Reviews by amanda

This album cover is sending me. It's like a LiveJournal icon I would have made in 2003.

All I know about Deep Purple is 'Smoke on the Water', which is the only song we learned to play on guitar in middle school music class. To be fair, I liked playing it. But as expected, they are pretty "70s rock"y, with a surprising amount of metal-y vocals. I do like the organ(?) part on 'Speed King'. I also like that they had a super messy history as far as membership, kinda like Destiny's Child. But that's pretty much where the liking ends...

Highlight: the lyric "Take the trouble to decide the things you do / will not be things that don't appeal to you" (good advice, bizarre syntax)

Lowlight: rhyming "lovin'" and "movin'"? Absurd.

Things I like about Boston: the city they're named after, that's Shane Powers from Survivor's son's name, the song 'Amanda' :)

Things I don't like: 70s rock, the album cover (new info: space-themed album covers aren't enough to count as "space rock")

But good news, "arena rock" is pretty different from "blues rock" and "prog rock", and although I suspect it's a less esteemed sort of rock, it's got a lot more of MY esteem. I forgot they did 'More Than a Feeling'. That song is good! Sorry to the haters. I never knew they did 'Peace of Mind'. That song is good too! Huh. These guys were on to something. Wiki says this album was something of a pivot for rock stylings as far as production and melodies. Thank goodness because I feel like I've endured a lot of pre-pivot albums here (and I'm sure there are many more to go)! But hold the phone, 'Foreplay/Long Time' feels kinda pre-pivot. Blergh. Or is this two songs smooshed together? Whatever, they lost me in the second half of the album (many more guitar solos). This is still markedly better than most of the 70s rock albums for me, though, because there are actual hooks.

Highlights: 'More Than a Feeling', 'Peace of Mind'

Lowlight: 'Foreplay/Long Time' and everything after

Somehow I always imagined 'Le Freak' came out in the early 90s, but I don't know why I thought that since it sounds plenty 70s, what with the disco of it all.

The album cover looks cool, kinda like a soundtrack to a tie-in novel about the movie adaptation of the board game Clue. I always like a stylin' all lowercase track listing.

Overall the hit single is a good representation of how the album sounds. I like it fairly well -- good energy, no annoying noises (=more keys and horns than guitar), a healthy pace. A bit repetitive but that's not necessarily a negative. One of my favorites of the week; it's a high 3, but not quite a 4.

Highlight: Whenever they say the band name in the songs (which is often; Jason Derulo must have trained at L'académie Chic), the title '(funny) bone'

Lowlight: 'Chic Cheer' (really what is happening here? I'd prefer either no vocals or a lot more vocals. Hate a sparing vocal)

This must have been the inspiration for the Powerpuff girls. Of course, Dolly-Bubbles is the fan favorite, but Emmylou-Blossom is the actual core of the team. It's cool that this exists since I had no idea they ever teamed up. Unfortunately, this album is country (boo), but I do like female country artists more than male ones (probably the only genre where I have that preference actually). The songs are slow, which isn't my vibe, but as these things go I thought it was good.

The line "what will become of the hobo whenever his time comes to die?" made me say (a) yeesh but also (b) omg it's the quintessential Southern punctual "whenever"!! That's the very first dialectal variation I noticed all on my own as a wee one.

And! Rufus's maman wrote 'I've Had Enough'! :')

Highlights: the line "I'm making plans to be lonesome" (so true besties), 'Wildflowers'

Maybe it's just the Magilla Gorilla pose, but this album cover reminds me of the doodles in my dad's old board games (or, alternatively, the art on the "Navigator" card in Dominion).

OK, time to (re)learn about who the Yardbirds are (I know they're historically significant because my friend took a 60s music class in college and was always talking about the Yardbirds, but not enough for me to learn anything about them). Ah, it's Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page (plus other less famous dudes, sorry to those guys). Though only Jeff Beck is on this album. Eric Clapton also did like 50 other things, none of which I've liked. I know nothing about Jeff Beck. I wonder if Beck is named for him. Jimmy Page may have been involved with starting Google. Or Led Zeppelin. Two great evils.

The music, you say? The music is fine. A lot of guitar stuff. The songs are pretty short, which is a plus. I still don't know what a Nazz is, but I don't think it's a nickname for Jesus as Google suggests. Ultimately, this doesn't stand out. A Beatles-ified 70s rock supergroup (in 1966).

Someone should make a 'I'm Henry the VIII, I Am' x 'I Can't Make Your Way' mashup.

Highlight: 'Farewell' (but confusingly, not the last song)

From one The XYZers band to another! This is also fine. Nothing really reaches the heights of 'My Girl', not that I particularly like 'My Girl'. The genre is "progressive soul". I probably like regressive soul better (is that what Elvis is?).

In theory I like the idea of multiple singers with really different vocal ranges (i.e. unlike the Beatles I can tell them apart), but in practice the variability might be a net negative. I like most of Melvin Franklin's deal (including the name "Melvin Franklin"), Dennis Edwards and Paul Williams are good-to-OK, Otis Williams is okay, and Eddie Kendricks in falsetto mode is my nightmare. So, a mixed bag. In general the sound is pleasant and old-timey, but none of the songs stood out. A 2 feels too harsh, but this is a low 3 for me because it's sooo boring.

A very British album cover. I feel like I should know the Pretenders, but maybe there are just a lot of "The XYZers" bands out there. The Proclaimers? Maybe that's what I know. Oh, but the lady is Chrissie Hynde, and I have heard of her (because she's in the Pretenders). Whew. 'Precious' seems to be about Cleveland, which is not what I expected. Turns out Chrissie was born in Akron. That explains why "shut the light" is a lyric. I wonder if she knows Lebron.

Anyway, I've never heard any of these songs before, I'm pretty sure. They sound pretty 80s to me, like Heart or Hole or Blondie or any number of one-word lady-led energetic rock bands. Weird tempo variation shenanigans though. Glad I'm not wasting this super sleepy week on my most beloved albums, but this isn't doing it for me. It's not offensive or terrible or anything, but there's no real hook what hooked me. I think the second half of the album is much stronger. Good energy!

Highlights: 'Kid', 'Brass in Pocket', 'Mystery Achievement'

This is a great album title. Like their last album, even though the raps/lyrics are solid, I don't like the beats! Too many annoying noises. Truly, what is music but a series of annoying noises? Maybe I should come back to this one when I'm less tired. But for now, it's another 2.

I bet nowadays some people think '911 is a joke' refers to 9/11 and not 9-1-1.

Joni! Listen, I know this album is in a lot of people's top of the top, and she also wrote one of my top 5 songs ('Both Sides, Now'). But if I'm being really objective about my subjective ratings here, I don't love pitch variation, especially in the higher registers, and there's a lot of that going on here. And a very slow tempo. It's still very much in the Regina Spektor ~ Jewel ~ Sarah McLachlan space for me, who are all artists I really like at times and find either boring or borderline unpleasant to listen to at other times. Sorry Joni! You're still cool though.

Apparently 'A Case of You' is also mentioned in the hit TV show Parenthood. I'm starting to think a Parenthood superfan updated Wiki with every possible article mention, and I respect that.

Lowlight: 'River' (and all covers of it)

I don't know what this is. "Big band"? Sorry, I only listen to small band.

Highlights: 'Flight of the Foo Birds', the name 'Splanky'

Whew! I was kinda worried that Elvis wouldn't be on here. But I don't actually know any of these songs except 'Suspicious Minds' (which I like very much, it was my ringtone in college for a while). I was worried from the album title that this would be a live album, but it is not. I'm not sure why I'm so into (the idea of) Elvis; it was partly because of the recent weird Tom Hanks movie which I thought about for weeks afterward, but also I think I just like the songs. Maybe Elvis reminds me of Christmas. Maybe I like that I can understand the lyrics without looking them up. I dunno! But I enjoy it, even though I'd probably only listen to a few of the singles on the reg.

>New logic question for my students just dropped: if Only the Strong Survive and Only the Good Die Young, does it follow that Only the Good are Weak? More interestingly, is there a quantifier you could use instead of "only" that would mean that?

Is Kentucky rain cold?

Highlights: "the floor needs a touch of the mop" (how poetic), 'It Keeps Right On A-Hurtin', 'In the Ghetto' (I thought this was a Nick Cave song!), 'Suspicious Minds' (still a top track imo)

Lowlights: 'I'm Movin' On'

This album cover is tilted, right? Right?!

I like Trail Songs OK, but I'm not so sure about Gunfighter Ballads. I've never heard of Marty Robbins but it turns out he was a pretty big deal. He has a good voice. The songs are Country/western as advertised ("old-timey cowboy stuff"). In some ways, I like the sound, because it's nostalgic (I'm becoming a broken record with this, but it sounds like Children's Favorites!!), but it's also not particularly inspiring, maybe because the cowboy life has very little in common with my life. I really wasn't expecting Utah Carol to be a guy's name. A boy named Utah Carol.

Highlights: 'Cool Water', 'The Strawberry Roan' (where Chappell Roan took her name from! (although not this version)), 'The Little Green Valley' (is the little green valley... heaven?? D:), 'The Hanging Tree' (D:)

Woohoo, an album I'm actually excited to listen to. Many of the Pet Shop Boys songs I know are remixes of other artists' songs, but I like all of what I've heard. However, it is becoming apparent to me that all of their songs sound very similar - nearly indistinguishable! Similar vocals, similar background music (wistful synths, fast-paced ambling), lyrics about nostalgia with a lot of chorus-repetition. I like all of those qualities, so I enjoyed every song, but I do think it could be better if they varied things a little more. Overall, this album was less good than I'd hoped, but I did still like it. Also, I think they should have a 'the' in their name.

Highlights: 'So Hard', 'The End of the World'

Lowlight: 'To Face the Truth' (a little slower than the rest, although that lax vowel in "truth" provides some enrichment)

More like The No Album (I hope all the reviews say that). This album cover looks cool, like I'm about to enter A-to-Z Video* for a fun VHS tape. But I didn't like Yes's other album, so I'm not hopeful for this one, especially starting off with a 10 minute track.

*I'm 90% this is what our local equivalent of Blockbuster was called, but it is seemingly impossible to find out via Google, like so many things I want to know D;

Well, this album was slightly better than "Fragile", maybe just because my expectations were low. Still, it's a 2 for me.

Highlights: "If the summer change to winter" is a rare subjunctive. Grammar win! 'Starship Trooper' has some good elements. I don't like it here because it makes the songs longer, but the concept of splitting a song into 2-3 named sub-parts (movements?) does appeal to me as a classical fan. I think Meat Loaf did this too, and maybe a few other 60s-80s artists, but it is something I haven't seen (yet?) in post 90s music, and would find charming.

Lowlights: So many guitar breaks; melodies are mostly boring.

All lowlights:
-Eric Clapton
- blues
- when I saw this album cover I thought it might be the Beatles, but it sure wasn't
- "colloquially known as The Beano Album"* ???
- 'Little Girl' is kinda creepy

*Beano is the comic mag pictured on the cover, the most successful outside Japan, and the longest running one (1938-present)!!! That's much more impressive than the beano I know about (1990-present).

This album is not my cup of tea. I'm sure it is important in Blues Albums, but if I die without hearing any more of those, I'll live. :P

I know exactly one T.Rex song ('20th Century Boy') and it is not on this album. Luckily, these songs sound pretty similar to that one. Wait, never mind, I know exactly two T.Rex songs ('Cosmic Dancer')! Wait, never mind, of course I know three T.Rex songs ('Get It On')! In general, these songs have good energy, I don't mind this kind of guitar, and Bolan (what a name) has a fairly unique voice. Kinda Queenish (the band, not the gay thing -- although, that too (complimentary)). Apparently they at first went by "Tyrannosaurus Rex" but the execs thought it was too long of a name and/or difficult to pronounce (???). Perhaps this dinosaur was less well known in the 60s, at least in the UK - like pizza. Related fact I heard today: George Washington died not knowing about dinos, 'cause they were discovered in the mid 1800s. But 1971 is a long time after that (supposedly).

These song titles mention lots of space themed things (sun, planets, cosmos) and yet this isn't considered space rock(??). Instead it's called glam rock, which seems more about the appearance of the artist than about the actual music. Perhaps the genre flow chart is like:
Is the artist glam?
if Y --> glam rock.
If N --> do the songs mention astronomical themes?
If Y ---> space rock.
If N ---> categorize based on how the music actually sounds, I GUESS.

Turns out M. Bolan also had a pretty tragic death (he didn't drive because of fear of car-death, then he died young in car-death (alcohol)). I suspect the odds of a 1001 Albums artist having a pretty tragic death are like 500% higher than the average musician (to say nothing of the average person). Anyway, that doesn't change my rating. I enjoyed this album more than the average 3, although perhaps not as much as the average 4. The important thing is, it's better than average, and fun to listen to, which is a good quality in an album.

Highlight: 'Cosmic Dancer' (I like the background string arrangements), 'Life's a Gas', 'Hot Love' (this is a bonus track, but I love a hand-clap and a la-la-la), 'King of the Mountain Cometh' (I don't think I heard any songs about elves and wizards before starting this project; who knew there's so many!)

Lowlights: 'Get It On' (Maybe it's just been overplayed, but I find the chorus too simplistic in an annoying way (not the content (probably half of the songs on this list are about getting it on), but the form (Lavigne-esque?!)), 'Girl' (sounds like Pink Floyd (=sleepy), although I do like the do-do-dos and the horns)

OK, some real talk here: I've had an irrational dislike of Johnny Cash ever since his cover of 'Hurt' came out and 500000 people said "this is so much better and more meaningful than the original!", which of course I disagreed with because the original was super meaningful to ME and Johnny Cash, a guy I never heard of until then, meant nothing to me. Now I understand that (a) most people don't like Nine Inch Nails, so the cover was more accessible and (b) Johnny Cash dying soon afterwards added a lot of emotional heft to the song, especially if you already knew who Johnny Cash was (or maybe were a bit older than I was). Nevertheless, country music isn't my genre of choice, and I think it's natural to dislike covers of songs you imprinted on, especially covers that are more lauded/successful than the original (see also: 'The Book of Love'). Now, should I have carried this grudge with me for 20+ years? Maybe not. So, I'll try to give this album a fair shake.

But wait, it's a live album. How can I give it a fair shake!? Live albums are for people who already like the artist (or maybe for jazz). I like that they over-the-top bleeped the swears though.
So... is it cool that he recorded this at a prison and sang 'Wanted Man'? It seems kind of insensitive, but the crowd is clapping, so I guess they're into it. That's OK then. Unless they're being forced to clap. How does this prison concert thing even work? Can anyone do a concert at a prison? If so, shouldn't more artists be doing that? Maybe things were different in the 60s. Or maybe the prisoners would boo other artists who didn't have as many prison-themed songs. But they should play through the booing!

The crowd clapping for the country of England was funny. Cash's got that Hank Hill accent in the talking bits, which is fun. But also his whole "I'm not gonna do what they tell me to do, man" isn't winning me over, I tell you hwhat. Maybe I'm misreading the vibe, but it feels performatively "tough". There's a cool study (Kiesling 1996) of how frat guys swear(&etc) more in their frat meetings than in the rest of their dealings in order to demonstrate masculinity/power, and this feels a bit like that. I do like 'I Walk the Line' though. It's a bop. Having the same song twice in a row on an album is crazy. 'A Boy Named Sue' is quite a rich text. Sue shoulda just gone by his initials or middle name or something. Something tells me this version of 'Folsom Prison Blues' isn't the complete version, which is unsatisfying. Anyway, the songs were OK to listen to, but not good enough for me to start liking Johnny Cash. Maybe if he has a non-live album later.

Highlight: 'I Walk the Line'

Lowlights: Johnny Cash, prison

Ho ho! Most of these albums are too old for me to know if they're left-field picks or not, but this one really shocked me. The Mars Volta!? 's Debut album?! In 2025!? On a normie list of must-listens?! I haven't thought about them in at least 20 years, but for a solid block of time they lingered on MTV2's Rock Countdown (I think with 'Televators' and then later 'The Widow' and 'L’via L’viaquez') and I thought "ugggggghhhh -- who even likes this!?". Actually, a lot of my friends' older brothers liked this (shoutout John and Andrew), but not me. Now I know it's 'cause it's "prog".* Very much big guitar time. More music-focused than lyrics-focused. Plus unpleasantly screamy lyrics. Performatively goth. They probably bumped off some of my favorite bands, like Nine Inch Nails or A Perfect Circle!! (lol). Jim Shearer probably loved them because they're like the Beastie Boys (bad)!! Boo!! Hiss!! Even just seeing this album cover again gives me visceral rage! Why is that stupid guy's head there!?

That said, this is a delight because it reminds me so of peak-era Rock Countdown. I don't listen to a rock station on the radio anymore (shoutout to my old friends 105.7 the X and KROQ), and AT-40 (my only music listening other than this these days) hardly ever plays that kind of alt-rock stuff (with the exception of Shinedown, for some reason, who must be Ryan Seacrest's Beastie Boys), so it's a nice blast from the past. But of all the albums to represent 2000s rock!! Why The Mars Volta!? Probably because these book creators were prog-loving sickos!!

So, this is really hard for me to rate. If I just heard it out of the blue for the first time, it'd probably be a 2. Noisy! Terrible! But the nostalgic glee I felt when seeing this come up was like, a 4. The album was exactly how I remembered, which is both bad and great. I guess I'll try to be objective about my subjective rating and give it the 2 it deserves, but a 2 with a starry-eyed smiley face attached. Apparently they're still making music, which is nice. (And frankly I do like their 'Frances the Mute' album more than this one; I even listened to it on my own volition once, so I am -- yet again -- vexed by the per-artist album choices on this project!!)

*While I was looking at the Wiki list of prog artists (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_progressive_rock_artists), which was somewhat elucidating and somewhat baffling (The Decemberists? Tool?), I saw another rock countdown band I haven't thought of in 20 years: (the) Secret Machines! I heard "Nowhere Again" 1000 times in 2004 and then never again (until right now). Frankly, that song doesn't seem very proggy (i.e. bad). Ah, nostalgia.

Previously on Rod Stewart, we landed on "this sounds like generic oldies". The album cover tells the story "buckle up for more of the same". But actually this was more rock-focused than my recollection of his previous album, and that's a negative for me (though probably a positive for most people).

The track 'Every Picture Tells a Story' certainly does tell a story, but the story is boring. Consider The Decemberists -- they have a song, 'The Mariner's Revenge Song', which also tells a rambly story, and I like their sound and enjoy the song. But I still don't want to listen to it more than once every few years. So we're not looking good after track 1.

'Seems Like a Long Time'? Yes, that track sure did. As before, Stewart didn't write most of these tracks, which is probably for the best. But none of them are that great, except the 1min of 'Amazing Grace' leading into the Bob Dylan cover 'Tomorrow Is a Long Time' (which seems quite familiar, maybe someone else on here covered it too (not that I remember who)). I know 'Maggie May' is famous, but it's just alright with me (like Jesus in a way). Ostensibly it's a song about dating an old(er) lady (which I support), but in practice it seems a lot like that long story in track 1. (Maybe hypocritical of me to judge this, but my rambly album notes aren't in the "1001 reviews to read before you die", now are they?) Still, by this point on the album we've settled back into jangly oldies mode (vs rockin' guitar mode), which is a positive for me. 14 mentioned in 'Mandolin Wind'! Alas, raspy guitar mode comes back for '(I Know) I'm Losing You', another cover. Finishes with a decent mellow raspy pianoed cover of '(Find a) Reason to Believe'. Squares up to be a nice ol' boring 3.

+ Something nice about Roddy is that his prized model train setup was featured in at least 6 issues of "Model Railroader" magazine. It's good to have a hobby. 🚂

My vision is so bad that I thought the woodwind player on this album (Bennie Maupin) said Bernie Taupin and I was like, wow, there's just so much I don't know about this era of music. (Still true, but whew)

Anyway, this is fun! A lot different than the other jazz instrumentals we heard so far. Way more groovy.

Supposedly 'Chameleon' is "one of the most widely recognized jazz standards", but I didn't recognize it. There's an upsetting screechy bit around 5 minutes in that I could really do without, though. Oh no, it's happening for so long (~3 minutes). Well, that's a shame. Luckily the song is long enough that you could cut that part out and still have a healthy 12 minute song. But why stop there?? No, I kid... I kid...

I do know 'Watermelon Man' (it's a Pavlov in the Jeopardy sense: herbie hancock! <-> watermelon man!) and I like it fine, even though it's shockingly different from the version we played in band (I bet everybody says this). Giving some White Lotus theme song vibes at the beginning there.

I think 'Vein Melter' is actually my favorite track. It's got some electro bits that I like, and no screechy stuff at all!

This could have been a 4. It was compelling for a jazz instrumental. But the screechy bit kept it at 3.