applaud01

Well that's a big bag of misery.

Musically solid, although the lyrics are pretty impenetrable.

Reminds me a bit of those two first Roxy Music albums

Masters of their craft, some of whom were brought out of retirement, just casually being masterful.

Listen to El Cuarto de Tula. If your hips don't move than seek medical help. And if your jaw doesn't drop at the solo on the Laud by Barbarito Torres then get a tetanus shot because you have lock jaw.

Awesome

Or, as it's also known, that one with La Grange and some other ones.

There's probably nothing much wrong with the other ones, other than them not being La Grange.

Generally, you get a blues riff, some good soloing (Billy Gibbons knows his way round a fretboard) and some cliche lyrics. When that formula gels then it's a fun time But other times it's probably no better or worse than what you could hear in any bar in Texas.

La Grange with its solid gold riff, its mumbled lyrics - "You know what I'm talkin' 'bout!" - and its absurdly over the top solos is in another league altogether.

It's hard to believe that even at the time this was ever seen as the witty sophistication that it clearly wants to be instead of the juvenile, smart arsed "look at us being clever" antics that it actually is.

Borderline racist on a couple of songs - Hotel and Oh Effendi - and several others are so bound up with the cleverness of their concept that they're just obscure.

I didn't know until I looked it up, for example, that Clockwork Creep is a duet between a Jumbo Jet and the terrorist bomb within its hold. Once you know what it's about then the lyrics sort of make sense. But if you have to explain the joke....

It's like they listened to Randy Newman and Zappa and said "We'll do that, only make it funny!" without realising what made Newman and Zappa better than they'd ever be.

Intensely personal and hugely talented. Perhaps too personal, since she was told, having bared her soul in this one, "all you need to do for the follow-up is bare it all again." It did not go well.

For mine, a few too many mid tempo numbers cause it to sag a bit and it's probably too long, but it's quite an achievement.