Reviews by bee-york

What does it say about an artist when something as beautiful can exist and it's not considered one of their best albums?
Maybe not his most memorable tracks but still a wonderful time nonetheless. The 2nd half has an immense bittersweet feel to it

Yeah I'd cheat on this dude if I had to hear his douchey mid 2000's VH1 vocals daily

Kinda baffled at how polarizing this one is in the global ratings, it's kinda hard to have that strong of an opinion on it

A bit conflicted on how to judge this one. The album is comprised of a lot of really short songs, with the original release containing 12 songs despite clocking in at just short of 28 minutes. While I am not typically one who is bothered by silly or otherwise nonsensical lyrics there were some songs where I was almost left scratching my head at how goofy the lyrics were (the parade song being the worst offender).
All that being said though, I still listened to the entire extended piece on both listens due to how easy and relaxing it was. Astrud continues to have a great singing voice and the impressive swathe of performers involved in this all do a terrific job. So while I do question some aspects of the album, I also have to appreciate how well it accomplishes its easy listening aspects.

I think the swig of water I had that went down a bit funny was more eventful than this album.
It's all competently performed but felt incredibly formulaic. No doubt a result of getting to the scene a bit early, I would have to imagine this albums inclusion would be at least somewhat historically motivated. Thankfully it was not a super long album although a lot of the songs with a singular theme/hook like Trash and Frankenstein started to make this feel like more of a drag than it should have

Having the guy who got shot and killed in self-defense during a kidnapping singing about 'Girl don't fight it' right at the beginning is the kind of foreshadowing that people would mock

It feels kinda stupid to write something about a universally loved album that I don't really have any issues with. What the fuck do you want me to say 'ooohhh the melody is so rich' yeah we all know the album is cool

I guess my take away is start feeding the kids in the music industry today some live bats and see if we can activate the same kind of shit that caused these guys to drop Paranoid and their Self Titled Album in the same year

I have another 2 of these to go and my tolerance for hearing Robert Plant screech 'baby' repeatedly has already reached a critical low point
How many more times is an accurate representation of my own psyche as I wonder how many more songs I am going to hear with Robert talking about his (certainly of age) 'girl'

wowzer is that... le ex military opening!?!?!? im feeling a light 8 to a strong 7 on this one bros... (heh, just a bit of music enjoyer humor..)

Naa this album was pretty sweet. I wasn't really sure what to expect from an album for which my knowledge was they were sampled by Death Grips but I didn't expect it to be as much of a pure, practically dumb fun experience as this. I was a bit mixed initially on where to grade this for some of the parts where it reared into its neighbouring Hair/Glam metal territory in some of the ways that annoy me for that genre, but something this consistently enjoyable deserves praise

Apparently this is one of the more 'britpop' sounding releases from this group and I must say what a shame. The more distorted shoegaze elements gave this some flavour that it desperately needed to not feel like completely boring filler. I dunno if I would be able to pick it out of a lineup of indie crap that would come later in the decade and spill into the 2000's but props for being a bit earlier to the party. While I did like the more surreal sound of this I do think the audio mixing does a bit of a disservice when the singer decides to go quiet for moments in some songs. The mood it wants to establish doesn't really work for me when I genuinely can't hear what he is saying. Lastly I think it also overstayed itself a bit too long unfortunately.

At least I can take solace that there is some decent stuff in this deep dive of shit I put off over the holidays.
Not sure if the organ in this is a prevalent thing for the band or if it was just available in the recording studio and someone was just itching to implement it somehow. Pretty inoffensive with some nice individual tracks but mostly just felt decent

I'm nearly impressed by Johnny Rotten's ability to somehow become more obnoxiously incomprehensible as the song goes on (though maybe the album was just rotting my brain from the inside, I think something did leak out between my earbuds at one point), it makes me want to apologise for any comments I have made in regards to Eddie Vedder's style of singing I actually mean it when it comes to this album.
Also a completely bitch made move to hide the track where you say 'faggot' all the way at the back of the album, they don't have the balls to front load it like Dire Straits.
Some tough guy punks you all turned out to be

Pretty dreadful fucking vocals propped up by some talented performers on instruments. Was considering giving this a 3 for how they balance out but it started really getting on my nerves with how long this album was

Really cool laid back style, it kinda hindered my listening on both go arounds because I just let it sorta roll in the background and while I could appreciate that there were plenty of different elements scattered through the album, it was all a bit of a long 40-50 minute haze

Frankly I don't think I would want to get a gift from Phil Spector given his track record

Thom Yorke might not have it in him to criticize Israel but him and his quintet of not-so merry men sure can very sporadically make good music

I finally got what I wanted out of a live Jazz album on this list rather than that hokey performative slop that was Tom Waits' larp as a Black Soul performer talking about what he had for breakfast.
Feels very well produced too, they mention how there were a lot of microphones used during the introduction but the actual recording of the performance itself feels almost like a studio. Very impressive stuff

Led Zeppelin II - Led Zeppelin (1969)

That's it? That's your critically acclaimed, 16th highest rated album on this website?
That was just the vocalizations of sex provided by Robert Plant over some otherwise ok rock instrumentals.

I can somewhat appreciate the fact that this is neat as a product of the late 60's. But I just don't understand why some people look at this band with an almost mystical whimsy. Wow you made songs about nerdy shit, big whoop. We have an entire generation of autistic youth who grew up on Minecraft music videos but I don't think they are being lauded as the best thing since sliced bread.
Oh and it doesn't justify the pedophilia either

Introducing The Hardline According to Terrence Trent D'arby - Terrence Trent D'arby (1987)

Certainly very verbose in terms of both its album and track titles, I feel like if I were to reference the full titles for some of this I would be stuck writing war and peace.
I had some initial worries that I wasn't gonna have the best reaction to this album after the songs that followed the opening (Surprisingly, they are some of the most popular on the album, am I a contrarian or just retarded?). But no this album was mostly consistent with its quality output. I definitely had more of an inclination towards the funkier sides of the album. But even the more sombre tracks were awesome. A very nice surprise

Highlights: If You All Get to Heaven, I'll Never Turn My Back on You, Dance Little Sister, Seven More Days, Sign Your Name

thoroughly disappointed by the lack of man asses in this album, only slightly alleviated by some decent music

I have listened to some samey sounding albums in this list so far but holy shit there were genuinely tracks in this that I thought were one in the same until I checked my phone and saw the progress bar of whatever I was listening to.
The repetitiveness is really what kills this for me. it's completely competent otherwise with some well produced instrumentals in the back, which probably provided any variety this album had going for it