Reviews by dutch-point-pro

This is a pretty remarkable album. Yes, hate on Dylan for his voice, or because of all the harmonica, or because it’s more like whining than singing. But, it’s the songwriting … no one wrote lyrics like this before he did, certainly no one with any mainstream credibility. Essentially, the genre of folk rock and singer/songwriter was created here and these songs are among its firstborn offerings. As someone who has always valued lyrics over melodies, I hold Dylan as an important voice in music history. This important album is the beginning of a period when lyrics were finally allowed to evolve past “baby baby, oooh I love you girl” (that is, until Bieber came around and ruined it all again). His use of poetry, metaphor and lyrical depth changed how almost everyone wrote songs after this, whether you like these songs or not (and I very much do).
You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows with this one.

Upbeat and more pop than I expected. A fun listen. No strong feelings to pull me far from center in either direction.

The quintessence of quitting without leaving, Buffalo Springfield was over once it began. After the first and only hit, they wanted to go their own ways (professionally and musically), so this album is essentially a bunch of solo work released under the group’s banner. It’s why this thing is all over the place - it’s essentially three separate EPs.
As a Neil Young fan, I’m drawn to his work the most here: the opening and closing tracks. That said, I don’t think I’m biased by saying that the opening track, Mr. Soul, is the best song on the album and the closing track, Broken Arrow, is the most unique and interesting. Expecting to Fly is one of my favorite Young songs, but this overblown orchestral attempt undermines the simple beauty that shines through on solo versions when it’s just Neil and a piano (see the terrific Live at Cellar Door or Carnegie Hall versions from 1970). There’s not much else to hang your hat on here. Bluebird was a fine attempt at an electrified Beatles vibe. Overall, the album’s musicianship is strong but the songs are forgettable.

It’s important to push your boundaries and try new things … and sometimes the experiment doesn’t work.

Great musicians from a dead genre. Like visiting an exhibit at a museum - fine if you want to learn some history or see “how it used to be” but nothing much with a pulse left there now. Of course Big Band was influential, but so were showtunes and religious hymns, and I hope not to see those on this list anytime soon. Ellington was one of the most important figures in 20th century Western music, but this album does not figure into that distinction in any conceivable way. The only Duke we need in the 1001 albums list is the Thin White Duke.

Simone has an incredibly unique voice and a powerful delivery that is all her own. But the songs and the style don’t age well here. Terrific songstress, but the material is lacking.

A rare album to be sure. Her vocal talent is undeniable - she could outsing anyone on this list. But she doesn’t just sing these songs - she inhabits them and you can’t escape without feeling them deeply.
This album shaped the direction of music in so many genres for decades to come. It is remarkable. You don’t need to love every note to recognize that it is of the highest level.

This isn’t the classic that is promised. Truthfully, it is a pretty boring listen if you remove the 2 hits. Stevie has never been one for editing himself, and this album is great proof of that fact. His experiments and sonic explorations don’t strike me as the work of “a m*therfuckin’ musical genius” but as excessive material that would have been better served to be kept in house. It is undeniable that he makes great music (Superstition) but it is surrounded by too much mediocrity here, and in so many other places in his catalogue.

If the Incredible String Band wandered out of their woods and stumbled upon a cabin, where they found some folks who had instruments that looked like theirs, but had wires attached that somehow plugged into the wall to make them louder, then they all sat down and jammed on the most pompous, ridiculous songs they could dream up, you would get this album. Maybe I missed something when I listen to this, but I doubt it. Hot garbage.

This album reminded me a lot of country music. I know, but go with me on this one. There are some really good musicians here that are very limited by the style that they choose to play in. Because they play shred metal or “shredal”, which I’m copywriting as a new genre name, it all has to be loud and hard and fast. The lyrics become secondary and almost pointless, which is certainly the case here. In the same way, country music must follow a formula of constant repetition with simplistic melodies and lyrical structures. So, although they sound very different, both styles discourage individual expression, and make it harder for unique voices to emerge. It’s why so much shredal sounds the same to me. It’s why so much country sounds the same to me. It’s why so much contemporary pop sounds the same to me. The style outweighs the speaker.
I admit, I’m uninitiated to thrash, death and other intricate genres of heavy metal. Maybe if they sounded a little different from each other or offered more nuance, I’d find interest in one of them and something would catch my ear. Unfortunately, this just sounds like all the rest of them to me.
I do wonder which mascot between this dude and the iron maiden guy would win in a fight though…

About as classic as classic rock gets. Bluesy, roots rock that is full of energy and feeling. Can’t go 5 because it relies on too many covers to get it to iconic status, but as solid and rocking an album as this era produced.

These folks are amazing. No, definitely not the dirty, talentless hippies in this “band” - I mean all of the great people who wrote one star reviews of this album. While I usually love skewering terrible albums on my own, the community did such a great job, I’m not sure I have anything new to add. So, I curated some of my favorite quotes from the reviews, collected while dutifully listening to the entirety of this soundtrack from purgatory. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did, because there will be nothing enjoyable about your listening experience.
• I wish I could go back to when I never knew this album existed.
• It's a good thing they didn't tune the instruments, so it matches the vocals.
• I’d rather listen to the meth head at the bus stop down the road beatbox and fart.
• So many people on the album cover but not one of them stopped to think that maybe this was shit.
• Like a Monty Python spoof of an early Genesis album.
• This is "The Velvet Underground and Nico" for folkies.
• Why did someone think that a recording of a bunch of off-key drunkards in a country pub is something I should listen to before I die?
• No tengo de los champiñones adecuados para escuchar esto. (“ I do not have an adequate amount of mushrooms to listen to this.”)
• Even if you're not a big fan of the kazoo, these fuckers have you covered with panpipes and harpsichords.
• Holy hell..... somebody put the wounded animal singing out of its misery already.
• Like hearing a cancer diagnosis.
• I feel like I’m tied to a post hanging over a fire whilst they dance around in circles singing these songs in their weird cult.
• This is the music folks would listen to before a dragon would come and burn down their thatch roof village.
• I want the creator of the 1001 list of albums to go to jail for this.
• I can’t sing and I can’t play a music instrument so save my life. However, neither would prevent me from being a member of this band.
• I am growing weary of white people.
• Have you ever known you're going to hate an album within the first 10 seconds? No? Try this one.
• You’re in a cult, call your dad.
• Scottish psychedelic folk is exactly as good as it sounds.
• I want to fight everyone on this album cover, including the small children and the dog.
• I regret electricity was wasted to play this in my home.
• No situation really calls for this type of music, unless you're like some magical swamp creature.
• This album should be in the other book: 1001 albums you should avoid at all costs.

I remember this album from the Beavis and Butthead show. Every time they watched a video on the show and went, “huh huh huh huh huh huh …. These guys suck…huh huh,” the song they were listening to was definitely from this album.

The fighters of foo are born. This is a difficult album to like … it’s Grohl as a member of Nirvana trying to find his own voice. But the is so little room for others when Cobain is around, and he was around when most of the songs were written and was a huge posthumous presence for the other 4. There are signs of the promising future on the recognizable hits, but the rest is just extended versions of Territorial Pissings, Grohl trying to stretch the skin of Nirvana to make it fit his heavier rock and roll tendencies. He will learn to blend the two styles better, write better songs and collaborate with better musicians soon. Foo will start to soar on the next album, The Colour and The Shape. But it doesn’t really happen here just yet.

Stephen Stills is a very talented musician and no one knows that more than Stephen Stills. Here, he takes a very long 71 minutes to prove it to us through a variety of styles, al of which wind up sounding pretty much the same in his hands.
Manassas comes from the Hebrew meaning, “that which makes us forget.” Exactly. A perfectly titled piece of work.

Fine, uninspiring British Reggae. Too chill for its own good. Like a sedative with a backbeat.

If you like this sort of thing, then this is the sort of thing you’ll probably like.
It didn’t do much for me, mostly because of the constraints of the country style, but Boxcars really slaps though. That song would work well in any genre.

Musically, this is an amazing album - a caravan through psychedelia with a procession that is decades ahead of its time. Hendrix does things with a guitar that no one else can and his ease and comfort wandering through the grooves is fearless, joyful and infectious. It makes listening to these songs a pleasure, even though they can get repetitive and the lyrics are a bit flighty and aloof. The band is tight, the sound is seminal. This album is truly a 9 out of 10.
But, after 3 full listens today, I feel it’s missing that last something that gets it to the very top level. I’m not sure what it needs, but whatever that something is, it doesn’t really matter and I’ve gotta round up because it’s MF’ing Jimi. Plus, he plays the recorder on one track. The recorder. Name another guitar god who solos on the recorder. Yeah, I couldn’t either…

When I was a kid at Christmas in the 70s, there was no shortage of holiday specials to choose from on television. Understand that this was prior to today’s classic fare of Elf, Polar Express and the live-action Grinch. The finest of them all,in my opinion, and the one I looked forward to watching on repeat each December was a movie made with puppets called Emmet Otter’s Jug Band Christmas.
The story follows a poor family of otters that are trying to make ends meet and still find a way to buy presents for each other at Christmas. Salvation comes in the form of a talent competition where first prize is $50. Emmet Otter decides to enter so he can win enough money to buy his mother a piano for Christmas. He grabs a muskrat, a beaver and some other river animals and together they make a band. They practice hard and are ready to win it all, and they would have except that, at the last minute, an unexpected entry at the talent show upends everything: The Riverbottom Nightmare Band.
Comprised of a weasel on guitar, a snake on bass,a mink on keyboards,and a lizard on drums, The Riverbottom Nightmare Band shows up and slays with predictable heavy metal thrashing. They win the competition and the $50 and Emmet and the boys go home with nothing.
Now, if you’ve never seen the movie, or if it’s been so long that you don’t really remember it, you’re in luck. The Flamin’ Groovies sound exactly like The Riverbottom Nightmare Band, which is to say puppet animals playing campy hard rock. The shriekingly humorous vocals splayed out over simplistic single note runs are lifted almost directly from the Riverbottom catalogue. That said, I don’t think the Flamin’ Groovies would beat either TRBNMB or Emmet Otter and his jug band in a talent show. I’d put my money on the puppets every time.

Ah, Boy George singing about wanting to put “a love deep within you” on a track called ‘Mystery Boy’, which shows up directly after a track called ‘Man-Shake’. The 80s were so subtle.
This was a slog to get through and not a fun listen. The faux reggae-tinged dance music was monotonous and droning. This is a museum piece of the parts of the 80s most would prefer to forget.