Reviews by callimar

I was familiar with a lot of the Rolling Stones’ music, but I’d mostly heard it on compilations rather than the original albums.
As for the latter, “Let It Bleed” is one of the best Stones releases, and that’s not so much because of the great songs—although “Gimme Shelter” is one of the best songs ever—but because of the interpretations by a band that, in their prime, could probably have turned even children’s songs into global hits. This unique combination of rock ’n’ roll, beat, rhythm and blues (the real R&B, of course), soul, folk, and various other influences, plus Keith Richards’ wild tunings, Mick Jagger’s distinctive voice, and a band that simply puts so much more feeling and emotion into every note than almost anyone else… Fantastic!
Of course, this doesn’t apply to all Stones albums to the same extent, but it definitely does to “Let It Bleed.” Naturally, 5/5.

Someone called Leonard Cohen the Shakespeare of pop music, and at first glance that sounds fitting. However, I’m not aware of whether Shakespeare himself always played the leading roles in his plays. On his debut album *Songs of...*, Leonard Cohen focused almost exclusively on writing the lyrics. Those lyrics, however, actually deserved better music—and that music, in turn, deserved a better voice.
Unfortunately, this is a phenomenon I’ve observed in many singer-songwriters in this project. It’s a shame—there could be so many better albums out there.

One of the things I’m learning from this project is that art rock can be pretty unwieldy—and then there’s The Residents, who are just plain bad. I mean, it’s possible the instruments weren’t tuned properly on purpose, and that the production was designed to make the whole thing sound completely out of balance. Maybe that, combined with the lyrics, has some deeper meaning. But—I don’t care!
Here’s my hypothesis: “Duck Stab” was meant to sound really shitty, and The Residents pulled it off. That earns them a well-deserved star.

I’d never heard of Mercure Rev before, even though some of the “Deserter’s Songs” sound familiar to me. In any case, this is just another mediocre ’90s alternative rock band, and I can’t find anything else noteworthy about it.
At the start of this project, I had a bunch of ’80s new wave albums, most of which sounded more or less the same—now the same thing seems to be happening with the dominant style of the ’90s. Too bad!

I remember Radiohead from the ’90s as a progressive-alternative pop band. There’s not much of that here; “Amnesiac” is more suited for falling asleep to. The songs aren’t even bad (“Knives Out” could even be called good), but somehow each one feels like it’s missing at least 10 BPM. It might work as a soundtrack for taking sleeping pills, but I don’t have the right occasions for that. It would work for me personally as elevator music, but first of all, I don’t have an elevator, and second, it’s probably too unconventional for the mainstream.
Nice try, but for me, this record is an oversized sleeping pill. As I’ve seen, there are more Radiohead albums coming—that could get exhausting...

Although Latin jazz has played a major role in my big band career, I’d never heard of Machito, and I didn’t recognize any of the tracks on *Kenya*. What I’m trying to say is: this certainly isn’t a bad album, but I don’t see it as particularly significant. On top of that—unsurprisingly—it’s quite heavy on the bongos, which I personally always find a bit annoying after a few minutes. Technically, the musicians are good, but the arrangements are extremely predictable and yet not catchy.
Overall, “Kenya” just doesn’t strike a chord with me at all.

I wasn’t familiar with Big Star, and I’m not sure if that was a loss. Their album *Third/Sister Lovers* is okay and reasonably varied. But you’ll mostly search in vain for any truly brilliant ideas here. “Kizza Me” and “Femme Fatale” are probably the closest things to being original.
And again the question: is “OK but unexciting” a 2/5 or a 3/5?

Motörhead is simply an icon of rock ‘n’ roll, and *Ace of Spades* is their most iconic album. Of course, you have to be familiar with this album, and naturally, you have to recognize the riff from the title track after just two bars. And much like with Elvis Presley’s debut album, what comes after it doesn’t really matter when it comes to evaluating it.
Still, a few words on the matter: Culture must always be viewed in the context of its time. For this reason, I believe it is misguided to criticize Lemmy for the lyrics he wrote in 1980: his mindset - especially toward women - is easy to understand even from today’s perspective, based on his work from the ’90s and his actions.
Rather, “Ace of Spades”—perhaps even more so than Iron Maiden’s debut album of the same name—has defined the style of harder rock since the 1980s. "Legend" is the only appropriate description!

Yesterday, Kacey Musgraves taught me that country-inspired singer-songwriter music can be good. Today, Wilco is teaching me just how bad alternative rock can be. The ingredients are the same as yesterday, just with the signs reversed: a singer with a boring voice who sings in an annoying way, “songs” you forget immediately after the last note, and a production that prioritizes effects (which are also poorly used) over a decent overall sound. Someone wrote that this album is just incredibly boring—but it’s worse than that: I’ve been listening to these guys for 50 minutes now, and all I can remember are random “sound effects.”
You could call it art rock, I call it noise ****

Oh, a contemporary singer-songwriter album that I actually like! How did that happen?
First of all, Kacey Musgraves has a distinctive voice but doesn’t have an overbearing singing style.
Second, she writes songs that are catchy while striking the right balance between familiar and innovative ideas.
Third, “Golden Hour” is professionally and precisely produced—without flashy effects that demand attention and distract from the music.
Fourth, the timing was perfect—this album is ideal for waking up slowly on a Sunday morning.
Actually, those are pretty simple ingredients for a recipe for success. It works!

I had never heard of Liz Phair before, and after listening to “Exile in Guysville,” it doesn't seem like I've missed out on much. I'm generally wary of singer-songwriters who accompany themselves on electric guitar but just strum chords. Furthermore, Liz Phair offers neither a particularly expressive voice nor truly catchy songs, and certainly no sophisticated arrangements. “Exile in Guysville” is certainly not a bad album, but I can’t think of many reasons why it should be known worldwide. It’s also telling that the Wikipedia entry is available in only four languages. Liz Phair’s success seems to be a phenomenon limited to America—perhaps she resonated with certain parts of the country music scene. From a European perspective, however, I don’t consider this album particularly relevant.

N.W.A. are among the most important pioneers of gangsta rap and certainly deserve respect as such. However, their debut album *Straight Outta Compton* is so raw and unvarying that I find it hard to write anything positive about it. I now have a reasonable understanding of what rap must have meant to people of color in its early days. For me, though, rap tracks remain largely songs for people who don’t like music. But I do like music.

I’d heard of Bad Company at the latest through Halestorm’s reference to them, but I can’t recall hearing a full album of theirs.
Their debut kicks off with a bang with “Can’t Get Enough” and doesn’t lose much momentum after that. In addition to the sound—which was extremely clear for its time—and the relatively prominent bass, I particularly like Paul Rodgers’ voice. To me, it sounds a bit like Eric Martin, and in other ways, Bad Company reminds me of Mr. Big, who were among my absolute favorites for years—which in turn proves Bad Company’s influence.
In summary, this is an album you have to hear, and I’m grateful to have had this experience today. This is how ’70s hard rock should sound!

I learned today that a band that hides behind its guitarist’s effects plays shoegaze—and indeed, the 56 mm of a classic Boss pedal aptly describes the height of their musical creativity. The whole thing fits perfectly into the early ’90s, when amateurism was elevated to an art form everywhere.
Ride are noteworthy at most insofar as they were quite early to the game with their album, released as early as 1990. It bears the fitting title “Nowhere”—there’s really nothing more to add to that.

Since there are relatively few albums from the 1950s in this project, it’s clear that they were all, to a greater or lesser extent, groundbreaking and of high quality. While “Live at Newport” certainly meets the standard of excellence, this recording was perhaps more important to Duke Ellington himself than it was to music history.
Many of the songs are timeless classics—“Take the A-Train” is currently one of my favorites again—and the arrangements are polished to perfection. In my view, however, an S-tier / 5-star rating requires either
- truly outstanding soloists/vocalists,
- catchy original compositions,
- some other groundbreaking creative achievement,
- or exceptional significance for a cultural shift.
While some of these elements may be faintly discernible, Ellington’s recording ultimately reminds me too much of my own early attempts at big band jazz and the very limited creative scope inherent in that genre. And, of course, jazz standards were already part of mainstream culture by the mid-20th century. Ultimately, it’s just very well-crafted elevator music.

“Abraxas” is Santana’s most important early album, and it was a pleasure to listen to it in its entirety again after so long.
Everyone probably knows “Black Magic Woman” and the instrumental “Samba Pa Ti” (and perhaps “Oye Como Va” as well), but on this listen, “Hope You're Feeling Better” stood out to me in a particularly positive way. The real strength of Abraxas, however, lies not only in the magnificent performances and the sound that was completely groundbreaking at the time, but also in the narrative arcs that span multiple songs (exactly one side each on the vinyl version). This is, of course, a result of years of live experience (and probably explains why no one listens to the albums of average pop acts), but some artists just pull it off particularly well.

I was familiar with Tom Waits, though not with this album. “Bone Machine” has changed my view of him—and not exactly for the better. In the first four songs, he manages to completely hide his undeniable talents as a singer. After that, it sounds as if Tom Waits is singing in the kitchen and accompanying himself with the sounds of whatever objects are lying around.
It actually only gets a little better when he finds the piano in the next room—“A Little Rain,” for example, is a real song, and not a bad one.
Overall, I view “Bone Machine” as an experiment, and it’s simply in the nature of experiments to sometimes fail. However, on this list, I would expect only the successful ones.

September 18, 2000 was probably the day the music died... (Sorry, couldn't skip this obvious pun)
As I already hinted at in my other Madonna review, I don’t think it’s worth examining her music in isolation—and certainly not entire albums. “Music” also contains a few well-known singles (“Music,” “What It Feels Like…,” “American Pie”) and, apart from that, a lot of boredom. If that were enough, wouldn’t Whitney Houston, for example, also have to be on this list? Exactly. Long story short: “Music” sounds just as uninteresting today as it did 25 years ago.

This isn't the first Willie Nelson album I received review, and once again I find myself wondering whether traditional folk music like country even belongs on this list.
Be that as it may, I consider “Red Headed Stranger” to be a perfectly tolerable country album, whose best moments are reminiscent of Johnny Cash - albeit without his charismatic voice. I can easily imagine “Down Yonder” as part of the soundtrack for a Western parody. Otherwise, I can't see much of relevance here.
Incidentally, the Wikipedia entry claims that the instrumentation is largely reduced to guitar, piano, and drums—which is somewhat of an outrage given the importance of the bass on this record.

I like funk and I also like various psychedelic styles. What Funkadelic presents on “Maggot Brain” is actually very special, and it doesn't just seem in places as if the right substances were essential for an unclouded listening experience. However, since these were not supplied and were not clearly recommended, I am judging my sober experiences here. These can be described as mixed: really cool moments alternate with those that simply leave you perplexed.