Reviews by dutch-point-pro

Formulaic. Look it’s a good formula, but this album is the same song over and over again. I loved it when it first came out and still rock out when I hear it out today. But listening to song after song in album format is just too much of the same sound. This is iconic, but limited by its stripped down style. It robs it of staying power. 3.5

Hey look, it’s another British punk-adjacent band getting an uninspiring 3.

Can I combine my last 2 albums and get a young Leonard Cohen to become the lead singer here? Then, we’d really have something.
As it stands, it’s filled with pretty forgettable punk instrumentals behind the ‘unique’ schtick of a female ‘singer’ fronting the band. Not much to compel a second listen to any of it.

It’s too bad he stopped in New York and recorded this album instead of making it all the way to Nashville. That way, he could’ve ruined country music instead of folk.

An important album that hasn’t aged well. They opened the door but so many have passed through it now and gone further that this feels dated, almost measured. An exhibit in a museum more than a show you want to go catch these days.

I appreciated getting beyond the hits and hearing more of what makes them a band. The musicianship is what stands out on this one, for sure. Like Toledo, Ohio, it’s nice to visit once, but nothing worth swing back for again.

What in the name of Fairport Convention is this shit? This is the soundtrack that plays as you think, ‘this might be a cult’.

It’s Metallica. It is what it is. Nothing to shatter any illusions.

I bought this album on cassette because I thought the cover looked cool. I listened to it once.
I don’t trust people who like Depeche Mode.

Napoleon Blownapart

Another middling album from The Smiths, highlighted by Marr’s intricate guitar work. Morrissey whines his way through fun and creative lyrics (fuck Morrissey btw), but still gives off too much matinee idol and not enough actual hero here. There is lots of irony and tongue in cheek in the writing, which foreshadows some of his forthcoming solo work, where he really finds his stride as a lyricist. Strangeways features mostly solid songs, it’s a good listen overall, with Girlfriend in a Coma being one of my favorite Smiths songs of all time.

This is a magnum opus for Billy Corgan and the Pumpkins. Too bad they didn’t have the decency to end it all after recording it. They haven’t put out a good album since and Corgan’s bloated, self-aggrandizing douche-baggery is a huge reason why. This album has a lot of great songs but they are held down by all the ‘experimental’ shit around them that all sounds the same. The hits are strong and carry the ranking here.

An album like this gives certain reviewers a place to expound and gush over something pretty basic. It’s fine. Yes, he plays the piano well … he’s a professional piano player. But this is no Thelonius Himself, so let’s take it easy with the effusive praise. I think his background moaning is hilariously pretentious and the whole exercise becomes very tiresome before too long. Bonus points for getting Eric Andre to pose for the cover photo.

The is an interesting collection of genres here …. too bad they all had to be interpreted by Mary Ann Faithful.

I want to spend more time with this one, because it should be right in my wheelhouse, but I’m not quite there yet. I love the sparse and unique instrumentals, but the lyrics and the vocals don’t land for me yet. It suggests the soundtrack to wandering around midtown late on a weeknight, killing time waiting for the late commuter train home, wandering past closed corporate offices, shuttered lunch joints and empty bodegas - like you’re left behind in a world that everyone else escaped a long time ago, a feeling that New York has kind of perfected. This album hits that melancholic rudderlessness pretty well for me (bonus points on the scrabble board for that phrase).
“ I can’t believe life is so complex / when I just wanna sit here and watch you undress.” - Goddamn bars.

Modular, interchangeable white plastic Brit pop. This is so generic. Because Steve Lillywhite touched it, it must be good? I call bullshit. This could be any of 3 dozen other bands of the time. It has no place on any 1000 album list - might not make my 10,000 album list.

This may have been the longest hour of my life. Apparently the repetition becomes torturous if you’re not absolutely stoned out of your mind. I can’t believe it took me 400 repetitions of the word ‘druggie’ in the song Kalifornia to finally stumble onto the realization that it rhymes with Dougie - not sure how I never made that connection before this moment. I’m awarding one star for that moment of enlightenment and one star for the outstanding cover art.

This is not something we needed to be subjected to. She would not have been signed without the famous last name. Listening to the album is like eating at a buffet restaurant - most things seem fine and even look good at first glance but nothing is actually tasty enough to go back for a second helping.

Not sure how this band fooled everyone. This is boring, repetitive, uninspired generic OOs rock without any discernible uniqueness or character.

Sorry Ms. Jackson, this shit’s too long. Somebody was pumping crazy smoke into the dungeon and it made Andre think everything he wrote was genius. There is a significant lack of editing here and it is why we need to sit through so much useless crap to get to the good stuff. Big Boi is on point, but this album is a miss overall because of the flood of extras. If someone doesn’t step in soon, Andre will release an hour-long album of flute music or some shit.