Reviews by dcspool

First half is so good, barely a miss. So many familiar tracks that I never realised were Moby. Then the last few tracks where it gets slower and more ambient I'm not that in to. It feels like an anti-climax to the album, they should be on a completely different project in my view.

4/5

Bodhisattva was the first Steely Dan song I ever heard. It was on the game Rock Band. It didn't sound difficult but was one of the harder songs to play on drums. I guess that's pretty classic Dan isn't it.

Bodhisattva is a rock song, whilst Razor Boy immediately shows that Steely Dan have a much more whimsical side with the salsa groove. Then The Boston Rag and Your Gold Teeth demonstrate a lot of very typical early Danisms - sardonic storytelling aplenty.

For me this album feels like Steely Dan are still trying to find their identity a bit. Bodhisattva would be out of place on their later polished work. My Old School is a fairly poppy anomaly. Other tracks lean more toward the yacht rock stylings that they will ultimately become known for.

Fave Tracks: Bodhisattva, The Boston Rag, My Old School, King of the World

3.8/5

I liked the first track, then each subsequent track kinda just felt very similar.

Fave Tracks: El Cayuco

3.1/5

Not my favourite Led Zep, but its still pretty solid. I reckon you can cut this one from the 1001, despite how good Immigrant Song is - that's definitely a 1001 songs you have to hear song.

Fave Tracks: Immigrant Song, Tangerine

3.6/5

I had this on CD. It was a different time.

A lot of this album is 2000s TV advert music. Songs like Pressure Point and You Will You Won't which were definitely radio played singles are incredibly annoying. Confusion is similar but feels more respectable as a song. I don't remember getting much replay value out of most of the other tracks in the middle of the album, but they're definitely less annoying - Railroad is pretty good.

Remember Me feels like the standout track to me. This was definitely also an indie radio hit. I like it still I think, but I can't really imagine actively choosing to listen to it now.

I don't really know how I feel about this overall. It's not good, but there's some substance, there's different ideas, there's catchy songs.

Fave Tracks: Zuton Fever, Railroad, Remember Me

2.8/5

A lot of this just passed me by. Then at the end a couple of tracks caught my ear - Patience and Are You Ready to be Heartbroken? were both very enjoyable.

3.3/5

Ok I get this one. This Cure album is a magnum opus, that much is clear. And I do like it, but I also have some qualms. Let’s start with the qualms. Maybe just one qualm tbh.

A lot of the tracks follow a very similar sound palette at a very similar ploddy tempo. This gives the album a very consistent feel, but I also find some tracks drift into each other without leaving a lasting impact. You end up with some good songs that are also somehow forgettable.

Ok, so qualm aside, here The Cure really are doing their broody, gothic best. Some things that are excellent: the string arrangement on Lovesong, the wistful romantic nostalgia of Pictures of You, the feeling you get the first time you hear Lullaby - a truly singular song, maybe their best, the last minute outro of Untitled to close the album.

Really if I give it a little more time I think this could easily grow to be a 5 and an all time album for me.

Fave Tracks: Plainsong, Pictures of You, Lovesong, Lullaby, Disintegration

4.4/5

So funny to me that we’ve already had a few Kinks albums, all of which are pretty good but not really special, and now we have another one called simply “Something Else by the Kinks”.

And guess what - it’s something else by the Kinks. Let’s be clear something else, not something different. It’s good, not great. It has the timeless classic “Waterloo Sunset”. It has tongue in cheek lyrics and whimsical subject matter. It has some songs that are just average.

It’s a Kinks album. Nothing more nothing less.

3.8/5

Very good very nice

3.7/5

Yep pretty darn good actually.

Fave Tracks: Eleanor Rigby, I'm Only Sleeping, Here There and Everywhere, And Your Bird Can Sing, Tomorrow Never Knows

4.8/5

This was a pretty good album, but it does kinda lose some points for me for pretty much just being a covers album. That being said they are pretty much all compelling covers. The recordings are brilliantly well made and Johnny's voice carries huge gravitas throughout.

Fave Tracks: The Man Comes Around, Hurt, In My Life

3.7/5

I enjoyed this a lot more than I was expecting to. What I expected to find annoying - Shaun Ryder’s vocals - are quite conveniently buried in the mix at times. They usually don’t overstep the mark.

The instrumentation is engaging and has aged much better than I would’ve thought too. In my mind Happy Mondays occupied a cornier tier of music than The Stone Roses and Primal Scream, but I think that was an unjust preconception. For a few seconds at the start of Dennis and Lois you could even imagine you were listening to a Curtis Mayfield track.

Fave Tracks: Kinky Afro, Dennis and Lois, Step On

3.9/5

This was great. I was listening slightly passively whilst working, but then I went back diving into each of the tracks and I found it all very enjoyable. I'm more familiar with their next two albums - but this seems to be a really underrated gem in their catalogue. Well I guess not underrated, its on the list.

Fave Tracks: I think I liked elements of all of them

4.6/5

The title theme is so good. This is all pretty splendid tbh. I guess I was only vaguely familiar with Isaac Hayes, but having now had 2 albums in a short span I'm seeing I've really been missing out.

It's a bit long, but can't really knock it much apart from that.

Fave Tracks: Theme from Shaft, Cafe Regio's, Early Sunday Morning

4.2/5

Never been much of a Ska guy, but at first I was finding this a lot more pleasant than I expected. But by the end of the record I was mostly just bored from a lack of variety.

2.7/5

Hmm. Weird one, never heard of this band, hard to understand why this was record was chosen.

Didn't hate it, but didn't really grab me much either.

Fave Track: Lately

2.8/5

Androgynous is such a green flag for The Replacements. The fact that such a genuine caring ballad about gender identity comes after the rabid punky energy of We're Comin' Out and Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out is a testament to their versatility and a compliment to their ideology.

Then there is Unsatisfied, which is somewhere between my 14th and 78th favourite song of all time. So much angst.

This is the best album called Let It Be, don't @ me.

Fave Tracks: I Will Dare, Androgynous, Unsatisfied, Seen Your Video

4/5

Hmm I think unpopular opinion but I liked this album more than their other two much bigger hits.

3.8/5

Fave Tracks: Nighttrain, Can't Truss It, By The Time I Get to Arizona (shout out Tony Hawk)

This is very different to the vast majority of the list.

Things I like:
- The drum intro on You Have to Pay.
- The Bjorkian Mother Beimlein
- The discordant horns on a track that I think is called Legende von der Entstehung des Buches Taoteking based off someone's comment on Youtube.
- That sexy sax on The Homecoming

Things I don't like:
- Dagmar's voice (not because its bad, its good, but I just don't vibe with that musical theatre style of singing)
- The fact that this isn't on any streaming service.

I tried to like this ok. But I cannot. Just not a genre I can listen to 60 mins of music of and enjoy.

Fave Tracks: Mother Beimlein

2.3/5

ooh wow, a new contender for worst album art of all time. And I really really cannot imagine that an Incubus album is going to sound like the vibe that this cover elicits.

I'm a little embarrassed at how much I enjoyed this.

This album has more shades of Nu Metal than I expected. The guitar tones, with twang and reverb have more angst and character than I thought Incubus would have. When It Comes almost sounds like Deftones.

All the tracks that come before the mega hit "Drive" are so different to Drive, its quite strange. BUT nothing is as strange as "Battlestar Scralatchtica" - a record scratching funk rock jam band tune. Everything about this track is so odd, I think I kinda like it, but it is so out of place.

Ok and then on Pardon Me we get some rap. This song has more of those Nu Metal shades of Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, maybe even RATM a bit.

What a weird album. Its not great, but it is quite interesting. It definitely kept me on my toes.

I went back and looked into Incubus a bit more after listening and it seems they are pretty well known as a Nu Metal and Funk Rock band, so those elements perhaps shouldn't have been so surprising. I came into this album having only heard "Drive" and "Anna Molly" by Incubus, not Nu Metal or Funk Rock songs, but turns out those are the exceptions rather than the rule to Incubus' music.

Fave Tracks: Privilege, Stellar, Drive

3.1/5