Reviews by callimar

With a different singer, Limp Bizkit probably could have been cool. Fred Durst has always gone out of his way to get on people’s nerves, and thanks to years of practice, he manages to do that pretty well on “Chocolate Starfish...” too. The combination of the annoying high notes in his voice and his extensive use of the word “fuck” is off-putting right from the first minute.
Fortunately, both get much better later on. However, I wasn’t familiar with any of these songs. So it seems that Limp Bizkit got a lot of attention thanks to Durst’s annoying manner. In that sense: they did everything right.
But they could have been cool instead... Well, now here’s a mediocre rating for an album that wanted to be controversial. Take that!

Back then, The Verve had sort of faded into the background in the public eye compared to Oasis. Yet the two bands are quite different: To me, The Verve sound much more mature, while Oasis (and most other Britpop bands of the mid-'90s) were more part of the pop mainstream.
“A Northern Soul” has turned out to be a pretty enjoyable alternative psychedelic blues-rock album that I, at least, really enjoy listening to. It might be a little monotonous at times, but given the overall high quality of the performance, I find that somewhat forgivable.

Echo & the Bunnymen are a good but still fairly ordinary British new wave/rock band. This combination is apparently called post-punk, even though it actually has nothing to do with punk - but of course it emerged later. With that description, however, a whole lot of other styles would also qualify for that name. Maybe the Bunnymen had funny hairstyles...
Be that as it may, this is a band worth checking out at least once. Whether you need to listen to several albums is another matter entirely. If they weren’t British, Robert Dimery would surely have answered “no” to that question as well.

This is definitely not easy listening!
In fact, The Slits are so bad that it’s actually funny: no one can play their instrument, their sense of rhythm is pretty rudimentary, and the vocals… well, they’re there, at least.
Is this a must-listen? Surprise: I think so! In terms of the songs, it’s clearly a 1 out of 5, but in its own unique way, “Cut” is so consistent that I’m actually giving it a second star.

OK, we can keep this short: Lambchop's “Nixon” is so boring it hurts. I have no idea who would want something like that - I certainly don't.

Faith No More have always been hard to pin down: metal meets jazz, rap, and a medley of smaller influences. That could be brilliant - and it is - in its better moments. And so “The Real Thing” hovers almost constantly on the border between genius and madness.
It’s a beautiful album, but it lacks the consistency needed to be truly top-tier.

I’m gradually starting to see a pattern in hip-hop: when it’s completely unbearable, it’s West Coast. If it’s East Coast - like Nas - it might not be a total disaster. And as “Illmatic” shows, that was already true back in 1994. Don’t get me wrong, this is still hip-hop, and after the third or fourth song, there really isn’t anything new anymore. But 90s hip-hop that I still don’t instinctively turn off? That’s pretty remarkable. And as if that weren’t enough, I’m even giving it a generous 2.5 stars.

It’s clear that not everything was better in the past - as a rule, the opposite is true. But there are certain things, people, and bands that used to be significantly better. Anyone familiar with the shallow ’80s pop band called Genesis is likely to be pleasantly surprised by the ’70s rock band of the same name. At least, that’s how I felt about 20 years ago when I first listened to “Selling England By The Pound". Conversely, older fans are probably still wondering to this day why Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford not only joined Phil Collins’ band but also handed over the name “Genesis” to him...
Be that as it may, for me, “Dancing With The Moonlit Knight” is one of the very few songs that single-handedly earns an album a 5/5 rating.

The La's' album is a bit of a mixed bag, and its relevance stems mainly from the year it was released. It's basically just '90s Britpop—but from 1990. And they even managed to land a single in the mainstream with “There She Goes.” It's not really my kind of music, but that's certainly noteworthy.

I'd never heard of Dion before, and I don't think I missed out on anything. The original version of his album “Born To Be With You” contains eight songs with absolutely nothing noteworthy about them. Pop, rock, jazz, soul... You name it... and it all blends together into a completely generic, run-of-the-mill mix.
It doesn't bother me - but that's the only positive thing I can think of to say about it.

So here's a second album by The Band. The first time around, I thought the story and the result were pretty nice, but this is just more of the same. The only new thing: Robbie Robertson (sounds like his parents hated him) is following in the footsteps of his mentor Bob Dylan and now writes songs that only really shine as covers (“The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”). I didn’t even notice what came after that song - apparently, it was so unremarkable that it didn’t stand out over breakfast. So, a solid 3/5.

Just like some other releases from 1991, Metallica’s Black Album is a turning point—you can still hear traces of the ’80s, but the focus has shifted. Anyone expecting thrash metal back then was completely disappointed, because there’s none of that on *Metallica* at all. Instead, a whole new door opened. Behind it lay (at the time, at least—later, Metallica would evolve more into a pop-rock band) heavy metal, but in a form that was completely new to the mainstream. On “Don’t Tread On Me,” for example, you can already sense Pantera’s riffs—though in standard tuning, which, from today’s perspective, can only be described as cute. But ultimately, this was an effective way to set themselves apart from the Eb tuning of Van Halen & Co. The same applies to the (by the standards of the time) heavily distorted but midrange-deficient guitar sound, James Hetfield’s (again, by the standards of the time) rather deep voice, and, of course, Lars Ulrich’s technically primitive but rhythmically (at the time) quite complex drumming.
You don’t have to love this album, but it was definitely a very important milestone!

Steve Winwood was a successful artist in the ’80s who has since, quite rightly, faded into obscurity. His album *Arc Of A Diver* is as trivial as the title and cover art suggest. Nothing about it is really bad - his voice is quite pleasant, and the production is flawless - but there’s simply nothing remarkable about it either. Just shallow ’80s synth-pop rock.

As this project progresses, I’ve noticed that the more of an artist’s work you’re familiar with, the harder it becomes to evaluate them. Suddenly, little details matter, and you find yourself wondering whether this album is better than that one.
For a professional review, I’d have to start listening to the other Beatles albums again. But I’m not going to do that. Instead, I’ll simply note that *With The Beatles* is a largely well-rounded album, from which “All My Loving” and George Harrison’s version of “Roll Over Beethoven” stand out a bit.
It’s an album you can and should be familiar with.

Hmm, another cool band with a rather strange album...
After having the dubious pleasure of listening to “The Doors Sell Out” yesterday, today I'm trying to make sense of Emerson, Lake & Palmer's “Tarkus”. While yesterday's concept was easy to understand but just plain weird, today's case is a little different. Why would any sane person write songs about a radioactive armadillo? That might work in a visual medium with visually stunning (but plot-light) episodes, but here a generic title (e.g., “2”) would have made the whole thing better.
Now for the good news: the music doesn’t need this concept at all, so “Tarkus” is still a pleasure to listen to. My only recommendation would be to completely ignore all the trappings. Maybe you can even find the album with a neutral cover...

I'm not really sure what to make of this. I actually like The Who, but “Sell Out” really is... something you have to get used to. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean it's particularly experimental or innovative. Instead, they're trying their hand at a weird concept album, where the whole concept consists of sounding like a teleshopping show. Does anyone really need that?

I hadn't heard of the Doves before. Their album “The Last Broadcast” is practically the definition of mediocre: the songs are OK, the vocals are OK, the production is fine - but none of it is particularly exciting. It's the kind of music that can play quietly in the background without bothering anyone.

Morrissey again - and the album “Viva Hate” isn't exactly a revelation either. Instead, it offers up run-of-the-mill '80s mainstream pop-rock.
I don’t understand why anyone would need to have listened to a total of four albums (or even seven, if you count The Smiths!) by such a boring artist. I’d even go so far as to say that if you’re familiar with at least one Smiths album, you can do without Morrissey’s solo work entirely. Or better yet: just ignore The Smiths altogether - that frees up space for a total of seven albums worth listening to!

Looking back, it’s truly amazing how close together the release dates of the “Class of ’91” (Nevermind, Dirt, Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Use Your Illusion I & II, Metallica, Badmotorfinger, Ten) were - and yet how far apart the moments of public recognition were.
In any case, I probably didn’t even take notice of Pearl Jam until 1993, when “Vs.” was already on the market. That likely explains why I’d never listened to “Ten” in its entirety - which is a shame, because it’s actually quite a bit stronger than its follow-up. However, this album doesn’t fully deserve the “grunge” label; songs like “Once” and, more generally, the first half of “Ten” still bear distinct traces of more traditional hard rock and even hair metal - even though Eddie Vedder’s vocal style was quite different from that of, say, Robert Plant or Vince Neil.
This actually makes Pearl Jam’s first studio release even more significant, because it very clearly marks the transition from the ’80s to the grunge explosion and traces it throughout the songs. To my knowledge, the only other band to have achieved this is Alice in Chains with “Dirt”.
A really strong debut!

After yesterday’s soulless “White Boy Blues” in the Slowhand style, Otis Redding is just what I need: blues with plenty of authenticity and soul. However, I’m once again having trouble classifying this album, *Otis Blue*, as world-class, because in a direct comparison, his versions of songs like “Respect” (an Otis composition that really became famous thanks to Aretha) or the Stones cover “Satisfaction” fall slightly short in terms of timing. On the other hand, this album is such an icon in so many ways that anything other than a 5/5 rating would somehow be inappropriate. I’m giving it that rating simply with the understanding that it’s more of a very good 4.5.