Reviews by bob

The Good: It is Angelic?
The Bad: No it’s not?
The Ugly: Anything grievous is, as the dictionary will tell us, no fun thing…

I had never listened to anything from Gram Parsons, yet I had read his bio a while back while I was listening to Emmylou Harris’s album Pieces of the Sky, which is also on this hear 1001 list.

Anyway, to me, this sounds country, but very acceptable, almost easy-listening.
My ears perked up when I heard “Love Hurts”, which I thought was written by Nazareth, but turns out that this was written by a husband/wife duo who’d I’d never heard about either, which lead to another visit to wikipedia…

All in all, though I don’t want to like the album that much, I fear that a 4* is in order… does that turn me into a redneck?

Also, RIP Gram Parsons, your grievous angel finally came a calling I guess...

The Good: Who doesn’t like a question that isn’t
The Bad: Giving it an answer that isn’t
The Ugly: Realizing the above is like a dog chasing it’s own tail…

The Strokes… what are they stroking?

It is fair to say that I really enjoyed this album.
I knew 1 song, and am happy that I’m now familiar with the other 10 too. For ones, a 2000 album that I am glad to have listened to.

Also, please do note that I am tired… so I will just play the album again and enjoy, and dish out 4*, maybe I should stroke something too?

The Good: We’ve got Too Rye Ay!
The Bad: We don’t know if that is hootch…
The Ugly: Finding out that midnight runner is slang for skid-marks…

Damn, here I thought that these guys were nothing but a bunch of weirdos who, somehow, managed to pen one good number, which turned them into the the one-hit-wonder we all know… And then you listen to the album and you wonder why realize that, like it or not, image is everything.

I don’t want to call this album a hidden gem, and I don’t know if I would have appreciated it back when it came out, however, I’m about the spin this disc (figuratively) for the fourth time, because I’m really enjoying it…

Does this merit a 5*? It kind of does, even though I understand that this album is not worth 5*… 4 1/2* for sure… Too Rye Ay!!!!

The Good: We get to use our imagination!
The Bad: The knowledge that this would be the last time JL get’s to create more stuff
The Ugly: That last tune on the album.

Yes, we all know that John Lennon is Rock n Roll royalty, and we can all appreciate the wonderful music that he left us with.

And yes, we can all agree that the song Imagine, purely by itself, is a 5* song, and I’ll lump on Jealous Guy with a 5* too.
Can we then also agree that, aside from the two songs listed above, the rest of the album is just mediocre?
You can hear several “Beatles” songs on there, but none that are of the kind your instantly start to whistle or hum… Do we blame Yoko for this?

I really wanted to like this album, I really did… but it just isn’t worth more than 3*, even if it contains 2 stellar songs… the rest just pulls it down too much.

3*

The Good: Brilliant corners are better than sharp corners!
The Bad: If corners are too brilliant…
The Ugly: Realizing that cutting corners would’ve been better…

We’ve got Thelonious Monk, one of the larger names in the Jazz game… if you are into jazz.
If you are just into listening to music, then you probably would not have listened to this, as it takes a compass and several maps, and one of those army knives, in order for you to be prepared for the unknown.

This album was not my thing, as it is the kind of Jazz that I am not such a big fan off… Give me swing, give me easy… just don’t give me this.

However, glad I did get to listen to it, and will dish out a lovely 3*

The Good: We’re in for a treat, a delightful treat…
The Bad: But I quit smoking… so I get snubbed, right?
The Ugly: Wondering what Nightmares On Stone would feel like…

This is repetitive music, repetitive music, that repeats, and repeats…
First thought I had was “geez, this is like those cool music producers who try to get people to buy Chord Packs so that they too can make lovely jamzz…”
Except that this album is from the middle ‘90s and back then there were no such simple cheats…. but that doesn’t take a away the fact that it is all repetitive.

If you find that sweet spot on the volume knob, you can have this play inoffensively on the background all day, and then, when you awaken from the hypnotic state you were in during which you probably strangled something, you will know what caused it…

2*

The Good: We get a break!
The Bad: Trying to count the instruments being played…
The Ugly: Not knowing why we are getting a time out…

What did we do wrong?
Can we make up?
Did you hate that movie you saw last night too?

What?

The music snob in me says that this is a great album, instead 5*
The hungover guy in me says that I need an aspirin and no way in hell will the smooth jazz make me feel better
The Gen X’er in me doesnt’ understand why people are complaining about the color of Dave’s skin…

I know that I will give the cover art 5*

Doubt I will be listening to this with much frequency…

So 3* straight down the middle… which is odd as this album, it seems, is supposed to open up one’s ears to Jazz… and I like jazz… just not this album… that much

The Good: These boys aren’t illegal…
The Bad: Aggression against poultry…
The Ugly: Everything!

Wow!
This is what I signed up for when I started this journey, listening to something so bizarre it makes you wonder about everything and nothing at all.
Did I like it? At times I really did, and at other times I was counting the seconds before I would allow myself to hit the skip button…

This has changed my perception on avant-garde music though.
And I applaud the effort…

3* because the odds of me listening to this a third time in my life is doubtful, but a second listen is in the cards...

The Good: If the plane shows issues, we can jump out of it!
The Bad: Who the hell wants to jump out of an airplane?
The Ugly: Parachutes that don’t open…

Wow, didn’t know there was so much hate towards a single band who’ve done nothing more but be successful…

Myself, I was not on the Coldplay bandwagon, so to speak, when they emerged in the 2000… but, like many, I found their hit songs easy to hum-along-to.

I recall thinking that this band was the “lite” version of Radiohead… call me crazy.

3 1/2* as this album isn’t bad at all…

The Good: We are traveling express!
The Bad: We don’t get to choose where we are heading…
The Ugly: Work being misspelled…

Second Kraftwerk album on this experience, and I believe that we’ve heard enough, no?

It is electronic music, it is ahead of it's time, it is still not to my liking…

Good thing is that this is from the period where an album lasted around 40 minutes max, so it is manageable…

I gave their other album 4*, this one is being downgraded, though I have to admit that it isn’t something that made me want to punch a hole in a wall… 3*

The Good: Prodigy
The Bad: Not reserved for talent…
The Ugly: Fat land… bad for your arteries…

What? Firestarter? Breath? Anyone who was old enough to drink in the ‘90s knows those songs.
I can understand that the album is on the list, as this band was everywhere (at least where I lived at the time) and infectious in it’s upbeat hooks.

Yet, we are a couple of decades later, and it just starts to rub the wrong way… EDM is like rap, for me, I can stand it for a little while, but then I need to flip the switch…

Just because of the couple of massive songs that are on this album it deserves more than the 3* I am going to dish out… that, and the album cover rocks!

The Good: We’re traveling to Oz!
The Bad: Oh, wait, this isn’t Kansas…
The Ugly: The state of America today?

Did you see what I did there? I made this political, when this shouldn’t be political…

I know of Curtis Mayfield, and I’ve heard his staple hits as I’ve been listening to popular music since for ever, yet I was totally unaware of this album. It listens easy, made the 34 minutes go by without a hitch, but not once was there something which made me sit up straight and really pay attention… maybe that’s just me, or maybe I am becoming insensitive to music due to this 1001 list?

Shooting this one straight down the middle… 3*

The Good: …
The Bad: tomato ketchup?
The Ugly: in both ears…

I don’t know if it is the app, but I all of a sudden have had 3 french based musicians in a row… what is up with that?

Did I like it?
Did I hate it?

The Good: We’ve got prophecy!
The Bad: Looking at the artist is like looking at the sun…
The Ugly: it is rap…

Even in French rap remains rap… I mean crap…

However, holy crap towards the end, Ragga Jam… that was amazing, and I will dish out an additional star just for that.

2*

The Good: High Level!
The Bad: Something something left…
The Ugly: Not understanding the level that we are high in…

Who’d have thought that one needs to listen to an album by a Congolese artist before one dies? I was always under the impression that Senegal was where it’s at…

Also, to all those snowflakes who rate this album low because they scan through a Wikipedia page to read something about a rape and instantly cancelling the artist… keep reading the damn page, to see that he was never convicted of rape, but he did receive a conviction for assault…

Anyways, I’ve listened to the album, guess I can die now?

The Good: It’s not a small thing…
The Bad: That it’s attacking us…
The Ugly: Where the blue lines are taking us!

Trip-Hop… so it seems… I used to call this ambient, or lounge. Guess we can call it whatever we want!

1 MASSIVE hit, the rest just trip-hop, I guess…
I could listen to the massive hit multiple times, but I couldn’t be bothered with the rest.

2* because of the Unfinished Symphony… maybe 3* if they would’ve finished it?

The Good: We are being guided!
The Bad: The voices… they are guiding us… in our heads…
The Ugly: The aliens that don’t know how to stay in their lanes.

I listened to the album, because it was on the list…
I forgot to rate the album the day that I listened to it… and now I can’t even recall what the album sounded like…

Thus the album is forgetable… 2* because I can’t even recall if I hated it

The Good: nothing
The Bad: nothing
The Ugly: everthing

I refuse to listen to this album. Nothing against Britney as a person, or a singer, or a dancer.
The reason I refuse to listen to this album is that I don’t understand at all why this is something you need to listen to before you die?

We’ve all heard “hit me baby one more time”, and now we can die...

The Good: It’s a Symphony!
The Bad: It’s bittersweet…
The Ugly: Having to wait 10 minutes to hear a baby cry…

I recall thinking, when the video of the only hit these lads ever had came out, that here’s a clone of Oasis, also thinking they are god’s gift to humanity…
I never listened to an entire album by The Verve, so this was a first…

and my thoughts are bland… as that is what the album was for me: bland. It didn’t make me sit up and pay attention, it didn’t want me to hit the skip button… except by the time the last track came into play.

So, I ask again, why is this an album that one needs to listen to before one dies? It contains 1 hit, and only thanks to the Rolling Stones, the rest of the album generates imagery of a pseudo nerd just sharing his thoughts… nothing rock n roll about this album at all.

2 1/2*

The Good: Live!
The Bad: Live!
The Ugly: The scratches on my head while I am trying to figure out why I’ve had to listen to 2 albums from this fella…

Seriously… Zombie, or whatever the other album was called, already made me wonder why I had to listen to this… and now I get served a Live! album to boot? Seriously?

I better get to listen to 3 Oscar Peterson albums, just to cleanse my pallet…

This album is getting 2*, only because I am not going by me mood, which would turn it into a 1* album and seriously make me re-think spending another 2 years on this daily journey...