Reviews by alien

I remember my French teacher in secondary school playing Life on Mars in our lesson just after Bowie died, and I wasn't massively familiar with him. I had probably heard the hits, and knew his look on Aladdin Sane, but I wasn't a massive muso yet.

I did listen to a few of his songs on repeat on Youtube (when I was 15 in early 2016) (this was before I listened to full albums on streaming services or physical media) -- I think Starman, Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes and Lazarus from this album. I couldn't quite appreciate the decades of music leading up to this final swan song like people who had spent decades listening to him, but I loved the songs.

It wasn't until years later that I "got into" Bowie along with many other Rock icons, listening to discographies, reading and watching documentaries etc. This made Blackstar hit much harder than before, and I remember early January last year (2024) being totally immersed in Bowie between his birthday and the day he died, something I repeated this year.

The context does make this album more powerful, but it is also a brilliant jazzy art rock album. However you want to label it, it sounds great.

I'm writing this review a few days after David Lynch died, an artist I became much more familiar with in the last couple of years before his passing, and whose death really hit me. We need to cherish our weird Davids, we've lost Bowie, Berman and now Lynch, now we've just got Byrne and Cronenberg (sorry if I'm forgetting, or not aware of any other cool weird dudes named David).

I've had a run of albums I already know and love in the past few days, it would be cool to discover another great new artist through this generator soon (Stereolab is the totally new to me band I discovered through here and listened to most so far). The second I saw this album come up, I knew my score would be 5 (black) stars. Like David Bowie, I want to stay up to date with and open-minded about new music until the end, and maybe have an album I've never heard of win me over to 5 stars.

The next album I get will probably be shit, though.

The second greatest American band, only behind the Beach Boys, and one of the strongest ever debut albums from anyone.

RIP Shane

This a competent but overly polished and uninteresting stadium-ready Radiohead rip off, as many have already noted.

Definitely not something you need to hear before you die.

Free Palestine 🇵🇸

This album/band has been a blind spot for me, but I have to say I'm underwhelmed on first listen.

It's mostly pleasant, though I'm not a big fan of some of the squelching synths.

I think if I had grown up with it, it might be more emotionally resonant with me, but the sentiment of e.g. Do You Realize?? comes across as platitudinous. It is a decent song, but not mind-blowing.

My first listen was sober on speakers, my second listen drunk on headphones after winning £100 at a pub quiz raffle and being devastated by the loss of David Lynch, and the album still doesn't really do it for me, sorry.

Swinging.

It's a very strong folk album, and Atlantic City is the standout for me. I think Springsteen works best at his most bombastic and cheesy though, so I'd give this a 4 rather than the 5 of Born to Run.

Pretty good overall, with some classic songs that really bring me back to the 10s like Shutdown and That's Not Me.

It drags a bit in the middle - I wasn't a fan of It Ain't Safe or Numbers. God I hate Pharrell Williams, mainly for the crime that was Happy, though I didn't mind his production on this album too much.

Apparently this beat Blackstar for the 2016 Mercury Prize. That's criminal.

I enjoyed reading all the upset Yanks complaining about the "Bri'ish" in their reviews.

Vine, Charlie Sheen Winning, Usain Bolt, X Factor. RETVRN.

Irrespective of whatever bad things he did, this is pretty bloodless 2000s Americana, no bueno.

I'd much rather listen to Summer of '69.

COOKIE!

Perhaps not as good as Doolittle, but it's a brilliant and cohesive album in its own right.

I think I also generally like rock songs about aliens/scifi stuff -- Bowie, Radiohead etc.

The "demented surf rock" also chimes with Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon which I just read and loved (not seen the film adaptation).

Robert Wyatt and John Martyn kind of blended into one in my memory, I've had albums from both come up and I've not returned to either.

This was pleasant, with some nice jazzy moments, but forgettable. I did appreciate the Dylan pastiche, and also love the reference to Roger Casement in that song. I'm tempted to bump the album up to 4 from 3 on the back of that, but I don't think I'll realistically come back to it much.

schlag schneller, schrei lauter
schlag schneller, leb schneller
bis zum Kollaps, nicht viel Zeit

This had me tapping my foot the whole way through, I loved it and didn't mind the abrasive elements at all.

I do speak German, which perhaps removes one mental barrier a lot of people have where they dismiss anything in a language they don't understand, but I also just found it a really compelling clusterfuck of noise.

I knew the name Einstürzende Neubauten from the meme list of experimental musicians: "Merzbow, Boredoms, Gerogerigegege, Coil, Throbbing Gristle, Whitehouse, Nurse with Wound, Einstürzende Neubauten..." but this was my first time actually listening to them. I will definitely come back to this and explore more of their discography.

Godawful.

Rock and roll is here to stay.

Smooth.

I don't get all the adulation for Queen. I think the maximalist, theatrical delivery rubs me the wrong way -- I can't connect with it emotionally at all.

I think the cliché that Queen is the quintessential Greatest Hits band is right, no Queen song that I haven't heard ambiently a million times sticks in my head.

George gets to be as indulgent as he wants, it's fine.

Shit Pink Floyd. I like the outro to the last song, but it's a real slog.