, Tom parted ways with his long-time producer, Bones Howe, and manager Herb Cohen. He was determined to break away from the sound of his earlier records, especially after his wife, Kathleen Brennan, introduced him to more avant-garde music. As a result, Swordfishtrombones saw Tom split the difference between vaudeville-esque orchestration, influences from the likes of Delta blues and Captain Beefheart, and his own unique songwriting style and production.

This album is unorthodox, simply put. The metallic clangs that illicit a chain gang vibe for the bluesy "16 Shells from a Thirty-Ought Six", the blaring bagpipes that give way to the lowly organ dirge of "Town with No Cheer", the accordion-led slow-burn showtune interlude of "Just Another Sucker on the Vine", the invocation of New Orleans swamp music ala Dr. John with the prominent marimba on cuts like "Shore Leave" and the title track, there's variety in the instrumentation and arrangement for these songs. All the while, Tom imbues his stories with extended metaphors and deliberate obfuscation, as the world-weary narrator gazes upon the seeded underbelly of this setting. Even the ballads aren't safe from his twisted humor, such as tattooing his wife's name on his arm in "Johnsburg, Illinois", or the grumpy old man observations of his surroundings on "In the Neighborhood". It's demented showmanship delivered through Tom's gravelly delivery and his equally off-putting instrumental accompaniment, and I enjoyed it to an extent.

My hangup with this unique songwriting and album-construction approach is that there's little in the way of forming a cohesive narrative from one track to the next. Also not helping matters is how a lot of these tracks are short, half the album clocking in at two minutes or less, leaving me with the feeling that some of these tracks could have been fleshed out more.

I do feel like Tom Waits made significant progress in developing his own sound on Swordfishtrombones, and I commend his wife for encouraging him to further push the envelope. I'm certain the best is yet to come.

I will not include the bonus tracks from the 1997 CD reissue in this review.

It's been a little over 300 albums since I listened to Dusty in Memphis, and I remember enjoying that record and recognizing how influential Dusty Springfield was in blue-eyed soul. I wish I had the same sentiments for A Girl Called Dusty.

I can really boil this review down to, "It's a solid debut record of covers of R&B, pop, and soul standards." For sure, Dusty did a decent job with her voice, carrying some of these renditions like Lesley Gore's "You Don't Own Me", Sandy Stewart's "My Coloring Book", and the Shirelles' "Will You Love Me Tomorrow". But that's the most glowing praise I could give, considering the instrumentation is rather rote in going through the motions with these songs. Also not helping matters is not only listening to this album after Dusty in Memphis took more deviations in the styles emulated, but also after hearing both Aretha Franklin albums included in the book, and how transformative and powerful Aretha's voice was in taking ownership of her covers. I can't quite say the same for Dusty Springfield this early in her solo career.

Again, A Girl Called Dusty is a fine enough collection of covers, but not much more than that.

I will not include the bonus demos on the 2002 reissue in this review.

I started becoming aware of Laura Nyro's music back in September, when I heard the single "Eli's Comin'". She was an accomplished singer-songwriter who, oddly enough, found more success in the many artists who took inspiration from her and covered her songs. Just as an example, "Eli's Comin'" would later be covered by Three Dog Night and become a top ten hit for them. A lot of the music from the 1970s onward would be indebted to Nyro's work, and Eli and the Thirteenth Confession illustrates her songwriting prowess.

She seemed to take people on journeys through the stories she wrote and sang, from the jaunty revelry of "Sweet Blindness" to the somber bitterness of "Lonely Women", breathing life into her characters as they ran through the gamut of love, passion, substance abuse, and death. Throughout, Laura commanded with her impressive mezzo-soprano delivery, which reached soaring highs and lowly lows, alongside her equally impressive work on the keys for these idiosyncratic compositions across multiple movements within the same song. Tracks like "Eli's Comin'", "Timer", and "Once It Was Alright Now (Farmer Joe)" kept me engaged as the song built into new sonic territories, with the background vocalists harmonizing around Laura as the accompanying guitars and strings provided refreshing embellishments. The album may be a bit haphazard with the overall momentum and flow from one track to the next, but that is not enough to dissuade from how phenomenal a singer-songwriter she was.

The more I sit with it, the more I realize that Eli and the Thirteenth Confession is an astounding record, a testament to the transformative singer-songwriter that was Laura Nyro.

After getting Future Days three months ago, I was surprised to get another Can album on this journey. I figured with how much I enjoyed Future Days, I would be in for a similarly good experience, even though Tago Mago came out two years prior and would likely not feature the more robust production or ambient influence of later records. Boy, was I not prepared for what transpired during my listen.

Bassist Holger Czukay described Tago Mago as "an attempt in achieving a mystery musical world from light to darkness and return", and that is an apt description. The album certainly opens with the eerie avant-funk atmosphere of "Paperhouse", with ornate, fuzzed-out guitars, pounding drums, and Damo Suzuki's broken lyrics illustrating a dream of a comforting lifestyle that is out of his reach. This dream is interrupted by the horrors of the world seeping in on "Mushroom", where he sees the mushroom head that symbolizes a nuclear explosion set off, as Jaki Liebezeit's pounding drums are pushed closer to the front of the mix, the guitars wail with anticipation of the rumble of the explosion that opens "Oh Yeah". As the mushroom cloud dissipates, Damo modulates between backmasked vocals and his native Japanese tongue, trying to make sense of this apocalyptic, LSD-driven hellscape as the tape editing and instrumentation help illustrate the slow descent into madness experienced. The insanity further builds on "Halleluwah", as the monstrous instrumental jam serves as the backdrop for Damo's descent into darkness, culminating in the feeling of emptiness on "Aumgn" as Irmin Schmidt's experimentation with oscillators and Michael Karoli's violent violin-scratching signify the disorienting nature of this predicament. The full extent of the madness is made bare on "Peking O.", with some of the most outlandish tape editing on the record and Suzuki delving into outright gibberish and screaming as though he had reached the limits of rationality. Only at the end is there a return to reality on "Bring Me Coffee or Tea", where the laxed composition eases the tension built over the course of the journey.

I certainly commend the band for the structure and experimentation of this album, which together tell a story of one's venture to escape from a nightmare, even if I had my limits with the avant-garde noise rock in the full-on madness moments on "Aumgn" and "Peking O." I definitely preferred the more refined experimentation on Ege Bamyasi and Future Days. But, I can't deny that Can accomplished what they set out to do on Tago Mago, and made as compelling a listen for 73 minutes. Even if I don't revisit this album as often, there is a degree of skilled musicianship and studio editing that I can recognize as influential to many later acts, and for that, I can respect this record.

I will not include the bonus edits of "Inner City Life" in this review.

I can't say I've heard of Goldie before. From what I gather, he started as a graffiti artist until his girlfriend at the time introduced him to British breakbeat music. From there, he began DJing himself, going on to become a pioneer in the jungle, drum-and-bass, and breakbeat hardcore genres. His debut record, Timeless, took the breakbeats and basslines common in jungle music with orchestral textures and the vocal delivery of soul singer Diane Charlemagne. As a result, it's an album that is equal parts sprawling and hypnotic.

Take, for example, the opening title track, a 21-minute epic of three movements seemingly blended into one, complete with whirling breakbeats, airy swells of strings and flutes, and Diane's sultry vocals. It's the type of easy-listening, atmospheric piece that reveals more layers over time and maintains listener engagement. Similar sentiments can be made for other tracks like the buzzing synths and rhythm shuffling of "Saint Angel", the piano-driven sway of "State of Mind", the soft guitar line over the fast-paced breakbeats and seagull call sampling on "Sea of Tears" that felt evocative of a trip to the beach, and the more introspective cascade of electronic hisses on "Still Life". It's the sort of record that would have worked in the club or as a thoughtful listen while sitting down.

That said, I do not consider Timeless to be a perfect record. It is a long one, clocking in at over an hour and 40 minutes. There is an alternate version of this record as a single-disc, removing some of the lesser-quality tracks like "This is a Bad" and "Jah the Seventh Seal", but I reckon it was the standard two-disc version that got all the notoriety. Also, the album title is admittedly ironic, considering how weirdly some of the experimentation has aged. While I imagine Goldie was trying to be forward-thinking with combining jungle with orchestral textures, the former genre is largely relegated to the early 1990s, with very few notable acts reintroducing it in underground scenes.

Still, I had a good time listening to Timeless, and can recognize Goldie's thinking in bringing ambience and atmosphere to a sound rooted in energy and dance.

I have to start with the acknowledgement, no pun intended, that it's daunting for me to contextualize this artist and this record in particular. John Coltrane had long been canonized as one of the all-time greats in American jazz music. Any introduction from me would feel inadequate. Instead, let's skip ahead to the year 1957, when Coltrane had a spiritual awakening that allowed him to kick his heroin addiction and alcoholism, nasty habits that led to the disbandment of the first great quintet he was in with Miles Davis. Coltrane would soon reconnect with Davis after his cleanse to form a sextet that would go on to record some landmark sessions like Kind of Blue. Then he pursued his own work as a leader on the Atlantic label for even more landmark works like Giant Steps. Then Impulse! bought out his contract, and he formed a quartet with McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass, and Elvin Jones on drums. By this point, it was evident that Coltrane's compositions were noticeably deviating from standard modal jazz, becoming more experimental in his playing as his spirituality drove him towards a new style. This new style would become known as spiritual jazz, and A Love Supreme is often considered its genesis.

Written and composed as an expression of his faith in God and as a thank-you to Him for his recovery from addiction years prior, A Love Supreme is a four-movement work that can be interpreted as John Coltrane's spiritual journey. From acknowledging his belief and love in a higher power, to resolving his prior addictions, to pursuing enlightenment through his instrumental play, culminating in the recitation of a prayer. Each movement stylistically follows the progression of his journey. The call-and-response to Garrison's opening bass motif on "Acknowledgement", the wild flurry of scales that Coltrane ran through on his sax on "Resolution", the furious drum solo from Jones that leads into the contemplating saxophone motif, further descending into thought-provoking solos from each of the bandmates on "Pursuance", and Coltrane's saxophone playing on "Psalm" that meticulously followed the words of a poem he wrote down and later included in the album liner notes for others to follow along. The degree to which Coltrane planned out this record and recorded it with his quartet in one session, while still leaving room for improvisation, is insane. Not only that, but the playing on this record is such that it's simple to follow along, yet complex and progressive at the same time. Credit to all of the session personnel who were up to the task of crafting such an immaculate piece of work that feels timeless decades later.

I'm sure there are countless other works, both written and visual, that dive deeper into the background of A Love Supreme, and I encourage you to seek them out after giving this album a listen, because they do help inform subsequent listens to this record. I hope that I have given you enough of a start while illustrating how much this album made a fervent impression on me.

For those who don't know, Lightning Bolt is a noise rock duo out of Rhode Island, consisting of drummer/vocalist Brian Chippendale and bassist Brian Gibson. For decades, the two of them have recorded some of the most aggressive, fervently chaotic music imaginable, largely through just drum and bass. Just a listen through Wonderful Rainbow gave me a solid idea of what their sound is like, and I am admittedly here for it.

Chippendale's frenetic drumming, coupled with Gibson's heavily distorted, complex yet catchy bass lines, made for some truly engaging sonic mayhem that stayed relatively tuneful. There were some monstrous, thumping riffs and tremolo picking from Gibson that I was not expecting from a bass guitar. Tracks like "Assassins", "Dracula Mountain", "2 Towers", "Longstockings", "Duel in the Deep", and especially "Crown of Storms" became unorthodox earworms, chock-full of memorable motifs despite the idiosyncratic jam nature of both members' work.

Honestly, the only aspect of this sound that I haven't quite warmed up to is the vocals. Chippendale typically used a microphone built into a household telephone receiver, placing it right up to his mouth, and later running the recorded vocals through an effects processor, further altering the sound. As a result, what he sang was largely incomprehensible, and when I did make out a few words, they were presumably ad-libbed in the studio. It could be argued that the deliberate obfuscation of the vocals adds to the extremity of the noise rock on display, simplifying them into yet another instrument to be improvised, and perhaps I'm inclined to agree on that sentiment. I just don't feel like the vocals gripped me in the same manner that the bass and drums did throughout this record. I could imagine that the vocals aren't as needed, and maybe could have been dropped altogether. It really is fascinating how split I am on the vocals for an otherwise chaotic record.

It is weird to say, but I feel Wonderful Rainbow could grow on me. There is an inherent mastery in the raw, intensive sound that Lightning Bolt delivers on drums and bass alone.

I was not expecting to get the other Undertones record in the book so soon after I got the self-titled debut. Although the major boon of listening to these two albums within a relatively short time span of each other is that the debut is fresh in my mind when going into their second record, Hypnotised. This makes the review of the latter relatively easy, as I can simply put that this album is more of the same from The Undertones.

Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing, as there are some notable bands out there that found a working formula, and The Undertones seemed to fit in that camp. If the catchy guitar riffs, harmonious vocals, and tight rhythm section already work well for these songs of teenage restlessness, then why not continue to build upon that stable foundation? It certainly helps that the production sounds a bit more polished than the debut, further brightening the guitar textures.

Yet, much like with the debut, I'm not sure how well this record stands out compared to the pantheon of pop punk and related music that came before and after, especially as it's clear they continued to crib from the Ramones and Buzzcocks a year later. Also, I'll freely admit that I'm ambivalent towards their cover of The Drifters' "Under the Boardwalk". Not badly played, but also not enough of a distinguishable take to feel like an inspired choice.

I can only assume that because Hypnotised charted well in the UK at the time of release, it was included in the book. Because otherwise, it is a good record that showcases a band refining its formula, but not to the point where I felt it was needed in addition to the self-titled debut.

This will be the fifth album from my aunt's CD collection. As someone from Massachusetts, I consider Aerosmith one of the most recognizable acts from my home state. The "Bad Boys from Boston" have been at it for five decades now, though there are two distinct periods when the band were their most successful - their 1970s run and their resurgence from the late 1980s into the early 1990s. Pump is from the latter of those periods, as they sought to explore a more raw edge in their sound compared to the commercial polish of Permanent Vacation. I don't think there's any doubt that the album is one of the best-selling records Aerosmith put out, but how does it hold up?

Well, I generally enjoy the pivot towards glam metal and heavier blues rock that Aerosmith employed during this period. The first half pretty much epitomized the sound, as Steven Tyler howled behind the mic, all the while Joe Perry and Brad Whitford traded potent guitar licks, and the rhythm section of Tom Hamilton and Joey Kramer kept these compositions biting. Tracks like "Young Lust", "F.I.N.E.", and "Love in an Elevator" are the sexually-explicit affairs expected from the group at the time. Though they did balance them out with more socially conscious songs about child abuse in "Janie's Got a Gun", drug abuse in "Monkey on My Back", and even mankind's devastation on the Earth in "Voodoo Medicine Man".

My one complaint with this record is with the interludes done in collaboration with multi-instrumentalist Randy Raine-Reusch. It's not that they were badly played so much as they felt incongruent with the rest of the record. In particular, "Dulcimer Stomp", "Hoodoo", and the hidden track at the end of "What It Takes" not only do not match the tone of the song they're respectively attached to, but come off at best as pastiches of folk and world music that don't sit well with me. If they had gone with the single edits of these songs instead, this would have been a slam dunk in my eyes.

Nevertheless, I had a good time with Pump, and I look forward to the other Aerosmith records on this album journey.

At first glance, I wasn't sure who The Crusaders were. But noticing the album title, and looking a little deeper, I realized that "Street Life," the title track, was re-recorded by guest vocalist Randy Crawford a few years later. I saw her name on the Cincinnati Music Walk of Fame two years ago, and I consider the track a genuine bop, be it in its sped-up remake or the slowed-down, sprawling jazzy arrangement of the original. With that said, how does the rest of Street Life, the album, sound?

Well, it's intriguing because this was a jazz fusion group whose improvisations leaned towards smooth R&B and disco, at a time when the latter genre was declining in popularity. It's certainly pleasant to listen to, with some catchy melodies centered around Wilton Felder's eclectic saxophone playing. In fact, Wilton pulled double duty by laying down the bass lines for half the tracks, Joe Sample had some nice little keyboard solos in between, and the session musicians did a decent enough job providing some guitar flourishes and other light instrumental passages. That said, between the slower tempos and the minimal presence of the percussion, I can comfortably put this album in the same camp as Steely Dan. It's an easy listen in the moment, but I do prefer more challenging jazz-fusion music.

I still dug Street Life as a nice record to have on in the background, but not much more than that. It was cool that they launched Randy's career, though.

I will not include the bonus live recording of "Over the Top" in this review, even though it was on the set list for these shows.

Man, it's only been two months since I got Ace of Spades, and now I get Motörhead's most notable live record? That's wild. I've heard individual tracks here and there from No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith, largely recorded from their shows at Queen's Hall in Leeds and City Hall in Newcastle during their Short Sharp Pain in the Neck tour. Putting it all together, I do consider this a damn good record, showcasing the technical prowess of Lemmy, Phil Taylor, and "Fast Eddie" Clarke at the height of their career. Blazing through hits like "Ace of Spades", "No Class", "Bomber", and "Overkill" at near note-for-note perfection with the amplified loudness of the live venues, this album is evidence of the band's sheer dedication to putting on a fun time for their fans.

With that said, I have to be a bit blunt about this record, and it's a problem shared with Cheap Trick's At Budokan and The Who's Live at Leeds - the track sequencing does not line up completely with the show. Of the approximately 18 songs played at the Newcastle and Leeds shows in 1981, only 10 made it onto the final tracklist, with a recording of "Iron Horse/Born to Lose" taken from a different show a year earlier. It could be argued that these were the best performances, representative of the live shows Motörhead played at the time, and they largely stick to the order of the actual sets, except for one noticeable difference toward the end. "Overkill" was the song that typically closed out the main sets for their shows, and switching its place in the track order with "Capricorn" while doing some editing to try and make it work is a baffling choice, especially given the longevity the former has had as a live staple. From what I gather, the original intent was to have a double live album, but the band didn't have enough material to fill both sides of two vinyl records, so cuts were made. I know that the 40th-anniversary deluxe edition includes the full unaltered sets from the Leeds and Newcastle shows, but I am judging the original release, as this was the version that got all of the notoriety.

As I said at the top, I do consider No Sleep 'til Hammersmith to be a damn good record, a bona fide ripping collection of loud rock 'n roll showmanship.
I can't help but notice some of the editing on here, and that did hamper my immersion in the live shows ever so slightly.

This seems to be another case of looking to include an artist group that was integral to the history of American popular music. The Temptations were pretty much that, as one of the most prominent vocal groups out of Motown in the 1960s, going on to pioneer psychedelic soul. Not only is their first foray into this genre shift included in the book, but also this album, where they further pivoted into funk. If there's one song likely to be recognized from All Directions, it's the Temptations' rendition of Undisputed Truth's "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone", transforming a simple underground soul tune into a 12-minute suite with extended instrumental passages with the chicken-scratching guitar work and symphony orchestra accompaniment, gradually building as the members each sang from the perspective of different children questioning their mother about their dead father. It's a rather well-thought-out rendition that became the standard for this song. I wish I could give just as much praise to the rest of this album.

There isn't a bad song, far from it. But between the more by-the-numbers renditions of the likes of Roberta Flack's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," and Edwin Starr's "Funk Music Sho Nuff Turns Me On", the latter being preceded by fake live audience jeering, along with the more laid-back original soul compositions such as "I Ain't Got Nothin'" and "Mother Nature", it's easy-listening on the ears, but there was an opportunity to go for broke in venturing into more hard-hitting funk territory. Last month, I covered the Isley Brothers' venture into funk on 3+3, and thoroughly enjoyed their fully-committed metamorphosis into the genre. All Directions doesn't quite go as far as that record did, and that's a shame cause I think they are a good vocal ensemble that could have taken further advantage of a sonic expansion.

I still enjoyed this record at the end of the day, and am curious enough about the preceding Temptations record in the book. I just have this feeling it could have been even greater, that's all.

Digital Underground is a hip-hop group that I only became aware of after hearing "The Humpty Dance" a little over a year ago. Fronted for the longest time by Gregory "Shock G" Jacobs, who also sported the alter ego of Humpty Hump, they were one of the Golden Age groups that incorporated a heavy amount of sampling, primarily from funk music, while also boasting a playful attitude in their lyrics and song construction. Case in point, their debut album, Sex Packets, is pretty much unbridled humor.

Every line that Shock G and his posse wrote is a chance to take the piss on sexual urges, along with assorted lampoons of hip-hop trends of the time. Straight from the get-go on "The Humpty Dance", the alter ego Humpty Hump comes out to introduce a new dance craze that ends up looking purposefully awkward, where "it's supposed to look like a fit or convulsion", all the while poking fun at his own exaggerated look, likening himself to "MC Hammer on crack". The following track, "The Way We Swing", sees the group flowing over a slick guitar-driven groove about their lyrical mastery and jokingly differentiating themselves from other hip-hop crews by trying not to suck up and do their own thing. "Doowutchyalike" further reinforces their notion of doing what feels natural to them, while poking fun at how radio DJs tend to cut songs down to 3-4 minutes, leaving the extended versions to the clubs.

All the while, the group found themselves in rather strange and outlandish sexual encounters, including underwater, at the fictitious festival Gutfest, or in the proverbial "Danger Zone" that could be a stand-in for the dark alleyways of the city. They even go into more uncomfortably graphic detail in "Freaks of the Industry", full of double-entendres. It's only towards the end that the title of the album comes into perspective, as the Sex Packets are fictitious glowing pills that cause people to feel instant sexual gratification, for when it's inconvenient to get it on. I've certainly heard my fair share of absurd album concepts, and credit where it's due, they were able to roll the typical lyrical themes of sex and drugs into one, with the "Packet Man" assuming the role of the black-market dealer offering these pills in packages with pictures of the women that they represent.

Alongside the lyrical talent, the blending of samples and live instrumentation is pretty uncanny on this record. Sure, some samples stick out like a sore thumb, such as the use of Chic's "Good Times" on "Doowutchyalike". But for the most part, they're seemingly blended in this progressive jazz-funk mix. From smooth beats with guitar wailing on "The Way We Swing" and the title track, to the eclectic piano solo over the new jack swing cadence of "Doowutchyalike", to the full-on lounge piece with abrasive record-scratching of the line "God damn" on the interlude "The New Jazz (One)", there were some innovative-for-the-time moments that showcased a bit more musical prowess from these guys.

That said, for as much as I applaud the Digital Underground for how inventive and humorous they were on this record, it's still rather long to bear. Clocking in at 65 minutes, multiple tracks run for over five minutes, and they don't always warrant the extra length. Sure, I've already established how "Doowutchyalike" effectively lampoons the notions of cutting songs down, and it works well in justifying its length; I can't say the same for the likes of the sexual prowess described over the worn-out sample of Donna Summer's "Love to Love You Baby" in "Freaks of the Industry" or "Rhymin' on the Funk" with its repetitive hook. Also not helping are the multiple interlude tracks, which again I liked "The New Jazz (One)" for the clashing tones, but I can't say the same for the "Packet Prelude" or "Street Scene" that are tacked on to their respective tracks at the end.

Overall, I consider Sex Packets to be a good record. I get the appeal and talent behind this group, and they were certainly ahead of their time, however brief that may have been.

I will base this review on the October 1979 reissue, which places "Teenage Kicks" and "Get Over You" in the middle of the record.

I know I first heard The Undertones' debut single, "Teenage Kicks", about a year and a half ago. They are a punk band from Derry that drew influence from garage rock, glam rock, and new wave, though they would experiment with other styles in their later years. Much like their influences in The Ramones and Buzzcocks, they would later be considered a precursor to pop punk. That much is evident in their self-titled debut.

The simple yet catchy guitar riffs, the tight rhythm section, the harmonious vocals around Feargal Sharkey's eccentric delivery, and lyrics that deal with more adolescent viewpoints of romance, suburbia, and rebellion would all become typical of the genre. There are a few deviations here, such as Damian O'Neill's keyboard play on tracks like "I Gotta Getta" and "True Confessions", but for the most part, this is pop punk in its simplest form. It's certainly played well by the band, as they did have a good knack for hooks this early on. But I'm not sure how much this would stand out against the artists that have come before and after. The "before" part is more notable because, in some regard, The Undertones wanted to make an album like The Ramones. They certainly succeeded, perhaps a little too well, because I'm left wondering how essential this record is compared to The Ramones' self-titled record or Rocket to Russia.

Don't get me wrong, I still consider The Undertones' self-titled to be a good record, and it helped set the tone for an entire subgenre to come. But in hindsight of everything that's come out of pop punk, I'm not certain how well this album stacks up outside of historical significance.

Fuck yeah, I get to talk about Circle Jerks. I checked these guys' set at Coachella last year, and they were dope. Formed by former Black Flag vocalist Keith Morris and Redd Kross guitarist Greg Hetson, they were one of the landmark bands in the hardcore punk scene. Their debut record here, Group Sex, is a tight collection of 14 short songs spanning 15 minutes, boasting the "get in, get out" mentality of abbreviated song lengths that would become commonplace in the genre.

The general shortness of the songs is the double-edged sword of this album. On the one hand, the shorter length requires that the point gets across more directly, and the riffs and rhythm section compensate with enough fiery power to make an impression on the listener. On the other hand, I'm left with the feeling that some of these songs could have gone a little longer, especially when songs can feel interconnected at times, such as the transition from "I Just Want Some Skank" into "Beverly Hills". From what I can pick up, Greg's guitar lines were damn catchy in tracks like "Back Against the Wall" and "World Up My Ass", even fitting in tight bursts of soloing. There was still clearly a foot in the traditional punk sense of embracing melody amidst the brutality and brevity. It makes me wish some moments on this record lasted a little longer.

As for the direct lyrical content that Keith barks out on here, there's a split between social and political commentary of the time, and the snide sensationalization of the punk subculture and its baggage. Some songs managed to be poignant, such as "Paid Vacation", calling out the United States' involvement in the Soviet-Afghan War of '79 and the ensuing military entanglements across the seas for more oil. But other songs seem to go for over-the-top, borderline-parody exaggeration that it can be hard to take as seriously, such as the described vasectomy procedure in "Operation" or how Cold War paranoia seeped into the relentless alcoholic's desire for more liquor in "Live Fast, Die Young". In referring to the three P's of good political art - precision, power, and populism - while Circle Jerks certainly had the power, their general mockery of everything around them didn't exactly help their populism, nor does it make their messaging come across as accurate as it could have been.

Still, I had a good time listening to Group Sex. It is a catchy as hell record, with enough dark humor and instrumental mastery to feel like it could boast more than the 15-minute length. Even if it is flawed, which is par for the course with hardcore punk debut records, I would nevertheless consider it essential in showcasing the history of the genre.

It's been over 400 albums since I listened to Imagine, and I recall having issues with inconsistent production and lyrics that didn't quite hit the mark for me. I wasn't sure what to expect from John Lennon's previous solo effort, under the moniker of the Plastic Ono Band with him, Ringo, and bassist Klaus Voorman. So, how did it turn out?

Honestly, I ended up liking this over Imagine, and I think it boils down to a certain earnestness that came through in the themes and lyrical content. Following the break-up of the Beatles, John and Yoko Ono attended primal therapy sessions, more specifically, reliving repressed childhood memories. While John never finished his therapy sessions, there was enough picked up from them that he wrote about the parents who abandoned him, his psychological suffering, internal emptiness, and his disillusionment with fallen idols, be they political, religious, or even musical icons, including his former band. The raw emotion I can hear in John's delivery in songs like "Mother", "God", "Working Class Hero", or even the muted stoic prose of "Mummy's Dead" is more weighted than the more controlled vocal performances on Imagine. A few songs in between, such as "Hold On" and "Love", offer a more tempered delivery from John over the spare arrangements, yet teetering on the breaking point as he sang about his emotional fragility and his intimate relationship with Yoko. It certainly helped that the simpler arrangements accentuated the lyrics on this record, even if a part of me wished for more from Ringo and Klaus in the rhythm section, and for a little more oomph in the production, as Phil Spector seemed to be largely absent for the recording sessions.

This was a good solo record from John Lennon, in his first post-Beatles outing. For as much as John was considered an asshole and not everyone's favorite Beatle, there are moments I can point to and recognize the humanity that tried to claw its way through, and this record is an example of that sentiment.

Orange Juice was a short-lived post-punk group out of Glasgow, with the sole constant member being singer-songwriter Edwyn Collins, who would later launch a successful solo career. The band was known for blending incongruous styles and genres into their own unique takes, and that is evident on this second album of theirs.

Rip It Up opens up with the disco-influenced groove of the title track, complete with squelching bass and guitar stabs. This momentum continues into tracks like "A Million Pleading Faces" and "Hokoyo", with their drummer Zeke Manyika taking vocal duties to give that Afrocentric feel. That leads into the beauty of this record, where songwriting and vocal leads were shared among all the members, bouncing off ideas that try to feel unique amongst the rest. Whether it's Edwyn's slow-burning swing of "Mud in Your Eye", the combined violin and synth swell leading into the Bowie-esque glam rock swagger of Malcom Ross's contribution "Turn Away", or the thumping bass shuffle and saxophone soloing of "I Can't Help Myself" that Edwyn co-wrote with bassist David McClymont, there's variety in the styles they incorporate into the post-punk, new-wave fold. It certainly helped that the production sounded rather polished.

Perhaps not every genre experiment worked on here. I wasn't much into the attempt at reggae on "Breakfast Time", or Edwyn's barely intelligible delivery on the country-esque "Louise Louise". Not to mention, ending the album on another ballad in "Tenterhook" wasn't exactly the most gripping send-off in my view.

Still, I had a relatively good time with Rip It Up, and can respect not only how groundbreaking Orange Juice was for the time, but how influential they would be to a lot of later indie bands.

Here's the thing - on some level, it makes sense why this record was included. This is the classic Elton John record that a lot of people point to as the best of his '70s run. Odds are good that if you have heard of Elton John before, it was from hearing one of the singles off this record. The title track, "Candle in the Wind", "Bennie and the Jets", and "Saturday Night's Alright (for Fighting)" are all still in considerable rotation. Then you check out this record and realize there are more bangers than just the singles. The 11-minute sprawling medley of "Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding", the bouncy, funkin' ode to the sea mammal on "Grey Seal", the smoky cabaret-esque rejection of courtship on "I've Seen That Movie Too", the showtune character portraits of "Sweet Painted Lady" and "The Ballad of Danny Bailey (1909-34)", the fuzzed-out rocker of "All the Girls Loved Alice", there's a good degree of high-quality piano-driven glam rock on this record. When Elton and Bernie Taupin worked in their pocket, they wrote some wonderful tunes.

But here's the problem - for as much as Bernie and Elton were an amazing songwriting duo, even during their most successful run, there were a few bad ideas that slipped through the cracks. At best, the problematic tracks could be viewed as misguided, and at worst, they could be viewed as teetering on cultural appropriation. I've noticed this with "Indian Sunset" on Madman Across the Water, and "Slave" on Honky Château, and it's unfortunately the same case here. "Jamaica Jerk-Off" is a faux-reggae pastiche with Elton singing in a put-on Caribbean accent over a drum machine, and it's as bad as it sounds. Even if it was likely done as a tribute to the country where they recorded this album for a week, it was such a grave misstep in paying homage. I would also argue this is a similar case with the country-aesthetic slow-burn of "Roy Rogers", with Elton sporting a fake Western accent and paying tribute to TV westerns. Even if I do like a warm pedal steel, it's not enough to save the song. The following track, "Social Disease," gets away with the Western aesthetic marginally better, as Elton revels in the drunken debauchery over the banjo twang and glossy guitar licks.

Honestly, if Elton and Bernie had taken some time to trim down a few more tracks, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road would have been a slam-dunk in my eyes. I'll still call it a good record, if slightly flawed, where most of the tracks have withstood the test of time.

Liars is a group that's admittedly hard to categorize here. Sure, they could simply be considered an experimental rock group fronted by founding member Angus Andrew, and they've flirted with elements of noise rock and dance-punk. But their sound tends to evolve with each subsequent record. For example, with this album, they dropped any semblance of the post-punk revival styling they employed with their debut in favor of something a lot more obtuse.

This feels less like a collection of songs and more like a series of incantations, where the rhythm section is largely handled by the repetitive clanging percussion, with splashes of distorted guitar noodling, warped synths, and full-on fuzzed-out noise. All the while, Angus and his backing vocalists draw from tales of witch trials past to conjure occultist-like imagery, almost as if they had called their coven to act in retribution for prior transgressions. This album is discordant, unsettling, and minimal in its stuttering grooves. There's almost a primal nature in this sonic deconstruction that I found weirdly palpable to me, in a way that Einstürzende Neubauten's Kollaps was earlier in my album journey.

Though much like how I felt with Kollaps, my enjoyment of this record waned after the initial shock subsided. I wasn't much into the two short instrumental pieces, "Steam Rose from the Lifeless Cloak" and "Read the Book Wrote Itself". Aside from a few notable moments, such as the chants of "blood" in the opening "Broken Witch" and the post-punk-adjacent guitar play on "Hold Hands and It Will Happen Anyway", the whole experience of this record ended up in one ear and out of the other. Not exactly bad to my taste, but not much in the way of memorable either.

They Were Wrong, So We Drowned was certainly a notable entry in the 1001 Albums series, albeit a short-lived one, as it would be removed in later editions of the book. I don't know if my experience with this record was fully representative of what Liars is capable of; perhaps a different album would have helped me better understand this group. Regardless, I certainly didn't mind what I listened to, even if I don't have as much incentive to revisit.

I listened to Super Furry Animals once last year. Apparently, they are an indie rock band that played a central role in the renaissance of Welsh culture in the 1990s. Fuzzy Logic was their debut record, and it's an intriguing one, to say the least.

The simplest description I can provide for this album is that it's like an early glam rock record filtered through a neo-psychedelia lens. Early David Bowie and Elvis Costello came to mind during my listen, as Gruff Rhys sang rather eccentrically in his thick accent over the microphone, as the band bounced and grooved with the Hammond organ lead and distorted guitar riffs. In fact, the opening run from "God! Show Me Magic" through "Hometown Unicorn" was some of the most fun I had with this unintentional harkening back to an earlier period of music.

Then "Gathering Moss" came on with the light, airy guitar strumming, and the momentum was lost on me. In the second half of the album, the band opted for light-hearted, slowed-down orchestral tunes that rarely captured the energy of the first half, outside of the more standard "Bad Behaviour" and the infectious guitar line on "Hangin' with Howard Marks". Even the fuzzed-out waltz of "For Now and Ever" wasn't quite enough to win me over at the end. Between the lost momentum and the inconsistent mix throughout this record, there just wasn't much to keep me fully engaged for the full 42 minutes of runtime.

I still had an okay time with Fuzzy Logic. It's certainly a debut record for a band that was still likely trying to find its own identity while paying tribute to its musical influences. It was fine for a listen. Cherry-pick your favorites and go from there.