Reviews by arewenotben

Single handedly fighting back against the drop in Western birth rates

Far more interesting than I expected, will investigate further

Still weird and wild, like it more now than I did back in the day

Fine? An odd choice and of it's time but the singles still go. Can remember this from when it came out and seemed slight then, good for him for his rightful success with Madonna and Kylie

Some flashes of what was to come but largely underwhelming

I love the swagger and there's some of the best songs of the era on here, but too much filler

Kinda just wish they wrote songs for AC/DC and not these overly jokey pantomimes. There's some stuff which is as good in its mechanics as any of the greats but it's through so many layers of irony it can be difficult to stomach

Really sags in the middle, but a couple of interesting tracks

Maiden always seemed super uncool to me for ages but older wiser me now appreciates how much they rule. This is their best

Good stuff, not what you'd expect from the cover! 4*

ngl, this goes hard. ridiculous in all the best ways

generous 4 maybe, patchy but has great moments - feels very radiohead by numbers but still better than most bands

Slaps. I went through a bit of a The The phase earlier in the year and this was the one I kept going back to. Not perfect but I love enough to go the full 5

Has it's moments, not something I'll listen to again tho

Has a great voice and musically more interesting than I expected but this does definitely feel like an over-confident debut.

Not all of this works but enjoyable, with some bits going pretty hard. Good fun!

Not as good as Los Angeles but still pretty barnstorming

I'm sure a 2025 critic could accuse this of cultural appropriation but viewed in the 80s during apartheid this has a completely different context. Probably did more than any other record to turn people on to non-Western sounds (I'd never heard ANYTHING like this as a kid) and has a bunch of killer tracks

Strong album, can clearly hear Bowie's input. The closer Mass Production the highlight

Took a couple of tracks to get into it's groove but loved most of this, always interesting. Another reminder why the reviews here are a total disaster - the top review states "indistinguishable from any other Britpop LP out there": this absolutely does not sound like britpop - do you have ears? Do you even know what words mean?