Reviews by aretzorn

Lots of great music, but the production on the album is very 80s, with treble in overdrive. Gets a little grating, despite the great songwriting and musicianship. Favorite songs: Cult of Personality, of course - it's a great song and never gets old. Funny Vibe - the lyrics hit hard - make sure to check out the Funky Vibe Mix on the extended version of the album. Memories Can't Wait - great Talking Heads cover. Glamour Boys - For some reason I always thought this was a cover - it's a great example of the wide range on this album. Not a bad song on the album (although I think the beginning of Open Letter (to a Landlord) sounds like Corey Glover doing his best Michael Bolton). I'd give it a 5 but the production style unfortunately takes it down a notch for me.

The music is intensely cool, the lyrics dark. I read a lot about singer Ian Curtis and his suicide just before this album was released. The album hits a lot harder when you know what was going on at the time. I felt the album started only ok. I didn't like the noisy guitar in the background for Atrocity Exhibition and felt it went on too long without change. I felt Isolation had a good sound but was kind of the same thing over and over, a criticism that could be aimed at most of the songs on this album. However, starting with Passover through The Eternal the album was just one incredibly cool sounding song after another. You could also hear the influence they had on so many bands in the 80s (and even beyond). It ended just ok on Decades - a good track but not as good as the previous - it would have been better if they ended with The Eternal. So, basically 2/3 of the album is absolutely perfect and 1/3 is good. Favorite tracks: While I really like all the songs from Passover to The Eternal, my favorites were Colony (cool, hard edge), Heart and Soul (dark, brooding, and mysterious), Twenty Four Hours (cool bass line throughout), and The Eternal (like a beautiful funeral dirge. Really like the piano in this song).

It's crazy that this is his 15th (!) album, but he's only at the start of his "classic period" albums. Well, that period is aptly named. I only previously heard Innervisions and Songs in the Key of Life and loved them both. This one is right up there with them. What a great album and what an amazing talent - even more amazing when you consider that except for some guitars and some backing vocals everything on the album is him. My favorite track is I Believe (When I Fall in Love It Will Be Forever). I first heard it on the High Fidelity soundtrack and later included it on my wedding celebration playlist. Such a beautiful song (and all him - I had no idea there were no other musicians on that track). I love how it builds until the song is just soaring, and then ends with a great funk jam (does it count as a jam when it's only one person? Maybe it does if it's Stevie Wonder). Superstition is a solid gold classic - the quintessential funky Clavinet track. If you don't at least bop your head when you hear it, you may be dead. You Are the Sunshine of My Life is a classic. Easy listening, sure, but beautiful. All the other tracks are good to great. Maybe Your Baby brings da funk. You and I is schmaltzy but still good (nice use of synths - You've Got it Bad Girl is another good synth track). I also enjoyed Tuesday Heartbreak, Big Brother, Blame It on the Sun, and Lookin' for Another Pure Love (nice guitars, courtesy of Jeff Beck). It's just a great album, and clearly a 5.

I'll start with my only (slight) complaint: it sounds pretty dated. I even thought about dropping the album down to a 4 because of the dated sound, but the songs and musicianship are just too good. Bottom line - once you get past the dated sound, every track is good in its own way. The album has great bookends: Alone Again Or and You Set the Scene are both fantastic songs. Alone Again Or has great guitar playing and you gotta love the Spanish guitar style and mariachi horns. "You Set the Scene" is an epic with some great lyrics. I love the line: "This is the only thing that I am sure of/and that's all that lives is gonna die/And there'll always be some people here to wonder why/and for every happy hello there will be good-bye." Other great moments: A House Is Not a Motel (great guitar work), The Daily Planet, The Red Telephone (super dated, but very psychedelic and again I love the guitar work), Maybe the People... (great rhythm), Live and Let Live (particularly the chorus - "and so the story ended..."), Bummer in the Summer (Arthur Lee does his best Bob Dylan impression...also shades of Hendrix' singing style). Even some of the tracks that pushed my "holy 60s baby" buttons are good. For example, Andmoreagain is a little too "Listen to the Flower People" for me, but it has good moments. The Good Humor Man... also sounded incredibly dated but could easily have been a Burt Bacharach classic. Finally, love the singing throughout and the album gets better with each listen. Definitely a classic and I'll stick to the 5.

On their second album the Pixies continued to be ahead of their time - so much of grunge can be traced back to their songs. I personally preferred their debut Surfer Rosa - I felt it had stronger individual songs and also a harder edge. This album is definitely a 4 though - a really good album that I'd like to keep listening to. I haven't rated the Pixies a 5 mainly because there's always a little too much screaming and feedback, but not so much for me to dislike it. I will definitely keep listening to both these albums and plan to dig into more of their discography. Favorite tracks - Wave of Mutilation, I Bleed, Monkey Gone to Heaven, Mr. Grieves, No. 13 Baby, and Gouge Away.

What a voice - such precision, range, and beauty. The music takes you on a calm, beautiful ride and includes some brilliant lyrics. Some examples that stood out: "We love our lovin' but not like we love our freedom" (Help Me), "laughing and crying, you know it's the same release" (People's Parties), "Everything comes and goes/pleasure moves on too early and trouble leaves too slow" (Down to You), "Dreaming of the pleasure I'm going to have/Watching your hairline recede, my vain darling" [I laughed at that one] (Just Like This Train). Favorite tracks - Court and Spark (really sets the mood for the album), Help Me (one other observation - the musicians on this album are so good - not flashy, but just perfect for the music), Down to You, Raised on Robbery (fun track), Troubled Child.

I wasn't a big fan of their second album, so I was pleasantly surprised by this album. Much more variety and just one good track after another. Outstanding musicianship and writing. It's very clear why this album is considered a classic. Favorite tracks: Tears of Rage, To Kingdom Come, Caledonia Mission, The Weight (absolute classic), Chest Fever (I wasn't sure about this one at first, but it really grew on me), We Can Talk. Really no weak songs.

Good grooves and relatively clean lyrics (but not always). The album grew on me with each listen. In fact, I definitely want to keep listening, so that alone kicks it above a 3. I'm finding I enjoy rap a lot more when it's not full of misogyny and violence (and in fact, they call out the latter in "Not that Kind"). Overall, it's a fun ride with a good mix of different rap styles. It's not a 5 for me, but definitely a solid 4. Favorite tracks: Freedom, If You Only Knew, Break, What's Golden (this one caught my attention every time I listened), Sum of Us.

First listen it was kinda, yeah britpop, whatever. Second listen - this album RAWKS. Fun, good stuff. I don't find a whole album on clubbing all that deep, but I'd listen again - hence the 4.

This is what it would sound like if you were having a nightmare and someone put a Beach Boys album on in the background (particularly Mrs. O'Leary's Cow - that's some dark stuff for a Beach Boy). Overall, this album is...interesting. Probably more relevant as a musical curiosity (long unfinished album finally gets finished) than as a great album. I also listened to Smiley Smile (the sort-of Smile album the Beach Boys released in 1967) - it's interesting to compare the same tracks on each (where available). Heroes and Villains is a pretty cool track and compares pretty closely to the version on Smiley Smile. Good Vibrations is a classic, of course - interesting that this version has different lyrics from the original. I'm interested enough to want to keep digging into this album, which is usually at least a 4 for me, but it's also seriously weird. I don't necessarily mind weird, but I'm going to have to go with a 3 because it's just a little too weird.

"And if a double-decker bus crashes into us
To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die
And if a ten-tonne truck kills the both of us
To die by your side, well, the pleasure, the privilege is mine"

Such emo glory - The Smiths make emo fun and romantic. I've never listened to the Smiths before the 1001 albums and I know there are some polarizing views about them. My overall impression: this album is a lot simpler in style than their previous album Meat is Murder - I liked the music on Meat is Murder better - but, it's still a great album, with depressing yet amusing lyrics and good songwriting. The title song is a straightforward driving rocker. Good stuff. Frankly Mr Shankly is an amusing ditty aimed at the guy who ran their label. I Know It's Over sounds like an old timey rock and roll ballad about heartbreak and wanting to die. Loved the part where he repeatedly asks "Then why are you on your own tonight?" Then we get even more emo with Never Had No One Ever which moves to the jarringly upbeat emo song Cemetry Gates (really liked this one - good chorus). Bigmouth Strikes Again is a good track (and pretty prophetic as Morrissey became more of an asshole bigmouth as the years went on). Vicar in a Tutu is an amusing song that again sounds like old timey rock and roll. There is a Light That Never Goes Out is pretty straightforward and is the big classic from the album. Good simple tune that gets stuck in your head. The album ends on Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others which feels like a throwaway song with kind of stupid lyrics. It's a shame that they didn't just end with There is Light, but maybe too many listeners would jump off a bridge if they ended there. Instead, it ends on a song that makes you go "huh?" and maybe even laugh a little. Absurd, like life. Excellent album.

Damn this is good. Powerful. Smooth grooves over deep lyrics. It's like Rage Against the Machine if the rage was expressed over smooth grooves with a relaxed rap flow. Seriously impressive album and the first rap album I'm rating a 5 (aside from Rage, which I consider to be more rock/metal anyway). Favorite tracks: pretty much all of them, but standouts are Satanic Reverses, Famous and Dandy (particularly the "flavor of the month" section), Television the drug of the nation, Financial Leprosy, and Water Pistol Man.

Pretty straight-forward 70s rock with some great guitar solos. Before listening to this, I couldn't have even told you who played "The Boys are Back in Town." Fun listen, but I was definitely ready to move on by the end. Favorite tracks: Jailbreak, Southbound (really nice guitar solo), Still in Love With You, The Boys are Back in Town.

Good musicianship all around, but I find straight blues kind of boring. I don't dislike hearing tracks like these here or there, but a whole album of them is a little much for me.

Good power pop with some songs I could do without. I enjoyed it overall but kind of got tired of it after a while. In particular, I disliked Kung Fu and Innocent Smile (way too much feedback!). I was going to give the album a 4 until I encountered those tracks and after realizing I was getting tired of the album after the third listen. So, it's a 3. Favorite tracks: Lose Control, I'd Give You Anything (this one caught my attention every time I listened - very cool track).

The music is very 80s, yet unique at the same time. Very harsh lyrics - Infected is apparently about STDs or AIDS more specifically, Heartland is about the decline of England, Sweet Bird of Truth about Western military action in the Middle East, The Mercy Beat sounds like it's about alcoholism. So, under the 80s pop sound, a dark subcurrent. Calling it a 4 - very good, worth hearing again, but the dated sound is the main thing keeping it from a 5.

Pleasant album, but not sure I needed to hear it before I die. Most fun part was hearing "Mbube" and saying, "hey! That's The Lion Sleeps Tonight!" Turns out "Mbube" means "lion" and the original song was written in 1939 by Solomon Linda (a capella song - check it out on YouTube). And, of course, typical for the music industry, American record companies ripped it off and barely paid him a cent (check out the Wikipedia entry - Pete Seeger tried to share his royalties with Solomon Linda but the publisher never sent the payments). I also learned that "wimoweh" is a mispronunciation of "uyimbube" which means "you are a lion." You learn something new every day. Back to Miriam Makeba, pleasant album, don't need to hear it again. That's a 3.

Easy 5 - a perfect album. Although it's commonly viewed these days as one of the best albums of all time, it's not my favorite Beatles album (behind Sgt Pepper and Abbey Road for me). But it's still perfect start to finish. Favorite tracks: Eleanor Rigby, Taxman, Tomorrow Never Knows.

Highly influential but not widely known and died of cancer at 49. Very sad. She's got a great voice but I'm not all that into her music, even after multiple listens. Pleasant to hear, but don't need to hear it again, which is the definition of a 3 for me.

Eh, it's country. Don't get me wrong, if I have to listen to country, Willie's a good choice. But it's country.