Reviews by alien

I pretend I'm blind you see, put on some Armani clothes and act like ET

I got A Short Album About Love by The Divine Comedy recently, another 90s/2000s neo-crooner album from this side of the Atlantic.

I was unfamiliar with Richard Hawley as a solo artist, while I knew some Divine Comedy stuff. The full-on sincerity of this album compared to the tongue-in-cheek quality of that album works much better for me.

Hawley's voice is great, Sinatra crossed with Johnny Cash as others have said. The country elements also fit in nicely, and I love an ambient final song (some of my favourite albums, like Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and Manning Fireworks end similarly, and both are somewhat country tinged...)

This is a great discovery for me, and although I don't think it is one of the 1001 essential albums in music history, it's a great album.

The instrumentals are okay but boring, and Chris Martin's vocals and lyrics are so wishy washy. I can't abide him.

I was on a train journey that was about the length of the album, and it felt like the longest journey of my life.

I am incredibly attracted to Lucinda Williams on this album, but I think that's a legitimate reason to rate it highly. She's an immensely seductive MILF country artist. That's all I have to say.

A similar concept to 69 Love Songs in miniature, though this was released 2 years earlier. Semi-sincere and semi-ironic love songs, more interested in interrogating the form and conventions of the love song than true feeling.

I don't mind the cheesy orchestral arrangements, they remind me of early Scott Walker. I like Neil Hannon, his voice and his posture, though he's no Scott Walker.

This also points forward to Father John Misty, and makes me want to go listen to him.

Also Father Ted, which uses a Divine Comedy song in the intro. I should give that a rewatch. I just watched The Quiet Man and The Departed for Saint Patrick's Day, so I'm all Irished out at the moment. Maybe next year.

I liked this much more than the last 60s psychadelic rock album I got, The Electric Prunes. This has much more energy to it, psychadelic, garage and surf greatness. The songs may be a bit samey, but it's only 34 minutes, and sounds great.

I got the first Johnny Cash prison album, At Folsom Prison, not too long ago. This is shorter and tighter, but another masterpiece.

I resent all the Yanks saying there's too much British bullshit on the list. We get so much more of your shit.

However, I don't care for this album, it's extremely forgettable. It's been a couple of hours and I can't remember a single song from this.

I do like University Challenge though.

The mix of genres doesn't work on every song, but I loved As Heaven is Wide and Fix Me Now, and already knew and loved Only Happy When It Rains.

The

I wasn't necessarily in the mood for OK Computer today, but it's a certified 5 star album.

I listen to sad sack bands like Radiohead or the Smiths less than I did when I was a depressed teenager, though this album still knocks the wind out of me.

I quite like the Hammond organ in mid 60s Dylan, but here I don't love it. I don't necessarily dislike this album, but the concept of recording instrumental versions of other people's songs does make me feel like something is missing.

Songs like Green Onions work well in film soundtracks, but I don't listen to many film soundtracks on their own, except a few by jazz greats. I suppose wind instruments can replace the human voice, but I find instrumental albums with only guitar/piano etc. to be lacking something like a human voice if I'm actively listening.

Very fun listen. It complemented the warmest day of the year so far very nicely.

I mostly listen to the 68-72 run of Beggars Banquet, Let it Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main St. from the Stones.

I'm not as familiar with either the US or UK versions of Aftermath, and I'm not entirely sure which version I should be rating. I do know Paint It Black, and that is a clear standout of all the tracks on both albums.

Having spent more time with this music, the rest of it is better than I remember the last time I listened to Aftermath in full. The misogynist lyrics are more of a problem for me on Stupid Girl than Under My Thumb, the latter being catchy enough to ignore the lyrics, the former being pretty uninteresting musically.

I appreciate the 11 minute song Going Home, but I think it works best at the end of the album as on the US version rather than the end of side a - though I am listening on streaming rather than on vinyl.

I Am Waiting and Out of Time are some more stand-outs.

Compared to other canonical 1966 albums, i.e. Revolver, Pet Sounds and Blonde on Blonde, this is the weakest of the bunch. Nonetheless, it's a very strong album.

Coincidentally I listened to this album in full yesterday before being assigned it, and again today. I have listened to Ege Bamyasi and Future Days front-to-back a lot more than this one, owing partly to it being a double album, and partly to Aumgn and Peking O being a little too far out for me. I have played Halleluhwah on its own many times though.

I thought at times that I had "got" those songs listening to them just now, but they still elude me, I think.

I'll still give it five stars though.

I'd only heard I Believe in a Thing Called Love before. I didn't realise how similar Justin Hawkins' non-falsetto voice was to Robert Smith's. That was particularly clear and slightly unsettling on Friday Night.

The album as a whole is pretty good if a bit one note, the guitar pyrotechnics do bring a smile to my face.

I miss when cool young people in New York were woke and not fascist weirdos for some reason.

Unlike the often execrable genre "pop-punk", this album mixes pop and punk successfully.

Bob Dylan described Johnny Cash as having a "voice from the middle of the earth". That's true, his voice is elemental.

The prison setting is pretty unique, and it makes this record an incredible document. B.B. King, Big Mama Thornton and the Sex Pistols apparently did live albums in prisons too, but this might have been the first?

5 stars.

It's a solid album, combining alternative rock dynamics with an Americana twinge. I don't see it as the best album of 1993 though, sorry Michael Stipe. It feels too low-key and subdued to me, even when it rocks out. Nothing really sticks in my head after listening, although it is a pleasant listen.

This might be a grower, and I might listen to Grant Lee Buffalo's other albums, but at the moment Fuzzy doesn't particularly stand out to me.

This is an artist whose name I've only seen, and I had no idea what to expect sonically.

I loved it, understated but cohesive, unlike some lo-fi, pared back folk.

Reading more about Will Oldham, I guess he was and is super involved with artists I love (and their legacies) like David Berman and Jason Molina (RIP both), so I probably should have listened to this earlier. They all have a shared sensibility I deeply relate to.

The fact that people are rating this harshly because it's not available on Spotify... come on. Get real.