Reviews by bt1001quest

the good: Colin Stetson appearance!!! Synth outro on "Crying" was cool. "Family Tree" is a pretty song.

the bad: Some of these songs were very annoying. Just loud, unappealing noise. Vocalist works much better on the slower, more atmospheric songs, which seems kind of strange considering their biggest (and probably best) song is an uptempo rock number.

Ends up being extremely blah at the end of the day.

Classic upon classic upon classic- "Smack," "Breathe," "Funky Shit," "Mindfields," "Firestarter." A very impactful album on my life- I remember discovering it in middle school and thinking how "underground" it was to listen to because it treaded into some edgy territory lyrically. The album still sounds so awesome and informed much of what happened in the years following in the dance music scene both across the pond and in the US alike.

An absolute party from start to finish. Super ahead of its time with several bangers within different sounds and moods. My favorites were the sublimely catchy "Warrior in Woolworths," "Identity" with its earworm riff, and the proto-thrash metal "I Am a Poseur." Sax punk is a cool sound that should have been bigger than it was.

"That's Entertainment" is a fantastic new wave track- esp. that cool reversed guitar that pops up sparingly in the background (and on a few others).

The rest of the album? S'okay. No bad songs. I do really like Paul Weller as a singer and the instrumentation is good, but paling in comparison to the Police who they are often compared with.

Front to back solid with some classics across its 50 min runtime

A good record; though one that leans a bit too much on its influences (Kinks, David Bowie, The Replacements) and needs some of its middling fluff cut out, but has a few notable tracks: "Clover over Dover," "Badhead," and "Girls and Boys."

It was not as bad as people were claiming it to be on here, but its inclusion on the list is truly mystifying because it is not a good record, that's for sure. Messy, boring, and immemorable.

Informed quite a bit of popular music in the early 2010s, for sure, but the songs are frustratingly inconsistent, with many being extremely generic (never bad, though). Guitar work is alright, but never very boundary-pushing, except for "Go-Getter," which reminded me of Tame Impala. "Howlin' for You" is the best song here, amongst the better rock tracks of the decade.

me when I have brown sugar all over my booger wooger

Corny, overtly strange, dated, boring garbage. Get it FAR away from me

Solid hard rock record (made me want to watch Maximum Overdrive again lol) with pretty much a perfect first side. The music ain't high art, but for its purpose, it's exactly what you need, from both a production and songwriting perspective. I like "Touch Too Much" the most.

I dig the sound of a lot of these tracks but I feel consistently distracted by David Byrne's yelping. Not a bad album once again I don't ever need to listen to it again.

A "sellout" record that actually encapsulates within it what makes the primary artist so special. His vocal perf on "Red Rain" is stirring. The infinitely catchy "Sledgehammer" just seems to keep getting better as it goes on [plus an amazing award-winning music video to accompany!]. His beautiful collaboration with Kate Bush on "Don't Give Up" has helped me immensely many times when I've been in the throes. The Duran Duran-inspired "Big Time" is so musically complex with a fantastic bass perf from Tony Levin. The Laurie Anderson collab "This is the Picture" really balances a zany avant-garde sensibility with the new wave sound he was going for. And of course "In Your Eyes" lights up the tracklist as a wonderful closer complete with a stunning, climactic cameo turn from Youssou N' Dour.

I would say this is his best record bar none. No bad tracks anywhere on it.

I've always thought the religious commentary and the shouty, crustier material the weakest aspects of this group. That's pretty much the vast majority of this record. I will echo thousands of others and say Toxicity should have been the representative album for SOAD. The sound gets stale early, the production has aged poorly, the edginess is not offset like on their later records (or even on Serj's underrated solo projects). Bad record. Why do people like "Sugar" so much? God that song is annoying as fuck

I wouldn't consider myself a huge fan or anything, but it's ridiculous to deny an album its deserved praise when every song is as good as this record shows. Rhythm section here does a lot of really cool accelerating/decelerating tempo stuff on many of these tracks and the melodies on the ballads and rock tracks alike stick in the ear like clockwork.

Anything less than a 5 is blasphemy.

A mixture of jazz and new wave sounds really cool on paper but this was such a snoozefest. The instrumentation and vocals were extremely bland. No dynamic variation, no pace changing. Flat throughout

A record that I've always felt had some big issues- the glam stuff feels a bit like old hat after it reached its pinnacle on Ziggy. He begins to touch on an experimental sound here, but it's not explored enough to make the entire experience feel cohesive. The production is fantastic, and the musicianship top-notch (I see you Mick Ronson). This re-listen only solidified, however, just how inconsistent the songs are. For every smile and thumbs up I give songs like "Panic in Detroit" and "Lady Grinning Soul," I raise an eyebrow at the messiness of "Cracked Actor" and "Let's Spend the Night Together." A good album, but not a great one.

Willie does not stretch any limits in any sense here. Songs are all sort of within the same headspace of calming mood pieces, and everything is pleasant without striking any memorable chords.

Did not really care for any tracks until "Streets of Berlin" then I saw who wrote it and was like "oh that's why haha." Couldn't really figure out if I liked her vocals or not. I think they just might not have been my thing.