Reviews by applaud01

First, whatever the Spotify link leads to its not this album. Search it up on Youtube.

Falling somewhere around the intersection of The Velvet Underground, The Shags and Surfer Bird, The Monks were a bunch of discharged US Soldiers in Germany who thought they'd form a band.

Let's assume they could play their instruments, but the instruments they played - an organ with one finger chords, an electric banjo, some drums but no cymbals, rhythm guitars - didn't seem all that promising.

They started out playing pop covers, buy then discovered feedback and got angry about Vietnam.

The result is this one album.

They whale away at their instruments with everything played in sync as a rhythm instrument while the lead singer gives it plenty with yelps and screams. With 12 songs on the album and the longest at 3½ minutes, they're like a proto-Ramones

With songs like "Shut up" and "I Hate You" and lyrics that just come straight our with "Why are you killing babies in Vietnam?" this isn't The Archies.

But they were adored by the Punk Scene and kind of invented Krautrock.

Is it a good album?
Well, no.

Is it full of great performances?
Well, no.

Great songs?
No.

Well recorded?
No.

Is it an absolute treasure and kindnof wonderful?
Absolutely 100% yes!

You could give it one star or five stars and no-one would argue either way.

There's a straight line to this from The Velvet Underground and Nico. The noise, the drums, the unconvention guitar sounds. Even Kim Gordon's voice sounds like Nico at times.

They'd pretty much left behind their days of sticking screwdrivers into the strings and such and were working on what could almost pass for rock song structures. Of course that doesn't stop them from assaulting the ears, but they're far from the chart makers they would later become.

Not everyone's idea of a good time, perhaps, but still pretty good.

The sound of a band in transition.

Having established themselves as heavy cosmic blues monsters on their first two albums, on their third they are looking for new things to try.

It starts with the thundering power of the Immigrant Song - one of the best loved riffs in all rock music - but that's done and out of the way in under three minutes, like they're saying "Well, that's that done, so let's do something new."

So straight on to Friends - all tricky time changes, middle Eastern and Indian chords, synthesisers, Bonham just on congas and, of all things on a Zeppelin album, a String Arrangement. Unfortunately, over the top you have Plant coming out with what could best be described as Hallmark Saccharine. ( "The greatest thing you ever can do now / Is trade a smile with someone who's blue now" is a fair example) interesting but not entirely successful.

Then into Celebration Day, where Jimmy Page shows off his slide guitar skills.

Since I've Been Loving You is sort of Dazed and Confused 2 only bluesier and with keyboards.

Out on the Tiles is fine enough and features some great playing, even if it does sound suspiciously like Jeff Beck's recording of Shapes of Things from Truth.

With Gallows Pole we seem to head in Fairport Convention territory, with English Folk Rock.

With Tangerine with back with The Yard birds, but with bonus steel guitar to give it a Country feel.

That's the Way is that remarkable thing: a beautiful Zeppelin song. More folk acoustic guitar and the lyrics are ambiguous. Two boys living next door to each other, one of whose parents don't like him seeing the other. Because he's not their type? A gay subtext? Up to you I guess, but it is an album highlight.

Bron-Y-Aur Stomp is a lot of fun, full of virtuosic folk guitar and all sorts of off beat stomping. We're a long way from The Hammer of the Gods. But very close to Bert Jansch

Finally, Hats off to (Roy) Harper with more acoustic guitar and a vocal effect that probably seemed like a good idea at the time. Go and listen to Bukka White if you want to heat how to Shake 'em Down properly.

So then, a band experimenting with what made them huge and trying new things. People who were looking for the next Whole Lotta Love probably didn't find it here and it's not entirely successful, but when they swing and hit its pretty awesome

Obviously a massively important and influential album.

Whether you find it an enjoyable album will vary. After all, one song was so intense that bar owners banned them from playing it because everyone would leave when they did.

Starts with the sound of bells and an ethereal woman's voice and ends with seven minutes of screaming feedback and noise.

In between it covers drug use, masochism, death, existential ennui and the like.

The songs are droning and so simple. Lou Reed famously said that two chords were all you need and more than three you were playing jazz.

It's a Weirdly split album. You have the songs like Boots of Leather and Heroin being all New York Art scene and then Nico's songs standing off to the side with their cool German Caberet. There's nothing else like it, not even in the Velvet Underground's catalogue.

Mo Tucker thunders away on the drums in almost tribal ways. John Cale uses a viola like a noise machine, Lou Reed's guitar solos sound, at times, like a chicken scratching and his vocals are more spoken than sung. He was, he claimed later, "the original rapper".

But it's hard to imagine where music would be without this strangely perverse album. Punk drew on its DIY aesthetic and shock value, post-punk just absorbed it whole. There's a whole school of noise rock that can trace its origin back to this.

At the time no-one really understood it or knew what to do with. Record stores wouldn't sell it, radio stations wouldn't play it. But in the years since it's become one of those albums for which the word "classic" isn't big enough.

It's one of the albums that define what rock music actually is.

Restrained and quietly beautiful although hardly a toe tapping food time.

Their version of Patsy Clines Walking After Midnight is an absolute cracker.

Enjoyed this far more than I was expecting to.

I imagine that with the right level of pharmaceutical enhancement this would go like a frog in a sock.

But even with nothing more in the system than a menthol cough drop it's still really engaging.

Not as good as, say, Massive Attack, but definitely a step up from Goldie.

Just wants to get you on your feet and dancing and none the worse for that.

Might be the most late 60s thing ever.

A British Concept Album / Rock Opera about Britain and how everything had gone to crap.

Not unenjoyable, and Davies is a damn fine songwriter, but living in Australia, which is the Land of Milk and Honey on the album, the thing does hit a bit differently

Full of murders and madmen and kings and fairy queens this is such a glorious sound.

The playing is brilliant and Sandy Denny's voice is beautiful.

An album you can get lost in

Doesn't quite escape the feeling that it's background music for a hipster clothing store. And there are moments in its 2 hour length where you find it yourself thinking "Well, this could have been an email."

But as background music that iutstays its welcome it's okay.

Not exactly a masterpiece, although there are great songs here:

Changes and Life on Mars? aren't so much songs as icons.

Oh you pretty Things, Fill your Heart and Queen Bitch - surely the only song outside of children's television to get away with the phrase "bibbitty bobbetty hat" - are nearly as good.

And the deeper cuts - Kooks, the Bewley Brothers and Eight Line Poem - are fine enough.

Only Quicksand, Andy Warhol and Song for the Bob Dylan let the side down

But as a pointer to what came next this is pretty impressive.

Not unpleasant or unlistenable, but I suspect it's as trendy and has as much substance as the froth from soy milk single origin latte.

The lightest, dancing jazz ever.

Plays around with time signatures and works because of how tight the band is.

Fantastic listen

All the respect in the world for the anti-apartheid activism.

The music is pleasant and flirts with being bland. But there is something interesting going on here and it's worth a listen.

At this distance you're really talking about two songs here: "White Rabbit" & "Somebody to Love". I can't imagine too many people pop this on to hear the sound of "Embryonic Journey"

Those two songs tower over everything else on this album.

It's all over the place really. Monkees style pop in "She Has Funny Cars" and Sun Mommas and Pappas in My Best Friend and all sorts of serious mind expanding 60s silliness in other places.

Comin' Back to Me in particular is the of fey, hippy folk nonsense that could only happen at that time. Self important overwritten lyrics combined with a sort of pretend medieval backing. It hasn't aged well.

1 star for each of the two big hits.

Lot of Pearl clutching in the reviews here about the Toy Story singer singing a song like Rednecks, with its use of racial slurs. Shocked and outraged, I tell you!

Good. You're meant to be. If you weren't there'd be something wrong with you.

Satire of the darkest hew, hanging America's grubbiest linen out for all the world to see. Racism, grubby politics and so many damaged men.

From a man who used to worry about his gambling, bit now he just drinks and forgets, to a guy who has to get drunk to tell Marie he'll always love her, to a man who needs a whole lot of medicine so he can pretend to be someone else, to the Southern Gothic of Cherokee county, to whatever the hell is going on in Back On My Feet Again.

Even the Naked Man snatching purses from old ladies is only doing it because the Navy found out about his sister and no-one will help him stop because he can't control himself. (Now there's a pitch for Pixar!)

Even Kingfish is probably the greatest speech Trump, the most damaged man of all, never gave ("I look after shit kickers like you!")

It's full of "he didn't go there, did he?" moments. Not for the faint of heart.

Really enjoyable and engaging samba music with some electronics thrown into the mix.

Perfectly acceptable way to pass the time, although whether I needed to hear it before I die us up for debate.

If you offer me a choice network this and Thriller I'll take this every time.

What an astonishing thing this is, from the angry Living for the City, to the beautiful Golden Lady.

Every song a winner. No skips, all gold.

I found it a bit difficult to care or remain interested in this. It's okay, I guess.

As a fearsome fuck you to the Government over restrictive legislation brought in as a hurried response to the moral panic over the 90s Rave scene this is pretty much without peer.

But 30 years later, when the political message is long forgotten, does it stand up?

It's incredibly fierce stuff, with big driving beats and thumping bass. These guys aren't here to put socks on centipedes. They're here to party and party hard.

To be honest, Fat of the Land is probably the one to get, but this is a pretty worthy runner up.

The sort of thing that gives 4th rate music a bad name.