Reviews by forestfly2009

80's British pop rock /folk pop. They formed after The Housemartins disbanded (I had one of their albums in the post list already..... "London 0 Hull 4"). After they broke up, band drummer David Hemmingway and vocalist Paul Heaton formed this band.

Favourite songs: Don't Marry Her, Rotterdam (Or Anywhere), Little Blue, Mirror, The Sound of North America, Foundations, Liar's Bar, One God

Least favourite songs: Blackbird on the Wire

4/5

Like Hole, but better. The Breeders are a collaboration of Pixies bassist Kim Deal, and Throwing Muses guitarist Tanya Donelly. It's like 90's alt rock mixed with touches of surfer rock, pop, and grunge. Not bad.

Favourite songs: Cannonball, Drivin' On 9, Flipside, S.O.S., I Just Wanna Get Along, Invisible Man, New Year

Least favourite songs: No Aloha, Roi, Mad Lucas

3/5

How was Channel Orange such a solid album, and this such a dumpster fire? Frank Ocean fell off. This is just auto tuned, skit filled, horribly boring modern R&B. No flow, no pulse. This album is DOA.

Favourite songs: Pink + White, Solo

Least favourite songs: Be Yourself, Good Guy, Facebook Story (fuck skits), Pretty Sweet, Ivy, Nikes, Close to You, Futura Free

1/5

These guys remind me a lot of AC/DC or Airborne. Ironic since they are also Australian. Pretty solid easy listening hard rock. Not earth shattering by any means, but pretty good to pop on when you're in the mood.

Favourite songs: Nobody's Home, V8 Fantasy, Game of Fools, Stab in the Back, 155, Roll the Dice, Tornado Dreaming (Parts 1 & 2), By My Side, Deranged

Least favourite songs: You Vs Me

4/5

I think the drugs took too much of a front seat with the development of this album. They didn't push it far enough. It just ended up being a bunch of disjointed canoodling. They leaned too hard into the ambient sounds for me. A relatively inoffensive album all in all, I just wish it was better.

Favourite songs: Desire

Least favourite songs: The Rainbow

2/5

This is literally 100% samples that are mashed together in a kind of house /party mix style. So Girl Talk, in my mind, did nothing except mix a bunch of different smash hits from a bunch of different genres together and overlay it with house beats. This is the same complaint I have with that News at 11 album I had a while ago. Buddy did literally nothing to create music. This is more of an art project than music.

Yes it's catchy and yes he did a good job of mixing genres and styles together, but is it original music? Definately not. Apparently this genre of heavy sampling and mixing has a name..... Plunderphonics...... The more you know!!

Apparently in this 53 minute album, dude sampled 300+ other songs/artists. What I hate about this style is it feeds off of people's nostalgia. When they hear so many familiar songs, they tend to gravitate towards the music. So this knob is getting rich off of the success of 300 other artists, not his own talent.

Favourite songs: Like This, Still Here, Shut the Club Down, In Step, Play Your Part (Pt. 1)

Least favourite songs: Here's the Thing, Don't Stop

3/5 was it catchy. Yes. Was it necessary. No

I don't get the appeal.... No one needs to hear an indie rock jam band....

I had their live album Okonokos before, and hated it (because it was 2hrs long and was a live album). Having no exposure to the band, a live album.... especially one that long... is not the best way to introduce yourself to them. That said, I was hoping that a studio album by them would be better (especially since most of the suggested bands on Spotify are similar to bands I regularly listen to). That hope was smashed with today's album. This is marginally better than that live album, but not by much. I just really don't like the singers voice (he couldn't carry a tune in a bucket). Not for me...

Favourite songs: Gideon, Off the Record

Least favourite songs: Wordless Chorus, Into the Woods

2/5

Sounds like if Bob Dylan got into modern indie folk. It's like Dylan mixed with The Lumineers.

Favourite songs: Rough Going (I Won't Let Up), In a Black Out, You Ain't That Young Kid, When the Truth Is..., A 1000 Times, Sick as a Dog

Least favourite songs: The Morning Stars, 1959

4/5

It's like if someone who made house music paired up with Beyonce for an album.... Electronic R&B I guess you could call the genre? I don't hate it.

Favourite songs: Moonsglow, Give It Back, Love You More, Haiti

Least favourite songs: Parkway

3/5

Nothing special here. Sounds like every other alt rock band from the 90's.

Favourite songs: Stars, I'd Like Your Hair Long, The Pod

Least favourite songs: The Very Old Man

3/5

I'm going to treat this album a bit differently because of the consequences surrounding its existance. Because of that, I won't bother stating favourite or least favourite songs, because this album is greater than the sum of its parts... This is an instrumental hip hop album. Its 43 minutes long, and features 31 songs. This leads to a whole cocophony of songs that feel like ideas moreso than tracks. It's like hip hop's version of a punk record. There is an unfortunate reason for this though. This is J-Dilla's last record he made before he died. It was actually released 3 days before his death. Dude was suffering with thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP) and Lupus, and mixed this album while in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (an insane feat, and just shows how much the guy was dedicated to his craft. He had something to say before he left, and this album is it). That said, I get that since his days were numbered, he didn't have the health or time to develop the songs, so it's really unfortunate. What this man did with his remaining days though is insane. There are some neat concepts here.

I feel the same way about this album as I do about Gord Downie's last album, Introduce Yerself. Gord wrote it while dying of cancer, and it was released after his death. It was also a compilation of unfinished concept ideas. In Gord's case, it was more a collection of goodbye letters to everyone he loved (each song was dedicated to someone special in his life).

These kinda albums are so emotionally charged that they are hard to digest sometimes. Each deathbed album created by an artist is special for more reasons than just the music featured between the covers. That is why I am not picking apart tracks to vote for my favourite or least favourite one. At the end of the day, on this kinda album, it doesn't matter. I appreciate J Dilla for what he did for hip hop, and the work he put in and the message he conveyed on this album.

3/5.... Fuck Lupus

Stellar album. Produced by Alan Parsons. Sounds like The Beatles/Crosby Stills Nash & Young/America. Really solid British pop/folk rock from the 70's.

Favourite songs: Sand in Your Shoes, Lord Grenville, Year of the Cat, If It Doesn't Come Naturally Leave It, On the Border, Midas Shadow, Flying Sorcery, Broadway Hotel, Belsize Blues

Least favourite songs: Song on the Radio

5/5

Thank you to the OP for finally proving that not all music from Scotland is complete shit. Up until this point, Country of Origin for a band being Scotland was a guaranteed 1-2 star dumpster fire. I'm glad to finally hear some solid music coming out of the country.

These guys sound like a mix of Foo Fighters, Jimmy Eat World, and Panic! at the Disco. Really solid!!

Favourite songs: Semi-Mental, Saturday Superhouse, Love Has a Diameter, Who's Got a Match?, Folding Stars, The Conversation Is..., Get Fucked Stud, 9/15ths, A Whole Child Ago, Living is a Problem Because Everything Dies, Machines, As Dust Dances

Least favourite songs: none. Absolutely fantastic album!!

5/5

This band reminds me a lot of Passenger. Indie folk that leans hard towards heavy, dark topics. These guys have a way of making jovial music about depressing topics though for the most part. I really enjoyed this album. I'd never heard of Bright Eyes before, but will definately check out more of their stuff. Thanks for the recommendation!

Favourite songs: Another Travelin' Song, First Day of My Life, Land Locked Blues, Old Soul Song (for the New World Order), At the Bottom of Everything, Train Under Water, We Are Nowhere and it's Now, Poison Oak, Road to Joy

Least favourite songs: none... This album is perfect!!

5/5

France's Frank Sinatra. Solid.

Favourite songs: Toi Et Tes Yeux D'enfant, Le Jour Se Leve, Je T'aimais Tant, Tu T'amuses, Chaque Fois Que J'aime, Quand J'en Aurai Assez, Que C'est Triste Venise, Le Temps, Hier Encore

Least favourite songs: Il Te Suffisiat Que Je T'aime

4/5

Welsh psychadelic folk..... Three words I never thought I'd utter together in a sentence, but here we are.... These guys definately took too much of the blue acid..... It's like a day at the hippie love-in.....

Favourite songs: Meirion Wyllt, Patio Song, Heywood Lane, Diamond Dew, Sometimes the Father is the Son

Least favourite songs: The Barafundle Bumbler, Miniature Kingdom

3/5

A very interesting mix of indie, R&B, pop, and rap. I hated it at first because of the over-produced, modern sound to the album, but the more I listened, the more it grew on me. All in all, not terrible.

Favourite songs: Repeat, Left Alone, Sweetheart, December, Head Over Heels, 13, Wolf

Least favourite songs: Hollywood/My Way

3/5

Really solid early 80's hip hop. I recognized that My Melody was sampled in the Limp Bizkit song My Way. Also, Eminem sampled lyrics from the song As the Rhyme Goes On in his song "The Way I Am".

Favourite songs: I Know You Got Soul, I Ain't No Joke, Eric B. is President, Paid In Full, Eric B. is on the Cut, My Melody

Least favourite songs: Move the Crowd

5/5

Solid new wave, but not Depeche Mode's best. Still, solid music

Favourite songs: New Dress, Breathing in Fumes, Fly on the Windscreen, Stripped, A Question of Time, Black Celebration

Least favourite songs: It Doesn't Matter Two, World Full of Nothing, Black Day

4/5

Favourite songs: One Armed Scissor, Arcarsenal, Pattern Against User, Mannequin Republic, Invalid Litter Dept., Enfilade

Least favourite songs: Non-Zero Possibility, Catacombs

4/5