Reviews by forestfly2009

Ugh.... Dee-Lite are one of those shitty 90's electronic disco pop bands that were so popular at the time. They are best known for the song Groove Is In The Heart, which was a certified banger. The rest of this album pales in comparison though, and one good song does not a good album make. The album cover looks like something The Wiggles would put out.

Thank fuck that albums done. It had good beat, but no one in the band had any talent whatsoever. The beat was maintained by a drum machine, and it was the best member of the band. What a painful listening experience. I want that 48 minutes of my life back. The early 90's was a shitty time for pop/dance music. Disco had died....leave it dead ffs!

Favourite songs: Groove Is In The Heart

Least favourite songs: Deee-Lite Theme... And others.... This whole album kind of ran together into a rave fueled mess.

1/5

Favourite songs: It's All Over Now, You're My Girl (I Don't Want To Discuss It), Country Comfort, Cut Across Shorty, My Way of Giving, Jo's Lament, Lady Day

Least favourite songs: if forced to pick.... Only A Hobo

5/5

This is Moby Grape's self titled debut album. Psychadelic country rock, kinda like Sgt Pepper era Beatles. Average song length is like 2 minutes, and the songs feel unfinished. Like they don't wind down, or come to any kind of conclusion, they just end. Feels like they rushed to get the album out and had 3/4 of an idea for a song and said fuck it, that's good enough

Favourite songs: Ain't No Use, Mr. Blues, Fall on You, Changes

Least favourite songs: Sweet Ride (Never Again), Bitter Wind

2/5

Late 70's new wave/electro pop. Apparently Marianne used to date Mick Jagger until she got heavy onto heroin, lost her house and her kid, and lived on the streets for a few years. This is her first album after she got clean again, but similar to Billie Holiday, the years of drug abuse permanantly fucked her voice up. Left it more gravelly and in a lower register. It's a pretty solid album nonetheless. Steve Winwood did the synth parts for the album.

Marianne does a solid cover of John Lennon's song Working Class Hero. Why'd Ya Do It made me laugh. The vulgarities in that song stood out against the rest of the record, but it was still a really solid song. The guitar work on that song in particular was spectacular!

Favourite songs: Why'd Ya Do It, Brain Drain, The Ballad of Lucy Jordan, Broken English, Working Class Hero

Least favourite songs: Guilt

4/5

Alex Harvey is definately at the forefront of the punk movement. This was a weird record. There's a song about gang bangs, and another about a horse named Ding Dong, but it's actually a metaphor for his cock. A third song documents how the military paid for soldiers to use a brothel, and he ended up catching gonorrhea. Apparently Nick Cave started his music career in an Alex Harvey cover band. It's like blues rock and hard rock mixed.

Favourite songs: Giddy Up A Ding Dong, Gang Bang, Vambo Marble Eye

Least favourite songs: The Faith Healer, Next

3/5

After the song Grown So Ugly, the album descended into some really weird stuff. Up until that point, it was a fairly solid blues rock album, similar by times to The Doors style of psychadelic blues rock.

I must admit when I first saw the band name this morning, I got nervous of what I was in for because of the notoriety around the strange album Trout Mask Replica, however, the first song on this record: "Sure 'Nuff 'n' Yes, I Do", was a fantastic Delta blues number.

Seems like this album was founded in good music, but the psychadelic drug use and experimentation just went too far, and things just kind of descended into a weird mess. It's a Shame, because the album started with so much promise.

Favourite songs: "Sure 'Nuff 'n' Yes, I Do", Plastic Factory, Zig Zag Wanderer, Where There's Woman, I'm Glad, Yellow Brick Road

Least favourite songs: Electricity, Autumn's Child, Safe As Milk, On Tomorrow, Big Black Baby Shoes, Dirty Blue Gene, Korn Ring Finger

2/5

This album, to be fair, is less pop, more indie folk. Completely unplugged and minimalistic with soft piano playing and finger picked guitar with hardly any precussion at all, but it's still Tay Tay. Even though this is a stripped down album, the pop bullshit is still there. I just really hate modern pop music.

A review I read of this album made an interesting point that I kind of relate to. The vocals of this pop shit are so God damn polished that there are literally no flaws or grit or humanness to them at all. The musical accompaniment is fine, and just based on music alone, it is fine, but the manufactured vocals just leave a bad taste in my mouth. Not to say that Taylor can't sing, because she can, but the vocals are just.... Too perfect.... I guess?!? I like to feel like I'm listening to a human sing to me, not a robot. This album was fine, just really not my jam.... At all.

Favourite songs: cowboy like me, champagne problems, coney island, dorothea, marjorie, evermore

Least favourite songs: closure, happiness (there's the break up song....there's one on every Taylor Swift album...)

2/5

Justice are a French electronic/dance duo. It's like modern, electronic disco mixed with funk and house/techno music. It's really fuckin solid. What sets if apart from other electronica albums is the fact that it actually has a discernable beat and direction as opposed to just ambling about and not really accomplishing anything. It is very bass heavy. Similar to Daft Punk or Mr. Oizo or deadmau5.

Favourite songs: Waters of Nazareth, Genesis, Let There Be Light, Newjack, Phantom, Phantom Pt. II, One Minute to Midnight

Least favourite songs: Valentine

5/5

Guitar Town is one of those songs that is played at every wedding reception ever! What a fantastic tune!

Steve Earle is a country rock artist from the 80's. He really gained traction with Guitar Town, then really took off with Copperhead Road. Steve is a staple of the genre, and I am happy to see him represented on this list!

Favourite songs: Guitar Town, Someday, Hillbilly Highway, Good Ol' Boy (Gettin' Tough), Think It Over, Fearless Heart, Down the Road

Least favourite songs: My Old Friend the Blues

5/5

The beats on this record are pretty solid, but the rap lyrics are so juvinile and simplistic. That is... when he does rap. A lot of what's going on here is just sampling and looping of beats and lyrics. In Halfsharkalligatorhalfman you can hear where the loop track restarts (its a little dead air between loops). This should have been polished out in post-production.

This guy raps a lot about sodomy, or unsolicited groping. There is a whole 2 minute skit about a woman's gynecology exam for some reason. This is a strange one...

An example of the fucked up lyrics on this record... From the skit "Elective Surgery"...

You have bees flying around your rectum.....

Wtf?!? Dude must have had thought someone said anal bees instead of anal beads.

Favourite songs: Wild and Crazy, 3000, I'm Destructive, Dr. Octagon

Least favourite songs: Intro, I Got to Tell You, General Hospital, A Visit to the Gynecologyst, Elective Surgery, 1977(fuck skits... Especially when they are just samples of fucking pornos), Blue Flowers (both versions.... Although the revisited version is better)

2/5

The Stone Roses are one of the artists grouped in the Madchester genre in the 80's. It's like light rock with jangly guitars and chamber pop vocals that have heavy reverb applied to them . There were a ton of bands doing it in the late 80's - early 90's. They sound similar to Gin Blossoms.

This album suffers from sounding too much like all that other music that was out there at the time. Nothing really makes it stand out to me. And every song sounds the same. It's one of those albums where I've had to restart it like 4 times because I keep drifting off and forgetting what I listened to. None of that to say it's necessarily bad, just too same-y.... If that makes sense.

This definately influenced modern bands like Fleet Foxes or Boy & Bear for sure.

The last few songs on the album just kind of meander a bit, and just overstay their welcome a bit. 10 minutes could have easily been shaved off of the album runtime if these last few songs weren't like 9 minutes a piece.

Favourite songs: Made of Stone, I Wanna Be Adored, She Bangs the Drums

Least favourite songs: Don't Stop (sounds like it's being played backwards for some reason)

3/5

British new wave/post punk today. A fairly average album. Some really catchy numbers on this record. The first song on the album, Dumb Waiters, is awful, but the rest of the album is pretty solid.

Favourite songs: Pretty in Pink, All of This and Nothing, Mr. Jones, It Goes On

Least favourite songs: Dumb Waiters (dogs down the street were reacting to the fucking saxophone parts...)

4/5

British ambient trip hop/electronica. Not bad mood music. Nothing to write home about, but not bad in the background.

Favourite songs: Wrong, Flipside, Big Deal, Mirrorball

Least favourite songs: Good Cop Bad Cop

4/5

Favourite songs: Australia, Enola/Alone, Kevin Carter, No Surface All Feeling, Interiors (Song For Willem de Kooning), The Girl Who Wanted to Be God, Removables, Further Away

Least favourite songs: Small Black Flowers that Grow in the Sky

4/5

The Mothers of Invention are Frank Zappa's band before he broke off on his own. This album is weird as fuck. There were a lot of drugs done for sure. I mean, it's fine I guess, it's just horribly experimental. Like.... All of the psychadelic drugs were taken while recording this album. All of them! One song on the record is called "Help, I'm a Rock". That song was definately written while on an acid trip. Another song heavily features a kazoo. Fuck kazoos. The last song features like 8 minutes of people fucking, and like 2 minutes of people saying "cream cheese". What a trip.

The musical stylings range from psychadelica, to blues rock, to satirical doo-wop. All over the place. I mean, I know that without experimentation, there would never be growth, it fuck this is weird.

Favourite songs: Go Cry On Somebody Else's Shoulder, "Hungry Freaks, Daddy", Motherly Love, Anyway The Wind Blows, Trouble Every Day

Least favourite songs: It Can't Happen Here, The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet, Who Are the Brain Police?, You're Probably Wondering Why I'm Here, "Help, I'm a Rock"

2/5

My first thoughts after being served another Joy Division album was "oh great, another depressing mess", but that's not what I got surprisingly!

This album, unlike the first album of theirs that I reviewed, Closer, had a pulse. It felt more alive. While still clinging to that gothic sound that they were known for, this music had a discernable direction. My biggest complaint about Closer was that it was so dark and depressing, and vocal delivery was bored and unenthusiastic. I think a large part of that was because most of the recording was done while Ian Curtis was suicidal, and the album was left unpolished after he killed himself. With this album, they were able to polish it, and really drive home their musical talents. This album reminds me of Morrissey's better stuff, or Bauhaus.

Favourite songs: Interzone, Disorder, Shadowplay, New Dawn Fades, Wilderness

Least favourite songs: Candidate, I Remember Nothing

4/5

This is an album of jazz/pop covers which Willie reimagined in his own style. Interesting, given the fact that he was known for Outlaw country. This is different, but really solid. Surprised the hell out of me. This album is like country jazz. Willie's Spanish style of guitar strumming and some old jazz/pop staples being sung with his unique raspy voice.

Apparently, Willie lived next to Booker T. Jones in Malibu, and asked him to help arrange the song Moonlight in Vermont. He liked it so much he got Booker T. to produce a whole album of jazz/pop hits for him. His record company execs didn't want him to make the album because they wanted another classic Willie Outlaw country album, but Willie basically told them to fuck off and made this record anyways, and it ended up going quintuple platinum. That's the definition of Outlaw country! Sticking it to the man! It was his 22nd album after all, he could do what he wanted!

Favourite songs: Georgia on my Mind, Unchained Melody, On the Sunny Side of the Street, Don't Get Around Much Anymore, Someone to Watch Over Me, All of Me, Blue Skies, Moonlight in Vermont

Least favourite songs: if forced to pick, Stardust

5/5

This is the Bee Gee's ninth studio album, and pre-dates all the disco that they're famous for, so its kind of weird hearing them sing this more psych-pop oriented stuff. I had no idea that they had that many albums before the transition to disco.

This Bee Gee's album is like an album of Beatles B-Sides. Not bad, but kinda bland.

Favourite songs: It's Just the Way, Israel, How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?, Remembering, Somebody Stop the Music, Trafalgar, Lion in Winter

Least favourite songs: When Do I, Dearest

4/5

Such a fantastic album! Otis' covers of some classic songs are awesome! I know A Change is Gonna Come is originally Sam Cooke's song, but man does Otis ever do it justice!! An amazing album to set the mood for a Sunday! Feel good music, makes ya wanna move!

Favourite songs: A Change is Gonna Come, Rock Me Baby, My Girl, (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, Wonderful World, Down in the Valley, Shake, Respect, You Don't Miss Your Water, Ole Man Trouble

Least favourite songs: if forced to pick: I've Been Loving You Too Long

5/5

This is a super long album. A double album. The first disc was pretty solid. Experimental rock/psych that sounds like something Nick Cave would make if he was so inclined. The second album is a lot of remixes and electronica heavy experimentation. This second disc drags the whole album down pretty bad. It's like an electronica themed reimagining of the first disc. He should have just cut it off at one disc and left it alone. It doesn't help that the total runtime for the album is 2 hrs 34 mins. It definately over stays its welcome. Especially given the fact that it descends into fucking electronica garbage around the same time you are starting to get sick of the album. It's a Shame, because the first disc is easily a 4, but this God awful second disc drags the whole thing down to a 2 at best.

Favourite songs: Hanging Out and Hung Up On The Line, East Easy Rider, If You Loved Me At All, Beautiful Love

Least favourite songs: You..., Hung Up and Hanging Out To Dry, Ravebury Stones, Love (L.U.V.) - Beautiful Love Remix, Dragonfly, Heed: Of Penetration and the City-Dweller - Head Remix, Safesurfer - 1991 Tour Single, Butterfly E, Straw Dogs, Anyway At All (basically the whole 2nd disc is shit)

2/5