Reviews by declaniom

Fantastic album

Hideous.

This is the future we were promised.

Relaxed easy listening jazz record. Would have sounded cool in your space age bachelor pad.

Terrible cover

Terrible opening track inspired by cover. 20 minutes of random wibbling.

Next song is about a man who pretends to be a woman in order to enter a convent to get laid. Where he gets off with another man who has had the same idea. I think it was written by JK Rowling. The music is oh Susannah repurposed for that reason it’s the best song on here.

More noodling follows.

Then the obligatory boomer boogie woogie chug-a-lug rockabilly stomp that blights some many early 70s LPs on here has added pretension. It sucks big time and is the second best track on the lp. Mercifully only two sides.

Good album. At moments a bit too much metal infects the grunge but it’s saved by the singers voice and the Melodeys.

Is this really the only ELO record in this project?

Apparently, this album is inspired by young Mylo growing up on the Isle of Skye listening to Atlantic 252. An Irish radio station that had a big foot print. I spent the summer holidays of 1992 doing a data input job at the Isle of Man Airport. The radio was tuned to Atlantic 252. They had about 20 records.

This record, although not bad, draws from a similarly limited sonic palette.

Not his best. The title track is great but are the lyrics a bit manipulative. “We’re all sensitive people, so Let’s Get It On”

Cool, beautiful and relaxed

Dylan’s best post 60s record.

This is my favourite Neil Young album.

Probably the Nirvana album that had the least impact on me at the time of release. Bleach introduced a new band, Nevermind took them into everyone’s homes and Unplugged a glimpse at what future Kurt music would be. In Uetro was just the latest lp for good band.

I suppose if there’s a theme it’s how does a band from the underground indie world deal with mainstream attention. Time would show Kurt and Dave take very different approaches, with tragic outcomes.

It has stood the test of time though good songs, good guitars, great production.

I do like this album. But then I listen like a lot of Neil Young albums. Whether this is one of 1001 albums you should hear before you die I don’t know. How could I?

This is from the era when Neil was the Grandfather of Grunge. It’s hard to think he was only 45 when this was made. Way younger than the surviving grungesters are now. Younger than me even. Cos this is what we thought was old age.

If you want to dig into this era go Freedom, or Sleeps With Angels or the live album Weld. Many of the songs here are on Weld and the versions are better.

But this album is both Ragged and Glorious and that’s how I like my Rock n Roll.

I suppose Green Day were an entry point to Punk for Busted and McFly fans. So that’s a positive. But I was already into Punk when they emerged so they seemed a little dull and old fashioned. Some of there singles are undoubtedly fun but there’s nothing fun about this incoherent concept album.

Dramatic opening. Extremely professional. Too short to give a true reflection the live experience.

This is what the real 80’s sounded like. You may think us teens were listening to cool and moody Smiths and Joy Division albums. And we were but turn on the radio during the day or watch a music tv show (there was no MTV back then). It was wall to wall garbage like this.

Or watch some horrid American movie starring Michael J Fox or Tom Cruise and there’d be a scene of them running or skateboarding or just being arrogant and drum beats and synth stabs would accompany them while Huey Lewis or Simon Le Bon or Morten Harket butchered meaningless lyrics.

I had forgotten what a half-assed rotten singer aha had. Garbles every line then goes falsetto for now reason.

The hits - Take on Me, Sun Shines on TV are as excruciating as I recall them. But there’s a real drop off from the hits to the rest of the tracks. Do you remember the Most Mysterious Song On the Internet? A song so unloved it go one play on German radio then forgotten, well it sounds like an Aha filler track.

If I was a big Bruce Springsteen fan I would have bought this in 2002 and enjoyed it for a few months as the latest dispatch from the Boss. And then I’d never play it again.

But I’m not a big Bruce Springsteen and I’m not interested in his thoughts from a quarter of a century ago.

The production is bog standard Dad Rock circa 2002. There’s a moment he sounds like he might have heard a Beck tune of two but the oldtimey drums and saxomphone lets you know he wasn’t paying attention.

It’s not Bruce’s best work. It does not find him doing something new. We don’t learn anything new about Bruce or his opinion on world events. We don’t need to hear this record!

The beats are good. Ice Cube does well to challenge the life of young black men in the projects. The machismo and sexism is a major negative. The rapping lacks variety and the words aren’t that inventive.

One of the more obscure records on the list. To me anyway - turns out it’s Grammy Winning and 169th best selling album in America. Clearly I’ve been in the wrong coffee shops.

Or maybe I’ve been in the right coffee shops? Or maybe I’ve been in the wrong coffee shops and not noticed this. Or I’m too busy listening to other foreground music on my ear phones to pay attention to the background rumble of Ms Jones.

It’s competent unchallenging background music.