Reviews by berl1nchair

This is a very middling album from a great band. It's a 'concept' album, with lots of pseudo-ads scattered through it, as if we were listening to pirate radio off the coast of London or something.......
All that aside (which gets tiring fairly quickly), most of the songs here are nothing to get too excited about. 'I Can See For Miles' is, well, miles above the rest, which just plod along without much purpose or interest. Special mention to 'Silas Stingy' which is pretty much a low point in The Who's recorded history - it's baaaaaad.

For some reason, I never really listened to this when it came out. I think at the time I was busy studying, raising kids and working so a lot of the music from around then seems to have passed me by.
But I don't seem to have missed a great deal with this album? Maybe it is one that needs a few listens to get it, but I didn't think it hit the same highs are their previous few albums. There are a few good tunes but nothing that really lights my fire. I went back and listened to it a 2nd time, but came to the same conclusion. I find it interesting that this has an average rating higher than Kid A and Hail To The Thief, which I would both rate higher, and Amnesiac, which would probably rate higher too.

I do love a moody Scotsman. And they don't come much more moody than JAMC in the mid-80s.
This is a great album, with a few key tracks - namely 'Nine Million Rainy Days', 'Happy When It Rains' (so much better than Garbage's song of a similar name), the title track and 'April Skies'. I was introduced to JAMC around the time of Honey's Dead, and only then backtracked to hear their earlier stuff, and found this to be awesome.
Definitely one for walking by yourself, possibly with some light drizzle, on a cold winter's evening.

Legendary. Johnny Cash doing Johnny Cash things. In prison, no less. Gotta love it. I'd shoot a man in Reno if it meant that Johnny Cash would come and sing to me some time.

What is it about modern folk that just irritates me so much? This guy has an interesting story, coming from Liberia to Chattanooga, but sadly the music is boring, paint-by-numbers guitar folk, with reedy vocals that make me not want to bother to delve into the lyrics (which also aren’t great).
Seriously, shouldn’t there be a reverse statute of limitations for albums getting into the 1001? This has only been out a few months and somehow deemed worthy. Baffling.
This was maybe heading for a 2, but the last couple of songs pissed me off with their forced cheerfulness so I’m dropping it to a 1.

Kate Bush doing Kate Bush things. She certainly sounds different to most, and quite distinctive. The trouble here is that none of the songs really stand out from the rest. It’s all a bit of the same sort of thing repeated over the whole album, with nothing that grabs you and says ‘Hey, listen to me!!’. Nice enough, but definitely nothing stellar

I can see why this was everywhere in the late 90s. Interesting and jazzy enough to get your attention, but also good to have as background music for a bar or dinner party. Made for a nice Sunday drive

Pleasant listen, but nothing to really light my fire. Not something I would have found on my own, but I'm glad to have given it a listen. I actually didn't mind the longer track (Amandrai) that people were pissing on Ry Cooder for getting too involved in, but I don't mind a meandering, long drawn out song.

Listening to this album is a lot like getting punched repeatedly in the head, although maybe less enjoyable.
Pummelling, repetitive (read boring) drop-D riffs, double kickdrums along with lots of screaming and piss-poor lyrics does not make for a fun almost-hour. I now know why these guys passed me by in the early 90s.

Surprisingly enjoyable, consider what a dick Morrissey is these days. Starts well with 'You're Gonna Need Someone On Your Side' before heading into a stomping 'Glamorous Glue'. But then it all goes a bit weird, talking about being 'the last truly British people you will ever know' and singing about the young boy joining the National Front.
Thankfully he saves it with 'We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful' and 'You're the One For Me, Fatty' which still sound great today. The latter few tracks are also good, and before you know it, 40 minutes has gone by and you've been smiling for a fair bit of it. Quite the trick, eh?

Easy 5 for me.
This was the sound of my teens. I clearly remember a party in early high school (c1987) at a mate's house where someone put this on and we were all hooked straight away. A dubbed copy of the tape was circulated the following week before we could save up to buy a copy.
Another highlight was seeing these guys at the same theatre I'd just seen Nirvana at the previous week. Good times, 1992!!
The songs stand up well today, with Gano capturing teen angst perfectly and jamming it into a time capsule for all to enjoy. Brian Ritchie's bass playing is seriously under-rated, listen carefully here to pick up how much groove the songs have underneath them. And Victor DeLorenzo keeps the whole thing going with mostly a fairly basic drum kit, but plenty of feel.
Although this strays close to the dreaded folk at times, it has more than enough punk energy to make it an essential listen for my money.

Ar'tic Munkays it should be spelt, really.

Pretty good debut, gotta say. Having said that, it probably hasn't aged quite as well as I thought it would. 'I Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor' is still a banger, and 'Mardy Bum' is a sweet little slice of domesticity amongst the lads, lager and amphetamines that fuel the rest of it - see 'Fake Tales of San Francisco'.
Can't decide if this is a 3 or a 4, but I'm going to err on the side of a lower rating as the rest doesn't really leave too big an impression.

Metallica at their most self-indulgent - and that is saying something.

2+ hours of Metallica is a chore, unless you're a superfan. And I don't really think the orchestra setting adds a lot here, unless you're one of the above-mentioned superfans. So yeah, not really essential for the casual listener. Almost redeemed itself at the end, finishing with One, Enter Sandman and Battery, but just too much overall.

Sweet Dolly, probably even better than the album I got on the day of your passing.
Coat Of Many Colors is such a sweet story that tells you a lot about the woman, growing up with nothing, but armed with a sense of purpose and savvy that would serve her well, along with that amazing voice.
The remainder of the songs are not anything too fancy, but they get the job done with aplomb. Hard to find anything too negative to say about this, it passed the time very nicely.

Groovy French rap, you can tell it's from the early 90s as the songs actually have some groove and melody to them, as opposed to the really staccato, bass heavy stuff that seems to underpin hiphop these days.

My French is pretty rudimentary, so I pick up about 1/3 of what is going on here, but it doesn't really matter, as MC Solaar has nice enough flow and delivery that it's pleasant to listen to even though you might not understand everything that's going on.

Gram Parsons is one of those guys who people often talked about in interviews in the alternative era, as an influence and whenever something with a country flavour was brought up. I never listened to any of his stuff before.

This is nice enough, but does rely fairly heavily on having Emmylou Harris lending backing vocals on pretty much every track. Probably needs a 3.5/5, but I'm going to round down to a 3 for this one as it's not something I see myself coming back to much.

I'll admit I haven't thought about Missy Elliott for quite some time before this. She was kind of everywhere for a period in the early 2000s, but has faded from consciousness a bit since then.

This has aged reasonably well, apart from the slightly cringe-worthy opening intro. Work It is the obvious track that everyone remembers, with the others blending into nothing a bit. Not really my scene but nice to visit once in a while.

Whilst I can appreciate this is an artwork and a type of concept album of the boy becoming a man and all that, it doesn't take away from the fact that I find modern hiphop production to just not be interesting to listen to. Too much focus on deep basslines and stuttering drumbeats at the expense of anything resembling a melody or something that you can actually groove to.
Kendrick's voice is a little annoying after a whole album, too, and this didn't really have to be over an hour long to get his point across.
Great if you like that sort of thing, but just not my cup of tea.

Cool kinda Beach Boys meets smooth 70s/80s yacht rock type vibes on this one. Interesting enough to listen to once, but not sure that there's a lot to make me come back a 2nd time.

Well, today I learned: the only thing I hate more than folk is...........psychedelic folk.

This album is a drugged up collection of weird, medieval sounding 'tunes' with bad singing, pointless instrumentation and ridiculous lyrics. Honestly, why is 'The Cellular Song' so freaking long when it is absolute, stone-cold, certified bollocks?!?!?!?!? I really hope these people felt silly when the drugs finally wore off and they looked at what they had bestowed upon the world.

There are not enough drugs in the world to make me want to listen to this again. NEVER.