Reviews by 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.

In the late 70s Jah Wobble teamed up with Keith Levene and John Lydon to form Public Image Limited and produced some of the most aggressive and subversive music of the post punk era.

Now here he is, 12 years later, producing vaguely New Age, World Music and Soda that could safely be put on in the background of a rather lovely, elegant dinner party. ("DARLING! We get the tahini for the hummus from a funny little man in the Farmer's Markets who grinds his own sesame seeds!")

To go from "Metal Box" to this may not be an improvement. It's certainly inoffensive, in an Enya sort of way, and Sinead O'Connor's voice improves anything. But remember when he was in a band that could strip wallpaper if you turned it up loud enough?

One of those things that will test your tolerance for a couple of lads being clever with their electronic gear by throwing everything at their mixer and seeing what sticks.

Pretty much made for independent films to use over the end credits, car commercials, and gaming.

Nowhere near as good as the Gods of this sort of thing - Autechre, Aphex Twin and Boards of Canada would eat this for breakfast with one arm tied down - but passable.

It kicks off with three unmatched stadium sized anthems designed to raise hairs in the back of your neck.

If nothing else on the album quite hits those heights, every track is at least very strong.

Is it their best album? It's either this or Achtung Baby, depending on whether you want U2 with or without a sense of humour.

Its main claim to fame seems to be as a quarry for hip hop producers to mine samples from.

As an album, on its own terms, it's very much a one trick pony - the trick being "We've got bongos!!!" - and it's a bit difficult to see how that trick sustains 80 minutes of what could easily be needle drops from a Quentin Tarantino film.

Fun in small doses - I mean, a bongo heavy version of Inna-Gadd-Da-Vida, is good for a few chuckles - but no more than that. Although the presence of a Grandmaster Flash remix of Apache on Spotify is noteworthy. But does it need to be on this list? I think we all know the answer to that.

From the "More is More" school of prog, these guys are sort of the anti-Eno.

Pluses - they can play those instruments to within an inch of their lives. Sheer virtuoso bravado. Admittedly there is a feeling of showing off for the sake of it and is there a point behind it or is it just surface glitter?

Minuses - the songwriting is all "the Elder Race" and Sci-Fi silliness with Eldritch priests assuming control of the Solar Federation and if Brian Blessed turned up to cry "Fly, my Hawkmen!" You wouldn't be surprised.

The vocals are, shall we say, an acquired taste. Clearly many have acquired it, but they do sound a bit like Jon Anderson impersonating Robert Plant being strangled.

I'm sure if I was 16 again I'd be mightily impressed, but it's time to move on to something less flash and more substantial.

I get that it's important, a seminal influence on hip-hop. I get that it's inventive and creative.

What I don't get is a need to ever listen to it again. As they say, "Not for me:

So sleek and glossy it could be chrome plated.

Well here it is, in all its sequined, slightly tatty, horny, gender-fluid, era defining, English, well hung madness.

The idea that it's a concept album - or worse, a rock opera - is obviously a con job. It's a collection of killer songs that threaten to connect up into something coherent, but never really do. There's a story - that was obviously written after the fact - that sort of floats above them and provides a framework, but they don't really fit into in any neat and tidy way.

But what songs they are! There's not a skip on the album. Even the cover of Long John Bawldry works a treat. The band is tight and plays like their lives depend on it. Bowie sings like Antony Newley having a breakdown and is all melodrama and sex on a stick.

Before this album Bowie was a niche artist who sold a few albums to a small audience. The moment he went on Top of the Pops, draped his glittering arm around Mick Ronson's shoulders and sang Starman he was a superstar. "Just watch me!" Indeed.

Okay, hands up who thinks this is here because it's a great album? And now, on a show of hands, who thinks this is here because it's the first album released on the Stax Label?

I thought so.

Sure, Green Onions is a slinky, bass driven track that just makes your hips move, but the two other originals aren't anywhere nearly as good and the rest are essentially cover version filler.

No album with a cover of Stranger on the Shore needs to be on this list.

So they moved to a big commercial label and the label wanted a big commercial label with commercial singles.

And they delivered this.

When the most commercial thing on it is the droning chant of Kool Thing then you know you'd love to be a fly on the wall when the suits put it on for the first listen.

A long way from Kill Yr Idols, but still true to themselves.

Hip hop that takes a pass on sampling, opting instead for a real band playing real instruments. The result can sound more like Soul or R&B or even jazz.

There is a certain self indulgence at times. What the second, musique concrete half of "Water" is about is anyone's guess. And things get very silly when they go all Napalm Death on "!!!!"

The problem is with the rapping itself. At one point someone calls out "Do you know what I'm saying?" and the short answer is "No".

There's a good chance that I need the Remedial Level rap lyrics, but I found the vocals so buried in the mix, so effects laden or so fast that I didn't have a chance of knowing what he's saying.

So great instrumentals, but average vocals

First... 76 minutes? Really?

Next... he's really not as funny or as deep and as intelligent as he thinks he is.

Okay, the production is pretty good, but the rhymes are a bit naff.

Although the brief snatch of I'll Fly Away is quite sweet.

And yes, I am aware that Kanye has shown himself to be capable of being an Olympic grade arse.

Like a barbed wire whip with attitude.

No notes needed. Just brilliant

The reason Bowie went to Berlin.

Phased, flanged guitars drone above mechanical, driving rhythms.

The first half is Eno ambient. The second half is more rhythmic and propulsive. Both are Germanic goodness.

You don't come here for the tunes. What tunes there are are simple scraps that just repeat without developing. But come for the textures, the drums, the eerie drones, the synths and it's unlike anything else

Completely wonderful.

Still don't get Hip Hop, but I'm closer to it with this than I have been.

Great beats, great rapping great production. Although the "This is a Missy Elliott exclusive" thing got really off, really fast.

But let me get political here for half a moment. Elliott makes the not unreasonable point that male rappers have been talking sex for years, but when women do it they get told it's inappropriate. Which is fine and inarguably true.

But whether its men saying "Bitch, my dick so big you'll love it" or women saying "I wanna keep my man so pussy don't fail me now!" isn't it just the same old sex based male female power narrative?

Instead of just playing into the same old same old how about just... you know.... growing up.