Reviews by declaniom

Showing it's age now.

Where Weller gave up and decided to be Eric Clapton.

Q: How do you make the worst song in human history even worse?

A: follow it with a guitar noodle version of the Imperial Anthem of the British Empire.

Blur's weakest album, goes by uneventfully.

One of his best executed albums with many of his best songs.

I’m gonna score 4 because I’m a sucker for proto punk. But they’re along way behind The Stooges, MC5, Pere Ubu, The Saints, Television etc.

I've nothing worthwhile to say. Like Kanye.

Elegant, cool, insightful.

I got the first copy of Nevermind on the Isle of Man. The cd version without Endless Nameless.

When I grew up bands never played, in fact the only band we’d read about in Sounds or the NME or heard on John Peel that played were Anhrefn the Welsh Language Punks that the Manx revivalists brought over to encourage us Indie Kids to sing in Gaelg.

It wasn’t easy, to pop over to England to see your faves. It was costly and required time off work. That’s why the Reading Festival was so import to us and indie, punk and goth types. From being a minority restricted to 20 minutes of our tunes at the local disco and subject to abuse from mainstream types, suddenly we were in a field with people like us from all over the British and Irish Isles and we got to see all the bands!

In 1991 I already owned Bleach it was good but it wasn’t Mudhoney or Dinosaur Jr and Nevermind wasn’t out. So the first time I heard these songs was live at Reading in the middle of the day. It was a fantastic show and the band were really going for it. My friend turned to me during Smells Like Teen Spirit and said “but this is a pop song”. I dismissed it “no, no it grunge” but of course she was right.

The show was a triumph. The following act Chapterhouse, who were from Reading, seemed so tame in comparison. And Shoegaze left the zeitgeist for twenty years replaced by energetic Yanks.

Everybody went back to the island and ordered Nevermind, which was to be released the next month. But on release date only one turned up. Shocks Records let me buy it because I was off to uni the next day.

Obviously it’s a 5 star.

Competent but unremarkable.

I liked this more than I expected.

I saw OMD live a couple of days before this popped up on my feed. They were excellent and got the loudest crowd reaction I've ever seen at this often indifferent venue.

It's more apparent live, but there are two OMDs. There's the serious artists that played Erics with the Bunnymen & Teardrop Explodes and debuted on Factory alongside Joy Division. Then there's the happy Pop Stars of TOTP and Saturday morning kids telly. I watched a documentary on the Eric's scene in Liverpool recently and Pete Burns said the pop element in their performance was there then. But live the peak of cheering was when they played the two Joan of Arc songs from this album.

When Enola Gay was a hit they did a personal appearance at my mate's primary school. Imagine that "Come on kids, sing along, this is about the bombing of Hiroshima" but OMD would have made it work

On record their first four albums get the balance about right. The pop took too much of the centre stage in the later 80's and they're not as good records. The turning point was Dazzle Ships, their 4th lp which is now considered a masterpiece but was difficult at the time to connect with a mass audience.

Architecture And Morality preceded it and is probably the best balanced between the arty intellectual and pop sensibility (the two songs about a 13th Century French martyr became consecutive top 10 hits in the UK). I still think its the peak of 80's synthpop.

I'm playing catch up and listened to yesterday's lp immediately before this. It was Mingus's The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady. I am stunned how far jazz bass playing deteriated in the 15 years between these two albums. Mingus is at the heart of the music; whilst here the bassist, Jaco Pistorious, is a little wasp buzzing away on the edge of these bland 70's TV themes.

A beautiful album. I love the times when the melody takes centre stage.

An album that grows better with age. Really strong character based songwriting set to quality post-Brit Pop rock. The mainman - Luke Haines, has had along meandering career but whenever his work crosses my attention it's rewarding to listen to at least once.

This album and Mogwai Young Team opened the door to post-rock for me. Hope it does for listeners encountering it in this project.

The best songs carry the filler to a 5 rating. Just

This is a fun album. You can hear the African incluence in Afro-Cuba here.

Freeformguitartrack is an extended bit of guitar and fx noise. It is an island of clarity amongst a sea of self-indulgent diarrhoea.

No matter how linv abd successful his career is I doubt Nick Cave will ever top Big Jesus Trash Can.