Reviews by directoryofbunk

Jacques Brel is obviously interesting, important, and influential, and someone who I always intended to check out. That's the point of this project, to some extent, right? but I can't get a handle on whether this is a good example of his work. Doesn't totally grab me, but I'm intrigued enough to be going back to it. Feel like I don't know how to rate it yet, so playing it safe with a 3.

Transitional Tom is still marvellous. He hasnt quite made the full leap into the more thrilling and experimental sounds that his later career is full of, but this is still a magnificent collection of tunes - Mr. Siegal is one of my all-time favourites of his.

A 4 star by TW standards, a 5 star by anyone else's.

Say no to nu.

Maybe the quintessential nu metal album - terrible lyrics, awful rapping, horrible overproduction, needless electronics with unnecessary (and boring) turntables.

Was Bono born a tedious, self-important prick, or did he have to work for it?

First 30 secs are very nice (pure Eno?) but it quickly becomes the self-indulgent, messiah-complex bullshit we know U2 for. Really occurred to me on this record what a thoroughly average bunch of musicians they are.

Love early B&S, though at the time the rabid nature of their fans was a huge turnoff - I foolishly shunned a couple of gigs I could easily have attended in the late 90s/early 00s.

This is a great collection of tunes from when B&S hadn't worn out the shtick of songs about kids in school. Not quite as lightning-in-a-bottle as Tigermilk, or poptastic as Dear Catastrophe Waitress, but very remarkable and of its time. More of a 4.5, but rounding up because this is exactly the kind of album that has loads of US contributors to this project complaining about British music.

Adele's stuff isn't generally the kind of thing that does it for me, but she is clearly amazing. She has an amazing knack of making you absolutely buy into the story she's telling, so I found a lot of this surprisingly moving. Expected this to be be competent but average, but it's far better than that - glad this project made me actually have a proper listen.

I thought I liked New Order, but this is absolutely diabolical. All the songs are terrible with bad arrangements and not very well executed. I know that Bernard Sumner isn't a great singer as such, but this is pain-inducing stuff.

I hadn't listened to this in ages, and it was a nailed-on 5 stars in my memory. Whilst it's mostly superb rhymes and beats, there are some nagging issues. The skits are pretty shite, a couple of the tunes couple have been cut from the final edit (it's a classic CD era epic), and the presence of Sean Combs is unwelcome in many ways. But most of the tunes are elite-level hip hop.

A phenomenal piece of work. Beautiful, absolutely drenched in pathos.

Fairly middling, but fairly rocking. A 2.5 really, but rounding up for general love of Neil.

I love dystopian funfair narrator Tom Waits and I love brandy-soaked jazz raconteur Tom Waits.

Two Smiths albums in a row! MIM is a more complete album than Strangeways (as offered yesterday), and perhaps more adventurous? Pretty great all round.

I still love The Smiths, despite Morrissey. SHWC is a bit of a mixed bag. A couple of so-so songs and some displeasing arrangements, but the good stuff still really shines.

A ubiquitous undergraduate record. The soundtrack to every slightly hip and/or upmarket bar in Manchester for at least 6 months when it came out.

Warm, pleasant, well-rounded, but unremarkable.

This is a collection of killer tunes, and much more varied than I had imagined. I've seen some gripe on this project about this being a soundtrack, so not worthy of inclusion. I would dispute that, though suggest that it doesn't quite work together as a coherent body, hence knocking it down to 4 stars.

A much weirder and more interesting record than I remember - seems mad that this was the UK's biggest-selling album of 1981.

Yeah, obviously a beautiful and moving album. Lovely bit of Appalachian dulcimer too. In my head it was a 5 star, but maybe some of it's hippy-ness has faded a bit.

Elvis C is probably the better Elvis, but he doesn't half seem like a nasty little prick. Great tunes though, and the lyrics are dead smart, though maybe overly barbed and cynical. It's a cracking album that I already loved, but he is in this list too many times.

When this album came out I was really into it and felt like I was part of some kind of inside world. That feeling faded fairly quickly, and now this feels like a fairly lightweight and overly glossy milquetoast take on industrial music. Not bad, but not terribly interesting.

A bunch of Canadians cos playing gas Southern Americans should be rubbish, but this album is pure gold. Every single song incredible. Possibly a few lyrics that haven't aged brilliantly, but everything else in terms of tunes, arrangements, playing, generally vive ia A+++.