Reviews by benc

I had the LP when I was younger but I haven't listened to this album in probably 15 years. I didn't remember a single song. It's a style of post-punk I generally enjoy, but there's so many better bands and albums in this vein you have to reach the point you're scraping the bottom of the barrel to get much from it. Overall a pretty decent record, but nothing that really knocked my socks off.

This is fine. As a musician I used to play shows with once said, Pink Floyd are not nearly as terrible as their haters make them out to be and not nearly as great as their enthusiasts say. I think this is the correct take. There are some nicely experimental, psychedelic moments here but they don't really cohere with the songs, which are (mostly) quite safe and soft rock-ish. "Money" is pretty cool though.

I've always loved Madonna but somehow I'd never listened to this full album. It's great. Definitely sounds like one of her first attempts to sound "mature" and you can hear a preview of what she would sound like throughout the 90s. Her most overtly soul / r&b inflected album (even some gospel elements). This is like a spiritual cousin of George Michael's Faith -- oversexed pop star makes a record about religious devotion as a metaphor for all the ways their sexuality is related to true love and, therefore, has been misconstrued or misunderstood.

Prince is a legend and if anyone in pop history is a "musical genius," it's him. In the past I've (wrongly) considered him overrated. What's not to love about this extremely weird and catchy album?

Nick Cave is sort of a "pick me Christian" in that most of his songs are about God, the Devil, Jesus, such and such a biblical story, etc etc etc. But he also swears and sings about sex and is "too cool" to just be a Christian rock singer -- he's "not like all the other Christians," which is a doubly annoying persona to take on. A lot of the lyrics here are clever by a half, rotating all the way back around to being stupid (e.g. "In a colonial hotel we fucked up the sun / And then we fucked it down again"). I like a lot of the musicians he works with (Nick Cave is probably the worst part of this Nick Cave album) and I maybe would have liked this album more if I'd heard it at a different time/place of my life. But on this listen, I mostly cringed and rolled my eyes.

I remember being very excited by this album when it came out -- it just sounded so *different* from all the other hip hop that was popular at the time. More than 20 years later, this album holds up. Everything about it is so strange, from the beats to the lyrics to the flow.

-There are a few bands Gen Z has embraced that just baffle me. ELO is one. This is such *dorky* music I cannot understand why people who are younger, and presumably cooler, than me enjoy it so much.

-Yes, the Beatles are obviously the band they're reaching for. (Specifically Abbey Road-era Beatles, and I also hear A LOT of rhythmic motives pulled from the Pretty Things.) But more noticeably, most of these songs are very obvious plastic imitations of 70s r&b/soul. The synthesis of Beatles pop, prog rock, and ultra-square soul does nothing for me.

-Too pompous and overblown. This is the kinda shit that made punk a necessity.

-I have an immediate distrust of anyone who cannot take off their sunglasses. What are you trying to hide? There is a strong cocaine energy to this album. And if Lynne wasn't on coke, then he was surely manic.

-There was a moment in the late 00s/early 10s where "Mr. Blue Sky" was in a cutthroat competition with "You Make My Dreams Come True" for most TV/movie sync placements. I actually kinda like "Mr. Blue Sky," but the shine wears off after you hear it 10 billion times.

In general, the band sounds really good, Ronnie Wood sounds great. But it's crazy how Rod Stewart is the worst part of every Rod Stewart song.

I was always kinda meh on Happy Mondays, but I feel like it clicked on this listen. It sounds like a synthesis of all the best Manchester music of the late 70s/80s. And Martin Hannett has a magic ability to find the right echo box.

Like every other human in the Anglophone world, I've heard Adele plenty of times, so I knew what I was getting into before listening to this album. I can acknowledge she's a good singer and I've even liked some of her songs. But this was a painfully dull listen. I'm almost sorry I disliked this as much as I did. I felt like I was chewing on white bread for 45 minutes. The soporific ballads aren't even the worst part, the Max Martin "pop" songs are just gruelling; it's rare for me to straight-up skip a song, but I needed to do that twice on this listen. Some of these tracks sound like background music on an autoplay ad when you're watching YouTube. She sold a zillion copies, though, so what do I know? Am I so out of touch? No, it's the boomer parents who are wrong.

When Kurt Cobain sang "teenage angst has paid off well, now I'm bored and old," I think Billy Corgan heard the first part and thought "what a great marketing strategy!" and zoned out during second part. Some of these lyrics are downright juvenile: "the world is a vampire," "love is suicide," "the king of gloom," "God is empty just like me" etc etc etc. Cobain had a rich sense of irony and was taking the piss out of the music industry, Corgan is dead serious in a really embarrassing way.

There's a lot of good rock songs on this album, but it still feels bloated. Not because there's any serious amount of filler, but because the songs themselves are just packed with content. Almost every song has a hundred guitar overdubs plus synthesizers, keyboards, harp, orchestra, drum machines, etc etc etc. The epic grandeur of this album can be nauseating. This was clearly Billy Corgan's attempt to reach "rock god" status -- just look at the title and the artwork. He's obviously going for something baroque and "artsy," but it actually just sounds like an expensive album made by a guy going through a manic episode.

Overall, I have mixed feelings. SP were my "favorite band" from ages 10-13 and this album was a big reason why. Their media blitz worked on me because modern rock radio was blanketed with at least 4 songs (Zero, BWBW, 1979, Tonight Tonight) around this time, so I knew my dollar would stretch far if I bought this (double) CD. And on relisten, I still enjoyed much of it. But I was also reminded that, by high school, I grew aware there was something very cringe about SP. Kim Gordon put it best: "Smashing Pumpkins took themselves way too seriously and were in no way punk rock."

Perfectly fine dance music, and an enjoyable listen overall, but I've heard at least 2 of these tracks as TV bumper music countless times. I hear the house influence, but to my ears this album is a lot closer to electro, techno, and UK garage. Yet another example on this list where the author includes some white British guys making dance music that copies directly from styles pioneered by Black Americans without acknowledging these originators. I'm fine with this being on the list if you also add some Whodini, Zapp, Mantronix, and for the love of G-d, some actual Detroit techno. Clear by Cybotron is a no brainer and should be included in a future edition.

As a lapsed punk, I had to put aside my obligatory disdain for 70s dinosaur rock and try to give this album a fair listen.

-The title track is a relatively mediocre rock ballad that is way overrated. It sounds like a song from the Steve Miller Band (derogatory).

-What are they actually going for with Crazy Diamond? Is it a psychedelic jam? Is it jazzy rock fusion? Because to my ears, it sounds like muzak, which is a shame given it takes up half the LP.

-Have a Cigar is fine, but it's really some basic ass bar boogie rock with synthesizer window dressing.

-Which brings us to Welcome to the Machine. This track absolutely rescues the album. It is so clearly a cut above everything else. I've obviously heard this song a bunch on classic rock radio, but giving it a proper, focused listen I was pretty blown away. The synth textures alone are compelling, but the way they build them into the song's formal structure is astonishing. I actually cannot imagine how one writes a song like this. Credit where it is due, bravo on this one, Pink.

I used to listen to this cassette on repeat in my car around ages 23-25. It holds up real well (and MUCH better than Licensed to Ill, which really grossed me out on relisten). This album showed everyone BB were actually a great *band* and they had serious musical range. They somehow blend rap and rock (without sounding like lugheaded "rap-rock") with jazz and funk in a coherent way.

3 other thoughts...

-I've heard "Sabotage" a million times, but it really is a great song. I can't think of a single other song by any other band that really sounds like it.

-I've gotta give a shout out to The In Sound From Way Out, which is their highly underrated instrumental album that came out shortly after Ill Communication.

-"Get It Together" might be the best thing they ever recorded.

I hadn't listened to this in close to 20 years and it's much better than I remembered. Still, I'm not sure I would ever need to listen to it again. It's fine, nothing to write home about.

Half of the songs are quirked up white boy funk (good), the other half are loungey ballads (bad). I almost granted extra credit for the soft socialism, but credit revoked for Hucknall's ardent Blair-ism.

-for a style of music associated with words like "weird" and "freak," this is pretty safe music. It's more "quirky" than anything; this is an album for a Zooey Deschanel character. Or, as a friend said to me, "this is Jason Mraz for people who go on ayahuasca retreats."

-the instrumental track is my favorite by far, and my second favorite is the one where you can hear Vashti Bunyan -- I guess that says everything you need to know about what I think of DB's voice. Dude is practically a pioneer of "cursive singing."

I feel like Albini because there's something deep inside that renders me incapable of liking Steely Dan. They just sound so *uncool*. They're undoubtedly competent musicians, but this style of anodyne jazz-funk-pop does nothing to my ears or my body or my soul.

I've heard the Roots plenty of times, but I think their Fallon years have somewhat shaded my perceptions. It's been a while since I really sat down and listened to them so I was surprised by how out-there this album was. A lot of experimental eclecticism (in a good way), but it really coheres. The soul vibes are immaculate, they picked all the right rappers, and even the rock songs work. I would definitely give this another listen.

On a side note...I really need to steel myself before reading reviews of any hip hop albums on this website. What on earth do people hear as "misogynist" on this album?? It's THE ROOTS! We're not talking about Ice Cube or the early Beastie Boys here. I swear to G-d some people are just so racist they've developed an allergy to hearing Black men talk about sex. Someone else called this "violent afro rap"?!? Lots of white people complaining about hearing Black people use the n-word. For chrissake, it's the 2020s, get your head out of your ass and read a book or two.

I'd heard some Japan before and didn't love it, so I was surprised how much I enjoyed this album. It hits a sweet spot between pop, post punk, new wave, glam, and goth that I'm a sucker for (also like Gary Numan and early Human League). It's a vibe and I will definitely be giving it a re-listen.