Reviews by dutch-point-pro

Albums like this are the reason that the 80s deservecsuch a bad musical reputation. This album is to music what Z-Cavariccis are to fashion.

Is this the best band we have never listened to before? Probably. Minutemen are punk royalty, but hard to have accessed outside of that world. With musical chops to convincingly switch between diverse styles from track to track, their tight instrumentals, especially the funky bass runs, and playful but connected lyrics unfurl with a skill that leaves me wanting more. This seminal album kept my feet moving while surprising my ears with each new track. It was great listen.

Ah, it’s the classic California vibe, before it was all weed and wildfire. Quite a debut on this time capsule of an album.

After my initial listen, I could only assume that I must have missed something, so I forced myself to listen to the whole album again with complete and total focus to arrive at an accurate review. Here’s what I came up with:
What the actual fuck? Someone in this band must have horribly incriminating nude photos of the book’s author and the willingness to use them. There is no other explanation as to why I was subjected to this twatwaffle and his brooding, sophomoric bullshit … twice.

The syntheeist of synth pop muzak sung by the ghost of the 80s.

The musical equivalent of a guy trying too hard to be cool.

Someone wrote that the genre for this album should be called “Indieslop” and I think that’s a great description. I never bought into the hype on this band - Look it’s the Yeah Yeah Yeahs! They must be super rad, they released on DGC! They moved BACKWARDS stylistically from post-punk to synth-pop, aw man they’re so cool! Karen O is the best, just ignore that you can’t understand a single word of what she’s singing, alright?
This is kitschy, east village vibe core and, while the critics can have their darlings, I’m not fucking with it.

The ball, the boot, the bell and the bowtie. Every single Chicken McNugget will come in one of these shapes. Yes, there can be slight variations and imperfections, but it’s always predictable and recognizable as a ball, a boot, a bell or a bowtie because it’s made with a preformed shape die, like a cookie cutter but for chicken.
Now, this Count Basie album predates the McNugget by about 20 years but the music follows the same recipe - predictable, cookie cutter jazz. There’s nothing wrong with it, it’s just boring with the same old shapes showing up all the time. It’s a display of great musicianship, but on forgettable tunes from a genre as dead as the chickens at the McFactory Farm.
Like a McNugget, it leaves you wishing you had made a better decision.

Something is off here. Perhaps less Nick Cave and more Bad Seeds next time? This felt like a guy got his hands on an emo girl’s diary and is doing dramatic spoken-song versions of tfe entries as a disinterested band, who may or may not be aware of what is going on, plays music in the background. It’s definitely not what you’d call compelling.

The singles are the strength of this album which meanders for too long in the same mournful wallow.

If Michael Bublé had grown up on folk and rock instead of jazz, this would be what you’d get. Now, I never liked Michael Bublé and I don’t like this muddy, moody collection of indulgences. Costello is best when he sings with energy, purpose and urgency but this album offers none of that.

Typical Eminem … immature and self-aggrandizing. He can certainly rhyme well and craft a fun phrase but the subject matter is so predictably trite and recycled over and over from track to track it becomes numbing. Dre’s beats bump and heads bounce, but I still can’t buy into the whole package … Eminem is the Nickelback of rap.

This sounds like an afterschool special made by listening to PE’s Apocalypse 91: The Enemy Strikes Black and trying to clean it up and mainstream the ideas. It also makes painfully clear how important good rhyme skills and intricate beats are to make rap music compelling. The lack of this combo in most songs here, coupled with Franti’s lack of a convincing flow, make this rap-by-number concoction a pedestrian listen.

I appreciate that Jack White is an auteur of great reknown these days but this feels much more like sonic searching than it does and sort of discoveries. He’s at his best when the music is clean and clear, whether the orchestration is minimal or extravagant - See Ball and Biscuit or You Dont Know What Love Is or Level or I Cut Like a Buffalo or The Air Near My Fingers.

I liked the part where they repeated the same words again and again over the loud beats. That was the best part, I think.

There’s not enough Molly in all of the clubs of West London to get me through listening to this foolishness. If The Pet Shop Boys had a love child with Right Said Fred and let the band from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome give them music lessons, you’d get this pretentious bullshit. It was riding at a 2 before I hit those covers, which are just unacceptably bad.

Painfully predictable pop music, placed perfectly on the precipice of pseudo poignant pretension.

A cherry collection of tasty tunes for my doll and me to cut a rug down at the Sock Hop or the local juke joint.

Quite audacious for a debut album. This is great fun, with a unique sound that spans musical styles - punk, pop, reggae, dub, alt rock with strains of new wave and maybe even some industrial in there. Lots of influence on things to come but it also stands firmly on its own merit. A enjoyable find for me on the list.

Lush lyrical treats layered thickly over laidback beats -
“My preliminary attack keeps cemeteries packed”
The references are deep and intricate, engaging you and inviting reflection and revisit -
“I slayed mcs back in the rec room era/
My style broke motherfuckin’ backs like Ken Patera”
This is a great collection of rhymes that are consistent, solid and eminently listenable.