Reviews by applaud01

It is, I suppose, the 2nd best album called Let it Be.

Is it garage music if that's where it sounds as if it was recorded?

Energetic and enthusiastic, sloppy stuff.

Apart from Androgynous, which sticks out like the proverbial, this seems a lot like stuff others have down better.

The two covers are a case in point. KISS did Black Diamond and T-Rex did 20th Century Boy with a degree of polish these guys don't seem capable of.

It's enjoyable enough and simple, Dumb fun, but I might stick with the Rooftop Concert, thanks.

When you've got Nile Rodgers and Chic as your backing band then it's hardly going to be bad, is it? I mean, they produced Bowie's biggest chart toppers, didn't they?

It's easy to turn your nose up at disco and wave your "Disco Sucks" banner, but this is gold standard disco.

Four bangers in eight tracks.

"We are Family" is an anthem and 3½ minutes of purest Pleasure.

"He's the Greatest Dancer" is not that far behind. "Lost in Music" is driven along by Niles and his guitar and a thumping bass line. "Thinking of You" is a bass line Heaven.

Of the other tracks on the album only "Somebody Loves Me" drags a bit, although, as an end of the night, "slow dance before he takes her home" sort of thing it's probably peerless.

No-one is saying its deep. We're not talking Mahler. But it's an absolutely exquisite bauble.

You just know that there's some too cool hipster on here who's given this one star and just commented "Not for me". And I would invite that person to stick their head up a dead bear's bum.

This is Hendrix - the greatest guitarist of them all. No-one had played like him before and even though they all tried, no-one would play like him again.

Every sixteen year old who's strapped on a Stratocaster knock off and strummed E A B7 owes something to Hendrix.

The album contains - at least in this US release version - all the hits and then some. It's like a guitar sacred text.

Also, let's give credit where credit is due and talk about Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell. These guys stood next to the greatest ever and went with him toe to toe. The drumming and the bass on this are outstanding.

TL:DR version. Hendrix is a rock God. Give him every 5 there is.

PS: Hey Joe sounds brilliant, but those domestic violence lyrics have NOT aged well.

This is, we are told, Aerosmith "at their most raw and rocking" which is apparently another way of saying "sloppy and badly recorded".

Fairly generic metal-lite. Nothing here that others haven't done better.

They assure us, hand on heart, that the heavy drug use during the recording of this didn't affect them at all. Believe that if you want, but I think the signs are there.

Anyone remember Air Supply? Now imagine if they were worse.

First of all, 47 minutes. Really? The Beatles did Revolver in 34. And this, believe me, is no Revolver.

It's 12 slow ballads full of heart break and pathos, almost to the point of masochism. The one that is a little upbeat - The Greatest Man In the World - contains lyrics like "I'd be the Greatest man in the world, 'Cause I can say I've got the greatest girl." and runs out of words with a couple of minutes to go, so they just keep repeating the title over and over in a maudlin way. Oh, it's SO NOT Revolver!

It's emotional to the point of melodrama with lyrics that come close to self-parody, all sung in vibrato laden voices that are, at times, only more or less in tune.

The fact it is, they're not very good song-writers. And yes, I know they went on to write a lot of songs for other people, but does anyone really think Chain Reaction is Diana Ross's finest moment? Or that Dolly Parton couldn't have written something better than Islands in the Stream?

At times it's like Abbey Road, only awful.

And a song that's "a love letter to the Nation of Israel" hasn't aged well. "Israel, you make the whole world think about you." Well, quite.

Played with all the attitude of the fiercest punks, The Violent Femmes play one acoustic banger after another.

If it just had Blister in the Sun and Gone Daddy Gone it'd be a classic, but the other songs aren't that far behind.

Yesterday I was complaining about this site giving me a second Coldplay album and having to listen to their bland vanilla.

Today, early Sonic Youth, which is the very opposite of bland.

There are recognisable song structures here, but they're overwhelmed by great waves of noise and feedback, guitars like atonal divebombing chainsaws, lyrics so indistinct as to be indecipherable, so that the songs just break down.

And yes it's not for the timid and faint hearted, but if you're timid and faint hearted have you considered that this might not be the Web project for you?

Personally I'd prefer this to a truck load of Chris Martins emoting "Yellow".

If Tofu teamed up with White Bread and formed a band.

Inoffensive but bland. Obviously plays well with some, but just seems dull.

Just when they get your hopes up and seem about to do something interesting - like in Shiver, which starts with a noisy bang - it doesn't last and slips back into blandness.

And the falsetto whining doesn't help.

Even Yellow - the big hit and their claim to immortality - is a pretty generic bit of anthemic rock that seems to aspire to U2 or Radiohead territory but falls short.

Just boring

Raucous noise, apparently recorded on Nanna's cassette player, lands somewhere between Velvet Underground and Nirvana. Which isn't a bad place to be.

Loose, grungey goodness.

Well, obviously it's 5 stars.

The run they had with Tommy, Live at Leeds, Who's Next and Quadrophenia is jaw dropping.

This ranges from huge anthems to goofy songs about your wife coming after you with a machine gun and caravanning.

The huge anthems are breathtaking. The goofy songs are fun. In between are some sort of mystical songs about ... um... love and music and ... mystical things?

It's all magnificent.

Well, this was unexpected.

Not Sinatra's very best (that would be In the Wee Small Hours) but there's no denying the Velvet beauty of his voice.

Set that voice against these lush arrangements and you are going to melt hearts.

It might be unfashionable all these years later, but it's worth remembering that it was nominated for Record of the Year at the Grammys, only losing out to Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band.

So, no slouch.

There are certainly better versions of these songs (Astrud Gilberto says "Hi!") and how well Broadway show tunes benefit from the Latin treatment is open to discussion. But it's still a pretty pleasant way to spend some time.

I Concentrate on You and How Insensitive are absolute standouts, it must be said, and just things of beauty.

Although I understand there's something of a culture / cult of Grateful Dead followers and completists, they simply never made it here to Australia.

They never toured, received little to no air play, had no hits and remain little more than a name.

So I went into this pretty much blind.

It does go on a bit. After an hour without a break you start to reminisce about the good old days of more modest, succinct records like Tales from Topographic Oceans.

The level of playing is fine and the level of invention is often high, but when they're stretching out Bobby Bland or Gary Davis to 10 or 15 minutes you can't help wondering if it's entirely necessary.

Not to mention that Reverend Gary Davis did it better.

And be honest, the Feedback thing is a pretty much a bit of silliness. Possibly it seemed like a good idea at the time, although it might have been the drugs talking.

I think if you worship at the shrine, or if you were there (or at a similar show) then it will seem like a life changing experience. But if you're coming at it cold, then it all seems a bit self indulgent and in need of a pruning.

For the first time in 80 albums I couldn't bring myself to finish listening to the whole thing.

Just loathsome.

He had his moment in the 2000s where he sold albums hand over fist and won award after award, but how about we just leave him there with his homophobia and misogyny and teenager bravado and addictions?

Nice beats I guess.

There are, it seems, two albums from Eminem on this list and I have done with both of them. So let's move on.

Utterly beautiful sounding album. Richly produced with some lush string arrangements and lovely arrangements backing an intimately recorded Beck.

But what a misery. 12 slow to medium tempo ballads with more sadness than a country and western album.

And yes, he had just broken up with his long term partner and his heart was broken, but an hour of it is a bit of a trial to listen to. The comedian Bill Bailey said, "I wrote a song for Adele called, I Broke Up with My Boyfriend, But I'm Not Going to Go On About It" and really you could make the same joke about Beck.

I would certainly listen to individual songs again but sitting through the whole thing seems too much to ask.

All acrobatics and vocal gymnastics, Carey is the Nadia Comăneci of song.

It's impressive from the point of view of what one voice can do, but did no-one think to say, "Mariah, just sing the tune."?

Her singing style gave rise to a whole generation of women who gave us their melismatic performances on TV Talent shows, not being able to sing "Knees Up Mother Brown" without ripping up and down scales and arpeggios and showing all five octaves of their range in a single bar.

She may consider this her Magnum Opus, but the moment I turned it off I had forgotten it. It's icecream music - enjoyable at the time, but not really solid fare that sticks to your ribs.

A sort of honey trap.

You buy it for the singles and you also get the "experimental" stuff.

To be honest, the experimental stuff is hardly ground breaking. A lot of slow, noodling around on synths and mellotrons.

It's all a "bit We heard Bowie's Low and thought "Well we could do that"."

They couldn't.

The singles are okay, but really, Human League, Thomas Dolby, and Depeche Mode were doing it better.

Monk is the piano equivalent of Miles Davis, John Coltrane or Charlie Parker: musicians who invented a new way of thinking about their instrument.

His playing is the opposite of someone like Oscar Peterson who played with smooth flow and technical virtuosity.

Monk is angular and anything but smooth. He has the technique, but the music is never just to show it off. His harmonies are almost to the point of atonalism, his playing sometimes almost childlike.

But his music is unlike anyone else's. On this album the first track needed 24 takes and the band still couldn't get it right.

It's an album to make you sit up and think, "What did he just play?"

It's like spending 42 minutes in another world. Just splendid.

There's no way someone of my generation can give this anything but five stars.

The sheer power of its attack! Listen to Holidays in the Sun - the great guitar riff coming at you like a tank division while Lydon howls over the top.

The Sneering "We mean it man" in God Save the Queen.

The opening of Pretty Vacant (or Vaaaaa- Cunt! as Lydon insists on singing) inspired, according to Glen Matlock, by the beginning of ABBA's SOS.

The "No Future" chant in Anarchy in the UK

You can't help but admire the way no-one said, "What we need is a ballad." It's a furious, uncompromising, relentless wall of raw sound.

Some people will find it too angy and too much, but in Thatcher's England "too angry" was the only response.

But (and let's say it softly) other punk bands are probably better. Chris Bailey of The Saints referred to the Pistols sneeringly as "The Monkees of Punk" and suggested that the Monkees had better songwriters.

Of course he has a point. They were in many ways, the invention of Malcolm McLaren. He read the mood of the times and put together a band to play to it.

The songs are built to shock. The Holocaust references, the abortion song, the effrontery of God Save the Queen were all there to cause Pearls to be Clutched. Nothing sells like Scandal.

McLaren referred to the Pistols as "my Artful Dodgers" and the suggestion of them playing a part is significant.

"Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?" was the last thing Lydon said at their final concert, as the gig, the tour, the band and the music collapsed around him.

Some of the songs are pretty weak. Submission (about a submarine mission) is probably the least of them, but at this distance a lot of them read like the confused shouting of an angry young man who's had a few jars.

Look, it's vital record and about as influential as records get. But listen to The Clash or X-Ray Specs or Wire or The Ramones or Dead Kennedys or The Buzzcocks to hear what the hype was about.

So the conceit isbthat this is the soundtrack to a noir murder film that doesn't exist.

With sound effects, dialogue and atmosphere to burn, Adamson really commits to the bit.

Whether it's a bit that's worth committing to is kind of dubious.

What isn't dubious is that this is not an album I needed to hear before I die. It's never short of competent, but no more than that.

Meanwhile, Blind Joe Death and My Feet are Smiling aren't on the list and this is.

It's agreed that this isn't quite as good as the other albums in his amazing run of five.

But being not quite as good as Innervisions or Talking Book means it's still better than at least 90% of the albums on this list.

By the way, "You Haven't Done Nothing" was written about Nixon. Still relevant.