Reviews by alien

Music for people obsessed with drinking enough water.

It's coming home

It's so hot in here
What are they trying to hatch?

Very apt for this bastard heat wave we're having.

The passage of my life is measured out in shirts.

Play it fucking loud

You'll listen to 100 Elvis Costello albums and you'll like it. Eat shit, yanks.

He who fucks nuns, will later join the church

Nonce. Pretty good though.

Uh-huh, honey

The bit everybody knows from The Exorcist is great, the rest is pretty good too.

My friend, born in 2000 as was I, is unaccountably a massive Mike Oldfield fan, owning most of his albums on vinyl. He's never seen The Exorcist (nor most movies) and likes a strange smattering of music while being unaware of most canonical artists. Weird.

Clapton sucks, but this is decent if wanky, and Layla is an all-timer song.

Anything I try to put into words ends up sounding trite. It's default music, impossible to say anything good or bad about really. Millions of people love it.

I was surprised on several levels by this, though I had heard Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll before. "My Old Man" came totally out of the blue, surrounded by the horny songs I expected. Much smoother than my preconception of him as a "punk". A similar "punks who not so secretly like Steely Dan" mixture to the Minutemen, but with a witty, music hall inspired English lyricism – not that the two sound alike, but neither thought playing instruments well was commercial bollocks.

Another "been meaning to listen to this for ages" band down. Going to fall headfirst into this rabbit hole.

I, too, have seen The Big Lebowski. The Eagles are okay.

I liked this quite a bit, some more Prodigy style danceable songs and then the last two, Belladonna and They're Hanging Me Tonight, which I saved to one of my playlists with similar vibes.

I've never listened to James Taylor, but I associated him with Jackson Browne, who I've not listened to much but whose album Late for the Sky (and whose song These Days, particularly the Nico version) I like quite a bit.

This album at least I found to be some saccharine, unconvincing bullshit. He tries various styles – countryish, gospel, blues, folk – none of which succeed. A mercifully short 31 minutes.

Two-Lane Blacktop is a good road movie in the late 60s/early 70s crop of Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, Zabriskie Point etc., but it's been a few years since I watched it and James Taylor's performance doesn't stick in my mind when I think of that movie. I think of Warren Oates' line: "If I'm not grounded pretty soon, I'm gonna go into orbit".

The Velvet Underground > The Velvet Underground & Nico > Loaded > White Light/White Heat, imo.

It's great and pioneering and everything, but not what I reach for (judging from my last.fm stats).

What can you even say?

Between getting Live/Dead and not getting it last August and now, I've caught the Dead bug.

Watch the documentary Long Strange Trip.