Reviews by callimar

I hadn't heard of Dexys Midnight Runners before, even though I naturally recognized “Come On Eileen” (like everyone who grew up on this side of the moon).
Up until now, albums around the one-hit wonders of the 1980s have tended to be rather disappointing, but “Too Rye Ay” is definitely worth listening to in its entirety: folk-influenced, at times even swinging pop-rock (in their own words, “Celtic Soul”) with varied arrangements, produced to a professional standard. Opinions will likely always be divided on Kevin Rowland’s sometimes rather over-the-top voice, and I, too, waver between enthusiasm and cringing.
Nevertheless, as mentioned, I recommend listening to this album in its entirety at least once in your life - so it rightfully belongs on this list.

Apparently, timing plays a major role in how you evaluate an album. I more or less enjoy Steely Dan’s jazz- and funk-injected classic rock at any time. However, after spending most of the weekend listening to metalcore, “Pretzel Logic” strikes exactly the right chord for me - one that had been somewhat under-stimulated over the past few days.
Unsurprisingly - though this project held very different experiences in the past - the strongest songs are the two singles, “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” and “Pretzel Logic.” But ultimately, this album is consistently strong throughout. And in fact, for the second day in a row, I’m now about to award five stars to an album I wasn’t really familiar with before. This is exactly how I imagined this project would be! And: Yes, this is an album you should definitely check out!

I wasn't familiar with The Sparks, but I knew a few of their songs, like “This Town Ain't Big Enough For The Both Of Us.” Their “Kimono My House” is basically the David Bowie album I’ve been waiting for since the start of this project (the six Bowie albums released so far haven’t quite been it): affected, virtuosic, offbeat, yet without completely losing its grip - and self-deprecating humor helps with that. All of this is built on a foundation of great songs that, depending on the arrangements and instrumentation, work just as well in a variety theater as they do in a stadium.
That’s how glam rock is done!

David Bowie again - but this time it might be different. “Hunky Dory” is a somewhat disjointed collection of different styles. But I’ve read that David Bowie began to become “Bowie” on “Hunky Dory,” and I actually have an idea of what that might mean. The approach is absolutely promising and combines catchy song passages with unusual structures. In any case, I’m now really looking forward to the follow-up album, “Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.”

Another pretty short post, since I’m traveling right now: Nick Drake’s “Five Leaves Left” sounds like any other singer-songwriter album from the 1960s. That’s not a bad thing at all, since the folk scene of the 1960s was certainly remarkably vibrant and innovative. However, in my opinion, at least the latter isn’t the case with this recording, which makes evaluating it very easy: perhaps that’s the definition of average.

I knew Rod Stewart mainly as a solo artists but had heard Faces before. Other than many of the other reviews, I do actually like his voice but prefer the blues rock stuff he did with a real band over his charting soft pop. Hence, I do kinda like "A Nod Is As Good As A Wink To A Blind Horse" (although dislike the album title for several reasons). Not exactly a must-have but still recommended.

"Who Killed ... The Zutons?"
While the cheesy cover had previously kept me from checking out The Zutons, you can safely call that question a red herring. They continue to do whatever they want and manage to combine a wide variety of styles without the album ever feeling haphazard. We’ve heard much worse in this project!
There aren’t any real killer tracks, but there’s always something. Oh, and don’t let Austin Powers design your album covers!

This is a tough one: On the one hand, Henry Rollins and Black Flag are among the absolute icons of hardcore punk. On the other hand, hardcore punk isn’t exactly my absolute favorite.
So today, I’ll keep it short: Yes, of course you have to be familiar with "Damaged". But also: Yes, I understand anyone who doesn’t like it.

With “London Calling” in 1979, The Clash delivered a landmark masterpiece. You couldn’t say that their debut album two years earlier had given any hint of this. In reality, it’s just 14 (not even bad) pop-rock songs played too fast, and the tempo audibly pushes the band to its technical limits - which probably still defines the unnecessarily frantic vibe of many young punk rock bands today. So while it was certainly influential in shaping the genre, it wasn’t exactly in a positive way. That’s why I’d like to disagree with Robert Dimery here: this isn’t an album you must have heard.

I think a lot of people don't really understand what an incredible phenomenon Van Halen was:
Of course, Eddie's guitar playing was technically excellent - but his timing was so soulful that even his warm-up made it onto the album (Eruption)! Everyone talks about his two-handed tapping, but what’s truly brilliant is his legendary “Brown Sound,” which back then defined how a guitar was supposed to sound for the next 15 years.
His brother Alex is probably one of the most musically gifted drummers in rock history - his mini-breaks and accents often get overlooked.
Michael Anthony is often reduced to his backing vocals, and indeed, in many other bands he would have been the lead singer. But have you noticed how his bass playing carries the songs? That, too, is less a matter of technique and more a matter of (micro-)timing, musicality, and sound.
With “Diamond Dave,” it’s even more obvious - his lyrics, full of (self-)irony and slapstick, are hard to miss - and his stage show is legendary anyway.
All of this made Van Halen not just a very successful hair metal band, but one of the most musical bands in rock history, on par with Queen and Led Zeppelin. What a debut!

Unlike their later album *Hypnotized*, The Undertones’ debut album is actually very pleasant to listen to. The songs are generally well-crafted (albeit typically short by punk standards), and even at this early stage, the production was a hallmark of the band’s quality.
Personally, I still find it a bit too smooth, but in this case, that’s really a matter of taste. If you like post-punk that borders on fun-punk, you’ll be hard-pressed to find anything better.

Wow, Joni Mitchell was a great songwriter! Her album “Blue” features 10 songs, and every single one of them is truly powerful. She doesn’t limit herself to the folk conventions of her original scene, but cheerfully blends jazz elements into her chord progressions without ever making the music inaccessible. Add to that tasteful arrangements and minimalist yet sophisticated accompaniment on guitar and piano.
So, basically, it could have been a perfect singer-songwriter album - if only Joni Mitchell had sung everything 1-2 notes lower. That’s probably just a personal preference of mine, but I don’t find her high notes (when she shifts into falsetto) pleasant.
Still, it’s a very important milestone.

This album, too, is probably best described as “interesting.” On *Psychocandy*, The Jesus and Mary Chain explore the possibilities of the effects available at the time, such as:
*How much you can distort a guitar sound with the means at your disposal (Answer: a lot, but it then becomes unpleasantly treble-heavy).
*How much reverb drums and vocals can handle (answer: other new wave bands were even more daring in this regard).
*How to use feedback in songs (answer: Jimi Hendrix had already done it better 16 years earlier).
In summary, these are nice experiments, but they weren’t really carried out with the relevant technical expertise. On “Just Like Honey,” it’s still exciting, but it does wear a bit thin over time.
Well...

This album doesn't sound at all like the Patti Smith we know from “Because The Night.” Instead, “Horses” is wild and impetuous in every respect: in the old singer-songwriter tradition, song structures and meter serve only as a rough guide and are constantly broken up. The same goes for melodies - if you want to call them that.
If you didn’t know from other sources that Patti Smith is a talented singer, you wouldn’t automatically come to that conclusion from this recording. Nevertheless, it’s a testament to
a) the singer-songwriter scene of the 1970s, as well as
b) the raw punk attitude that you wouldn’t detect in her better-known songs.
Interesting!

From my own research, I now know that there are two good albums by Elvis Costello - but “Imperial Bedroom” isn't one of them.
I find it astonishing that he really manages to mess up every single one in a different way. This time, he experiments with various styles that don’t mesh, so there’s absolutely no flow to speak of.
Oh, and of course, the production on this recording could have been salvaged a bit - that’s probably the recurring theme of all Elvis Costello’s work. If he’d just let the producer do his job, he could have become a legend.

It was certainly a bold move on Bruce Springsteen’s part to release “Nebraska” as a demo. You could also call it consistent, given the disappointing sessions with his band, but even that would be more a testament to the quality of his character than to the music itself.
In fact, I can easily imagine that the E Street Band was disappointed with the songs. They’re so monotonous and repetitive that some fundamental rework would certainly have been necessary to produce an album of the usual high quality.
Let’s look on the bright side: Maybe this stopgap album was necessary so that Bruce Springsteen could follow it up with “Born in the USA.”

Jay-Z is one of the very few rappers who have even come close to producing good music. The samples and soul interludes on “The Blueprint” are really strong; “The Ruler's Back,” “Izzo,” and “Girls, Girls, Girls” are particularly noteworthy. Unfortunately
1. Shawn Carter still decides to rap instead of properly finishing the songs.
2. Apparently, only male guests are worthy of a proper mention in the credits.
4/5 for the backing tracks
1/5 for being a jerk
That makes 2.5

I still remember very well how Metallica’s *S&M* was hyped up in the media because of its supposed innovations. In fact, the idea of combining metal with a symphonic orchestra is not only age-old but is inherent in almost all subgenres of heavy metal.
Since Metallica and Michael Kamen decided at the time not to write any new songs for this album but to draw on existing material, the key question must be whether this made the songs any better.
The answer to this question is a resounding “no,” because there is very little genuine interplay between the orchestra and the band. Instead, Metallica sticks to its own style, and the orchestra either supports them with (appropriate but uninspiring) layered sounds or with additional ideas that don’t quite fit because the band doesn’t give them room to breathe.
For a long time, I believed that Metallica shouldn’t have recorded this album - to me, it was on par with Nirvana’s *MTV Unplugged*. In fact, though, I now see it as a tribute to bassist Cliff Burton, who died far too young, and to longtime superfan Michael Kamen. I think that’s totally fine, but it doesn’t make the recording any better.

Since Black Sabbath’s self-titled debut was more groundbreaking than almost any other, the rating is actually clear from the outset.
But it’s worth taking a closer look, because these eight songs were absurdly ahead of their time (we’re talking about 1970 here!), even if, for example, you can still hear the Hendrix influence fairly clearly in “Warning” and “Wicked World.”
The dominant tritone riff right at the beginning of the title track must have been downright shocking back then (at least for anyone socialized in Europe or America). This is followed by another gem that would likely be unthinkable today: “The Wizard” - in my view, one of the most unique Sabbath songs. I’d also like to highlight “N.I.B.,” whose main riff has practically defined the sound of stoner rock to this day.

Looking back, I find the album’s immediate success rather astonishing, but obviously the four guys were in the right place at the right time.

Lately, the algorithm has been suggesting Tom Waits to me quite often; this is at least the third album of his that I’ve reviewed. And, what can I say - it fits almost logically between the other two (“Heartattack And Vine” & “Bone Machine”). By that I mean that on “Swordfishtrombones,” Waits had already partially moved away from his early blues-rock/piano sound (which I really like), without the album becoming completely inaccessible. The result is pretty chaotic at the beginning, while the second half of the album (with guitar-dominated blues tracks) is quite listenable.
Let me put it this way: while Tom Waits’ distinctive voice carries simpler songs well, experimental approaches don’t do him any favors. But why keep it simple when you can make it complicated? I understand that from the artist’s perspective, but the result just isn’t as enjoyable.