Reviews by benc

I love this album. This is one of the best ever examples of a "rhythm section band," bands like ESG, Liquid Liquid, Pigbag, Defunkt, Konk, Maximum Joy, A Certain Ratio, Material, etc. which seem not to exist at all anymore but were prolific in the post-funk era around the turn of the 80s. I adore every groove on this record and I really wish people still made music like this.

This is a GREAT Dylan record. I listened to Blonde on Blonde (not my favorite) a few days ago and, after re-listening to Bringing It All Back Home, I now remember what I love about the very-early electric years. At this point in his career, Dylan still had a really strong sense of melody and motif, and there's a special crazed speed freak mania to his brand of rock n roll jump blues here. Plus, there's a couple classic acoustic songs that nicely sunset that era of his career. If you asked me tomorrow I might have a different answer, but today this is my favorite Dylan album.

I'm not a huge Bjork enthusiast and, yet, every time I listen to one of her albums I'm impressed. This is good music and she is a strong, thoughtful, creative artist. I have my nitpicks, but they are not really worth airing. Bonus points because I have a soft spot for Matmos; I actually "performed" with them in LA in 2011, but that's a story for another time.

-Although this is clearly music for 14 year olds, it was too tough and aggressive for me when I was 14. As a 39 year old, I can definitely appreciate some aspects of this truly bizarre, uncompromising music.

-The drums are insane and I love them.

-The singer has an unbelievable scream. I'm less taken by his balladeering and totally turned off by the bits of rapping. In general, the hip hop elements do not seem like a sincere engagement with the tradition.

Almost every song is about how no one likes Morrissey and how he has no friends. When someone tells you who they are, listen.

I listened to this album a lot in my mid-20s, and it is a lot better than I remembered; I would call it "almost perfect," but it's poisoned by a couple fatal flaws. The beats are so raw and minimal in a really gorgeous way -- it holds up against the best production of almost any NYC hip hop record from the 90s. And their rhymes, flow, and chemistry are unmatched. But, (1) the skits are not only irritating, they fall victim to this insane anti-Asian trend in 90s hip hop that I cannot get down with; (2) the multiple cover songs and interpolations generally do not interest me.

A relatively tedious, shallow quasi-trip-hop record. The Neil Young cover is bad.

I first heard Air because Playground Love was used in a jeans commercial around this time. I got heavily into Moon Safari and Talkie Walkie around my senior year of high school and thought "I should get into electronic music," without really knowing a thing about it. This album suffers slightly from being a bit soundtrack-ish, but it's still honestly quite good. It's moody and vibey, but also quite psychedelic and, at times, downright weird. No clue if the movie holds up, but if this record came out in the 2020s people would still really love it.

Listening to this album in one sitting confirmed a couple things for me...

-Queen are a singles band. They have a few fantastically great songs, and a lot of...other songs.

-Freddie Mercury is, by far, the best thing about this band. The rest of the guys are virtuosic musicians, but also unbelievably dorky and tasteless.

-I resent that Queen achieved super-canonic status over the past 15 years or so (when/why did it become normal to refer to "The Beatles and Queen"?). They're definitely a great rock band, but I feel like they've been elevated by chauvinists who believe the best music is the most complex music.

I can still remember the first time I heard Blonde on Blonde; I took this CD out of the local library along with a couple other "classics" so I could brush up on my rock canon. I cleaned my bedroom while I listened to this, and it served as perfectly fine background music, but it certainly didn't grip me like Freewheelin or Times had. When it was done, I put on the next CD: Raw Power. Now THAT was an album that knocked my socks off -- I sat on my bed transfixed and listened to the whole thing beginning to end.

Some of my friends would find this sacrilegious, but I don't love Blonde on Blonde -- this is where I start to find Dylan boring. Maybe there's profound depth to the lyrics here, but the musicality on this album does not capture me. It feels like Dylan really starts to settle into a generic blues rock feel, as he had long-abandoned the elegant chordal mesmerism of his acoustic era and was already turning away from the gritty jump blues mania of Bringing it All Back Home and Highway 61. Sometimes Dylan the "poet" doesn't seem to care much at all about music.

A great record. Super tight band, great singers, some surprising instrumentation. Side note: the Christgau review of this album is unhinged.

I know this album as "Over Under Sideways Down" and I hadn't listened to it in a long time. There's so much great psychedelic weirdness to enjoy here, it was a treat to revisit. I'm less taken by the boogie bar blues songs, but they're infrequent enough. I love a bunch of these tracks and will definitely continue to go back to this album.

A joy to listen to. Reminds me of driving around in my old beat up Buick, listening to this on cassette. It certainly doesn't sound like hip-hop in the 2020s, but (to my ears) 3 Feet High has aged well because it's funky, funny, weird, uplifting, and really really creative.

-75% of the band were going through a divorce when they made this, and it really shows. This might be the Most Divorced Guy Album ever made.

-I came into this listen thinking I would know 3-4 songs, and I actually knew almost the whole album; there's probably 3-4 songs I DIDN'T know. Credit where credit's due, these guys knew exactly the right formula to earn constant rock radio rotation. I sort of enjoyed revisiting these songs, which I hadn't properly listened to in about 25 years. For all the tough guy posturing, these songs are candy coated pop.

-I now understand why my metalhead friends see this album as a major sell out moment -- it is insanely overproduced. There's 800 Hetfield voices on every track, tons of studio tricks, and a bunch of buried (uncredited) synthesizers all over this album.

-In a lot of ways, Metallica are a VERY funny band. These are some real dumb guys who take themselves so seriously. The lyrics on this album are ridiculous; even if there wasn't a literal Gadsden snake on the cover, you could derive their macho "lone wolf" libertarianism from almost every song.

-Lars is an utterly swagless drummer and they STILL buried Jason's bass -- there's probably 2 songs on the entire album where the bass plays a meaningful role.

A really fun listen. I know practically nothing about mambo, but I nevertheless felt really moved by this album, which is a testament to its power.

It's no wonder there's so much debate around the *mixes* of this album. Every instrument, on every song (even the "ballads") is a white hot thunderbolt -- I can't imagine how anyone could appropriately contain and balance such an aggressive, psychotic monstrosity.

I can still remember the first time I heard this album, when I was 16 or 17, and how the opening notes blasted out of my speakers and completely shook me. Raw Power is probably the best hard rock album ever made -- I can't imagine anyone will ever top this.

A good record that was like crack for music scholars when I was in grad school

I'd only ever heard "Cult of Personality," which is no wonder because it's the best song on this album. Personally, I wish there was a bit more pop to this album, as I'm not really enthusiastic about this style of heavy metal. Respect to these dudes for being outrageously talented, and I can see how this influenced a lot of bands who followed.

-This album sounds like the School of Rock band were asked to make a soundtrack for Cars 2. I honestly would probably like that better.

-The Stones cast an enormous shadow over this whole record, which is the price you pay for being such an obvious Stones worship band...

-...And these guys are like a mild flavored family vacation version of the Stones. They're decently fine at copying their basic musical maneuvers (all the bends and hammer-ons, etc.), but they completely lack the sense of musical feel the Stones had, which is a big problem because the Stones were like 90% feel.

-The drums sound awful to me and do not fit the songs whatsoever. It sounds like someone copy/pasted the drums from a Motley Crue or Bon Jovi record. There's a good reason Charlie Watts usually played an understated groove.

-I finally understand why their biggest hit was a cover song -- these guys are not great songwriters. There isn't a hook to be found anywhere on this album. Which, hey, I can't write hooks either, but that's why I don't make music like this.

Much better than I remember. Like, this is a REALLY great album. Every song is enjoyable and creative, and they provide a wonderfully stoned psychedelic vibe with no gimmicks. I especially love the guitars -- both the gentle acoustic playing and the supersonic acid guitars work well, and seamlessly with one another. Also, "Comin Back To Me" is maybe one of my favorite songs ever.