Reviews by declaniom

Great album. I love the understated paranoid beats. Somewhat let down by guests they should give another verse to Kendrick rather than lesser rappers like Drake and Jay Z.

A good album elevated by the wonderful Stay With Me and Debris at its centre.

I prefer Ooo-La-La. But I’m alone in that.

5 Big Stars for this one.

During the mid 70's, when rock was at a crisis point, in Memphis a masterpiece was made.

Another Creedence Clearwater Revival lp? This is the third so far my first 200 in this process. I actually own this one. Bought in a charity shop and played once. Reevaluating them this time around it’s clear that Creedence were an average band who made too many records too quickly. Sure the hits are good but there’s one or two per album and the rest is derivative (Wrote a Song for Everyone should really be called Rewrote a Song for Money). They’d clearly been listening to The Band when recording this. Then there’s the chug-a-lug boogie woogie tracks like Cross TIe Walker that leave the listener with a greater appreciation for Chas n Dave. At least they weren’t so po-faced.

I feel like I wrote this same review about the last Creedence lp that came up.

Ok rap album. Second half is better than first. Too many skits. Beats ok a bit funky. Talented rapper, doesn’t have much to say.

Strong album. Excellent guitar sound.

Mojo, Uncut etc went mad for this at the time. I guess there hadn’t been new Dylan for awhile. It’s a solid despatch from Planet Bob.

By Christ boy, three Pink Floyd albums so far this year and not a sight of Syd.

This is the crazy diamond one. The one your older friends would play when you went round for a smoke. The one you had to listen to in full because you were too vegged out to leave even though the music was excruciating.

Sober, on a sunny spring morning it’s still rotten. Rotten guitar. Rotten singer. Rotten lyrics. Rotten cover.

The opening instrumental intro plays aimlessly for 8 minutes until Roger appears to harangue Syd and the rest of us. Then when you think it can’t get any worse a saxomphone appears.

Spotify then messes up and plays a 12 minute tune by the Japanese band Mono and I am reminded that it is possible to play a long largely instrumental piece with Grace and poise and without turning the guitar into weapon of mass torture.

Then the Floyd are back with Welcome to the Machine. This is synth driven and not too bad although the singing is woeful. OK loads of people have used analogue synths better since and at the time were doing so in Germany and Italy. Here the synth notes are harsh discordant. That’s a common theme across the three Floyd lps - the production is amateur.

Have a Cigar is bland.

Wish You Were Here. Wish I wasn’t.

Then the Shinny Diamond song is back for another 15 months of noodling. Were they so bereft of ideas that this throwaway half song is stretched out to nearly half an hour? Had the Beatles written this it would have taken up a minute on the second side Abbey Road.

1.25 stars. The .25 is for the synths.

Unremarkable.

Maybe one of the other Pavement albums has a stronger claim to this list but there’s still some real classics on this one.

Good soft rock album that draws on Richard’s knowledge of the folk tradition. Shame there are no actual folk albums on the list. Musically this is more like a 1973 lp by Eno or Wyatt lp than a Ewan MacColl or Shirley Collins album.

Richard’s voice is a little nasal and minor note on his solo lps. So Linda brings a welcome variety (as Sandy Denny does in Fairport Convention) and here they have some of Richard’s best songs to work with.

Ok so this is below par for Bowie in 70’s but it’s still got Starman and Sufferagette City.

Ok early 60’s pop. But there are many better singers of this sort of material - Pitney, Orbison etc. Songs a bit mid save where Elvis has a go a pop standard like Fever. Band good but they’re not the wrecking crew.

Strong return by LCD Soundsystem. Lacks the really top notch songs of their earlier career. Side three is the best.

Good album from a minor band.

Like a eunuch Slade without the songs.

Had I known this would turn up this week I would’ve watched the documentary last weekend!

I like how it’s McCartney with a band again. I hope the others were given the autonomy to try things out. But I suspect it was an autocracy

A lot of strong songs occasionally hamstrung by complex arrangements for complex arrangements sake. This is particularly clear on the lps best song - Picasso’s last words. A simple song written from a magazine article to prove to Dustin Hoffman he could (any songwriter can do that btw), over complicated by bring motifs from earlier songs. Sometimes there’s joy in a simple drinking song Paul

Good album fantastic spacious guitar sound. This African Desert Blues has been a welcome addition to the rock landscape in the 21st century.

They’re better live than on this album though and other Malian guitar groups have exceeded it. But a solid addition to their cannon.

The guitars are intrusive, the vocals nasal, and the bass rubber band twanging. Made worse by the production or mastering which is tinny and too loud.

The album has moments but the arrangements are all of the place that the song then veers into a bit of unneeded bass or guitar frippery.

The album’s too long.

1 star but not the worst one star album out there.

Pleasant but unremarkable.