Reviews by funny_character

Despite the pretty dated sound palette, a lot of Kraftwerk's music from the '70s has something kind of timeless about it. I think some of their earlier stuff has managed to age well in particular. The Man Machine does wear its age a *little*, but it has an excuse. This was sort of a break-out for Kraftwerk, and has proven to be *very* influential. The Man Machine adapts their earlier experiments with electronic music and synthesizer melodies into a collection of pop songs, ready for the dancefloor, or even the radio. It's the sound of a band growing comfortable within their sound, and pushing admirably into a new frontier. And I'll say, in its own weird, robotic way, this thing grooves. I don't know what this even means really, but the music here makes me want to dance like a funky little puppet. On side one, The Robots, Spacelab, and Metropolis are all true blue dance music. And we kick off side two with The Model, which is a *real* pop song, it is everything great about Kraftwerk, jammed into a digestible 3-ish minutes. We have like two or three *infectious* synth-lines across this song. It manages to perfectly convey both the glamour of the song's protagonist, and the satirical bitterness with which she is presented (check out Big Black's fascinating cover of this song too, it *really* works).After this, Neon Lights is not necessarily a favorite of mine, but it's undeniably impressive. And we close with the title track, which *is* a favorite of mine. Something weird I noticed while listening is how much the synth tones remind me of (specifically) Sega Genesis music. I'd say this is a good thing, generally; besides, this predates that by like 15 years, so this was still unquestionably ahead of its time. I maybe appreciate this more than I enjoy listening to it, but this *is* a good album, with some timeless tracks, and synth tones that still manage to conjure up a certain image of the future.

While the 80s aesthetic here is pretty dated, Tina Turner is still pretty incredible as a vocalist. Even though I'm not in love with the full picture here, I think it was objectively a successful way for Tina Turner to revitalize her career. It's simple, her soulful vocals are put on slick 80s pop songs, and you don't really need more than that. Like there were literally 7 singles off this thing, that's over half the album. In retrospect, there are some better and worse songs here. I can't stand the rain is particularly successful, the huge 80s drama is sold really well. I also really liked the title track, a seven minute long song from the perspective of a saddened, desperate sex worker; which was written by Mark Knopfler (he thought it was a song better sung by a woman, I think he should've went for it myself, but whatever). Tina Turner injects it with a power and resilience that makes the song a more rich, complex portrait than it would have been. There are also some interesting covers here. The cover of Help (by long forgotten underground legends, The Beatles), which is compelling, but a long ways from The Beatles' little musical cul-de-sac. Her cover of Bowie's 1984 is a little more faithful, and also compelling. This album is let down a little by being a product of its time. However, Tina Turner herself manages to hold it together with her incredible vocal talents.

One of my slightly hot takes on Radiohead has long been that The Bends is a little overrated. Although, I think I can kind of see what its staunchest defenders see. The Bends is a unique transitional album for Radiohead, it captures a moment in time when they still had a foot in alt-rock and Brit-pop, but at the same time, the other foot was drifting into the heady, arty, forward thinking direction they would become known for shortly afterwards. The result is an album which retains accessibility and pop potential at most times, but which also isn't afraid to annihilate the boundaries of its base genres. And I'm not sure that anyone else has mutated hard-edged Brit-pop so deeply while retaining its core identity since. And this creates some really excellent music at times. The run of the first four songs on this album, from Planet Telex through Fake Plastic Trees is one of the strongest runs in Radiohead's discography. Although, I think Radiohead stumble a little bit on Bones and don't fully regain their footing until Bullet Proof... I wish I Was. But in between we still have some great moments. Like on My Iron Lung, which is one of the most alt-rock songs here. But when we hit Bullet Proof... Radiohead fully lock in and give a fragile, and incredibly beautiful performance. And they keep the momentum up. Black Star and Sulk are also beautiful (and very sad) in their own right. And if it feels like we are kind of building towards something, it's because we are. We close with Street Spirit (Fade Out), a bold and fascinating move that makes The Bends very soundly stick the landing. On an album with so many little positive, accessible streaks, ending with Street Spirit is a *statement*. This is one of Radiohead's coldest, darkest songs *ever*, and it seems to signify that Radiohead have finished their metamorphosis into the band that was about to record Ok Computer. I enjoyed The Bends a lot more than I thought. There is material here that is on par with Radiohead's best, and while they can't keep consistent the *whole* way, the missteps are all at least good songs. Even if you don't like Radiohead, consider giving this a listen, it's just different enough from what is thought of as their regular fare, by capturing a very particular moment in Radiohead's history, that it has something exciting and unique about it.

In the world of prog rock, "irritating" and "actually really cool" are close bedfellows. And I don't think any album illustrates this more clearly than Fragile by Yes. The highs of this album are high enough that it really feels like the lows are an intentional decision to not make good music. To explain the structure of this album a little, there are basically 3 huge, epic songs, all of which incredible centerpieces: there is one complete, structured song that's a more manageable three minutes. But the other 5 songs, stringing everything together are all short sketches and experiments, each recorded solo by one of the band members. These songs are really a mixed bag. We start with Roundabout, a momentous accomplishment: prog at its coolest, and rocking a hell of a baseline. But then, we immediately follow it with Cans And Brahms, keyboardist Rick Wakeman's solo contribution to the album. It is an arrangement of several Brahms excerpts and easily the most deeply obnoxious moment on the project. This is prog is all of its stupidest glory, it gives goofy high fantasy vibes and I hate listening to it. Just two songs later, South Side Of The Sky even does the neo-classical thing a lot better, and that song is amazing, veering into the most atmospheric tendencies from classical music. *And* immediately after Cans And Brahms we get We Have Heaven from Jon Anderson, which is a much better little experiment. It has the cadence of like a sea shanty and the vocal layering is great. Then at the start of side two we get stupid again. Bruford's Five Per Cent For Nothing almost works, but it *is* obnoxious. Although it is a brief 37 seconds, which saves it a little. But it is followed by Long Distance Runaround, which I know is well-loved, but to me it just kind of sounds like Thomas The Tank Engine, and I can't explain it. The Fish and Mood For A Day both work, then we close with Heart Of The Sunrise. A really great song, it reminds me of the break in 21st Century Schizoid Man sometimes, and at other times it reminds me of Words by Neil Young. Regardless of this, it very much works. There are some great songs here, and at its best, Fragile embodies the best of prog, but it also indulges in the worst.

I've heard this album talked up quite a bit, and while I don't fully get the hype, yet at least, I did enjoy this quite a bit. Here we have a combination of alt-rock, brit-pop, psych, house, and maybe even a little folk all mutated together and packaged for the '90s. I will admit that the sound here is pretty unique, and every song manages to hit a particular tone and kind of summery atmosphere out of the water. But this formula does mean that I think this album lacks a little cohesion on some level. It also means that there are songs here I'm just not into. But there's still cool stuff here. I think the first 5 songs are pretty tight, and probably the best showing overall. We have the bright, folk-y Movin' On Up, and some moments of almost trip-hoppy psych on Higher Than The Sun and Inner Flight. I'm not that into Loaded or Damaged, and I'm still undecided about Come Together, but we *do* have a good three song run to close things out. Like I said, I don't fully get the hype, but there's a lot of good here. It captures a different kind of '90s hit than we were really seeing at this time. I think there's like a Pitchfork review that claimed that this was the Yin to Nirvana's Yang. And I don't entirely see it, but it frames this in an interesting way.

There feels like there should be some cool stuff here, but it never really materializes for reasons directly connected to the cultural web of shit Duck Rock is embroiled in. From the research I've done, it truly seems that anyone unfortunate enough to interact with Malcolm McLaren feels slighted in one way or another. If you just give his wikipedia article a brief look, it seems that nearly every band who he was involved with felt mismanaged. He's not even a musician really, he's a businessman, an organizer and a curator, which is admittedly a kind way to put it. And this is his debut album. I think he does some vocals here, but aside from that, I don't think he contributes a whole lot. It feels like a DJ Khaled situation, where it's more that he uses his money and industry status to summon talented artists into a room together to make music for him. And that's on the songs where he isn't just ripping songs by African artists wholesale, slapping some percussion on them, and yelling a little (I'm not even sure if he's doing the yelling). Like even on "original" composition Buffalo Gals, someone else programmed the drums, scratched the records, and recorded a lot of vocals. And his part, as far as I can tell, is just yelling out squaredance calls. I even found an interview with Trevor Horn in which he describes the process of physically forcing McLaren to stay on beat to just record *this*. In fact, more often than not, it doesn't even feel like McLaren's really doing much that's transformative at all. Which compounds with the fact that this album was created without any attention given to ethics. McLaren manages to exploit the African artists he samples, the American hip hop artists he was working tangential to, and probably the studio musicians he gathered to pull it together. And just to set ethics aside for a second, he exploits hip hop for the first three songs, and it doesn't sound bad, all things considered. But then he turns to world music, and his laziness really hurts the album. The majority of Duck Rock feels directionless and sloppy. Who would have thought that when you rip a bunch of songs from people without doing anything transformative, the "collage" approach doesn't really work. Nothing is incorporated with anything else, a cohesive picture never forms. And any goodwill I feel towards this project isn't due to the contributions of McLaren. This has the distinction of being one of the albums to introduce Hip Hop to The UK, so it's place in the history books is set. But, even though I didn't hate listening to it, I'd honestly rather just check out the artists featured and sampled. Artists like The World Famous Supreme Team, Boyoyo Boys, Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens, The Roan Mountain Hilltoppers and any other uncredited contributors to Duck Rock. I'm not feeling particularly kind to McLaren: this just feels lazy, and we know he knew what he was doing, because he did it with punk a decade earlier.

Even if I shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, I see no reason not to judge a cover by it's cover. And the cover for Wish You Were Here is among the most striking and beautiful *ever*. Tender and earnest, but presented in a way that makes it appear deeply uncanny, solid 5/5.

But now let's talk about the album.

You can find literally any opinion possible published on the topic of Pink Floyd's run from Dark Side to The Wall. "Dark Side is overrated" "Wish You Were Here is Underrated" is just the start of it. Wish You Were Here has been underrated so long that it may technically be overrated now??? Then that may make Dark Side underrated. Then Animals is underrated, and The Wall was overrated, but now it isn't? Point is that these albums have been talked about to death, and I don't think it's possible to be underrated when a part of one of the most well-loved string of albums ever. But also, I'm pretty sure that doesn't really matter. For my money, Wish You Were Here is my favorite Pink Floyd album. Spacier than Dark Side, more compact than The Wall, and more personal than Animals, Wish You Were Here occupies a particular space. And while it's certainly not the most ambitious album in the run, I think it may be the most flawless. I can poke holes in the other 3, in fact, even though I love it, The Wall is *messy*. Wish You Were Here also holds the distinction of being the saddest album in the run, in my opinion at least. For those who somehow don't know, the legend goes that this album was chiefly inspired by Pink Floyd being visited in their studio by a disheveled, mentally absent incarnation of their former band member Syd Barrett. And if the material on here is any indication, the experience seems to have really weighed on them. In fact, reading the lyrics here, and even just listening to these songs, (with the exception of the funky, sarcastic takedown of sleazy music execs on Have A Cigar, which is as good as anything else on here) almost any song here can be read as a eulogy for the still living Barrett. Maybe most literally on Welcome To The Machine, the only song here that just *may* be underrated. The lyrics blatantly read like an "In Memorium", and the music, courting both coldness and triumph, sells the weight immaculately. Shine On You Crazy Diamond, cleaved into two bookends spells it out in its title. It's a celebration of someone flawed, misunderstood, and ultimately doomed to burn out quietly. It is also a piece of expansive, gorgeous space rock, which manages to justify its staggering runtime. And, for last, I have saved the title track. Wish You Were Here is one of Pink Floyd's warmest, most poignant moments. It is absolutely heartbreaking if you let it be. And it has been rightly celebrated amongst the band's strongest material for a hot minute. From start to end, Wish You Were here is beautiful and compelling. I really do think it's nearly flawless. It's just this perfect little gem that feels divorced from Pink Floyd's In-fighting, their fall from grace, and even, to an extent, its contemporary canon. It just feels like the band simply made an unspoken agreement that nothing could be as important as celebrating their friend, if only for an album's worth of time, and it has given Wish You Were Here a heat-shield of raw humanity. Truly beautiful.

This is of spectacular importance to jazz history, but I just think it's pretty good. This is basically a collection of 78 rpm singles recorded by Miles Davis and a large, revolving cast of musicians. Considering this, Birth Of The Cool sounds very cohesive. At The End Of The Day, these are songs from the same era, with the same sound, and similar artistic mission statements. The singles chosen for this record are Miles Davis' earliest cool jazz recordings. Cool Jazz being a post-WW2 movement slowing bebop down, making it a little more accessible, and adding some new instrumentation. This album in particular is renowned for its unusual instrumentation, the inclusion of French Horn and Tuba being of particular note. The compositional style on here is also noteworthy. These songs all hover around 3 minutes (or shorter) pretty consistently, which was kind of out of necessity, given that they were originally on 78 rpms. But it does give Birth Of The Cool a really interesting brevity. It also showcases all the improvisation and density associated with jazz music in fascinating little bite-sized packages. But, for all of the interesting things about this album, I just liked it, I didn't love it. I enjoyed my time here, and can appreciate the listening experience from a perspective of historical significance, I just don't think I'm that into cool jazz. It's easy and breezy, almost to a fault. I think I just like my jazz to hurt at least a *little* bit more. But this is coming from an Ornette Coleman fan, so keep that in mind. Regardless, this was an interesting, quick, and broadly enjoyable listen. And if you really know your jazz, I'm sure you'll be more into it than I am.

Cool rock music from the lesser known corners of the 2000s garage rock scene. It’s got what you want, the riffs, the songs, the performances, but I just don’t know if it can stand up to the scene’s legends. But I am glad I heard it. I will note that the production here is kind of unique, so it does stand out of a crowd. A couple of favorites are Zuton Fever, Pressure Point, and Dirty Dancehall, but the country leaning stuff here is also largely cool. Probably not essential, but very cool! And I’ll leave it at that.

Before this, I knew precisely one song form Aladdin Sane, the title track. Which I bring up just so I can emphasize how weird it is that the cover of this album may be the most iconic image of Bowie *ever*. I don't think this is one of the 5 most discussed Bowie albums, and I'm *pretty* sure it barely cracks the top ten. I'm not even really sure if it has any hits. Alas, it does have this one little undeniable cultural win, which is good for Aladdin Sane. That being said, after listening through Aladdin Sane, I could do to hear a little more love for it. This was released during Bowie's classic era, and it sounds the part. The problem here isn't even really Aladdin Sane's fault. It follows Ziggy Stardust, it would have almost been impossible to truly one up it. But, while this isn't quite as immaculate as Ziggy, the highs are still very much here, and the consistency is close. The songs I'm not that into here aren't even bad, they're just not as interesting as the strongest cuts. In my eyes, these lowpoints are largely the more straightforward rock tracks, in particular The Jean Genie and Watch That Man. Also, The Prettiest Star, which I'm just not sure drives its concept home. That being said, everything else here is a mix of fascinating experimentation, marvelously executed theatrics, and classic Bowie songsmanship. Songs like Aladdin Sane, Lady Grinning Soul, and Let's Spend The Night Together are driven by Mike Garson's ingenious piano playing which fades into and out of really fascinating freeform, almost avant-garde tendencies. He gives this album a character that remains distinct in Bowie's catalog. On the other end, Panic In Detroit and Cracked Actor are two more rockin' cuts that really work for me. Enough Bowie is injected to give them some real character. Lastly, Drive-In Saturday and Time are some of this album's moments of high drama. And it works incredibly well for both of them. Drive-In Saturday captures the spirit of Ziggy moreso than any other song here. And Time is Bowie at his most theatrical. If this kind of thing were attempted by anyone else, it would be unbearable. But Bowie's raw magnetism and ear for arrangement turns this into one of the best songs of the album. A little less even-keeled than Ziggy, Aladdin Sane forges it's own path. It embraces unique textures and ideas and delivers a collection of great Bowie tunes in the process. It isn't perfect, but sometimes "very very good" is enough.

Pearl Jam’s Ten Or How I Learned Stop Worrying And Love Eddie Vedder’s Drawl.

I’ve never been as into Pearl Jam as I have been into the three other biggest grunge bands (Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Alice In Chains). To me, it seemed like Pearl Jam kind of bring out some of the country influence that the other bands in the scene seemed to flirt with. But consequently, it felt like they lacked some of the sludgy riffs, punk spirit, and queasy darkness that underscored the rest of the scene and really drew me in. While I still kind of feel this way, I get country now, and can appreciate that there’s more to Pearl Jam than I originally thought. For a band that was so small and young at the time, they really had a great sense for songwriting. When I looked down the track list, I realized I was intimidately familiar with 5 of the 11 songs here, just from hit status, rock radio, and pop culture. I can look past the overplayed status of songs like Alive, Jeremy, and Even Flow, and see the great tunes at their hearts which got them overplayed in the first place. As far as the other hits here go, Once is one of the harder rocking songs on here. And Black is beautiful and sort of haunting, one of Grunge’s best acoustic ballads ever. I was honestly surprised that the deep cuts here are also good. Why Go, Porch, Deep and Release punch with the other rock songs here. Oceans is more nuanced, and atmospheric. And Garden is one of my favorite songs here full stop, embodying a darker, more ominous tone than the rest of the album. I even learned to love (or at least cope with) Eddie Vedder’s distinct vocals, which I know turn a lot of people away from Pearl Jam. Yes, he spends more time drawling incoherently than saying actual words, but at least he’s got some style. His biggest crime is honestly making a generation of post grunge guys think that they were also allowed to do this kind of thing. Overall, I’d still say that this isn’t a favorite of mine as far as grunge goes. But I’ve learned to really love this album on its own terms in a way that I didn’t think I could.

This is kind of interesting but deeply flawed. This is basically a narrative spoken word/UK rap concept album/opera. The plot of A Grand Don't Come For Free is that our hero, Mike has a shitty day, culminating in him losing 1000 British Pounds. And on his quest to get it back, he falls in love, attempts sports betting, falls out of love, gets drunk, falls in love again, and more. The sound of this thing is kind of a mixed bag. First, the beats are generally good, if a little clunky. One of my favorites is the beat on Blinded By The Lights. Now, moving past that, let's discuss the real sticking point for a lot of people, the delivery and lyrics. The Streets' delivery is kind of baffling here. I said this was a rap and spoken word album, but I'd really like to emphasize the spoken word aspect. In fact, it's almost all spoken word. The delivery is low energy and conversational, and the flow is choppy and weird, which comes across as clunky. The lyrics are also weird, instead of more conventional hip hop poetics, the skew here is towards *very* literal storytelling, which again is clunky at times. And, this all compounds with the occasionally clunky beats. The overall project is so clunky, it's almost *blocky*. Like it damn near sounds stylized. And I could imagine this being a draw for *someone* but I'm just usually not into it. Although this has some positives, mostly related to the narrative and storytelling. The "common man's adventure" slant really adds something weirdly relatable. Like there's a mundanity here, but it very much works in favor of the album. And something else interesting about the narrative is how, without thinking, 1000 pounds, doesn't *feel* like that much money. But, really, most people wouldn't bounce back easily if they lost it. Like, I certainly just couldn't shrug off 1000 dollars. And the presentation of this idea almost gets to a kind of class consciousness that was pretty cool. I will also say that I liked the ending. The final song of this album has two endings to the story. First, we are presented with an ending where Mike is overcome with bitterness and gets into a fight with the TV repairman without learning a damn thing. But then we are shown another world in which he makes up with his friends, and they open up the TV themselves, discovering that the 1000 pounds fell into it. It's kind of obvious, but the presentation of it genuinely feels kind of sweet and I had a good emotional payoff even though I didn't love this whole album. Like I said, this is interesting but *deeply* flawed. And while I didn't love it, I am glad I heard it. And I am excited to hear more music by The Streets. I could even see this growing on me a little. But as of now, I just can't see myself giving this any higher than a 2.

This isn't exactly a new take, but wow this is smooth, and so sensual it's *almost* funny. But consistent songcraft and quality performances keep this ball of sex and grooves from falling apart. And the result is great, check out ...Til The Cops Come Knocking, it exemplifies everything this album succeeds at. My only real complaint is that it's a little long winded for what it is, but there aren't really any songs that are a total failure, so I'd really need to think about what would have to be cut. While I'm complaining, I must also say that, as a lesbian, the sex appeal of Maxwell is somewhat wasted on me, but that's not his fault. Plus, even if it isn't necessarily for me, the atmosphere here is kind of transcendent. This is really solid stuff, while listening to this I kind of learned that Maxwell seems sort of overshadowed by D'angelo, and from this album I couldn't quite figure out why. And, while I learned it's because Maxwell's career consistency isn't quite there, Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite stands strongly on its own as a self-contained statement.

Perhaps most well known for Smooth, which is a song that people who actually lived through the '90s seem to hate: Santana is a guitar God, and Abraxas erases any doubt of that. Here, we have a particularly exciting fusion of Latin rock and jazzy psychedelia. I'm honestly most into the more abstract cuts here: Singing Winds/Crying Beasts, Incident At Neshabur, Se A Cabo, Black Magic Woman, and to an extent, Mother's Daughter. These songs all showcase Santana's ingenius, atmospheric and tastefully restrained guitar playing. I would also like to make note of the spectacular percussion across these songs, which I think is consistently underrated. Of these songs, the atmosphere on Singing Winds... is incredible and kicks things of right. Black Magic Woman is an inspired cover of a Fleetwood Mac song, and Santana really emphasizes the spacey, mystical qualities of the original composition. Incident... is the album's jazziest moment, and Se A Cabo may be the single best rhythm performance on the whole album, sounding precise and dizzying. In a very different way, I also love Oye Como Va, which is an incredibly fun song, it makes me want to get up and groove. Out of what's left, El Nicoya is brief, but very good. And I like Samba Pa Ti, and Hope You're Feeling Better, but I've not decided how much I like them compared to the rest of the album. That being said, the whole package here is awesome, this is some incredibly unique rock from a very talented group of musicians. Also, the album art here is among the best, *ever*, just take it all in, holy shit.

At first, this may appear to be a collection of compellingly performed Blues standards, but I know know that most of the value of this record is in B.B. King's triumph of performance. This captures the magnetism of B.B. King as a performer, entertainer and even storyteller in a way that I'm not sure I've heard from another live album. Even the crowd noise reflects this, they are going *insane*, King clearly has them eating out of the palm of his hand. And I think his incredible musical performances are only half of it, the stage banter and chemistry on display here does so much for this album. I think this is best exemplified through the first 4 songs on Side A. King spends what would have been dead air between songs connecting the themes of the pieces, segueing, and addressing the audience. All while his band vamps, ready to hop in at a moment's notice. Honestly, this run kind of plays like a singular song. It really showcases how he uses the concert as its own art-form, with it's own, unique capacity for storytelling. Aside from his performance here, the selection of songs is great. A touch same-y, but he makes it work anyways. And it helps that the last track, Help The Poor, is one of the most unique pieces here. I don't listen to a ton of blues, and it's a genre that's kind of hit or miss when I *do* check it out, but B.B. King sells these songs like no other could, creating a truly great live album in the process.

I often see Surrealistic Pillow discussed as being one of the greatest albums of the whole '60s psychedelic counter culture scene, and I honestly think I see it. This is really a record that is more than the sum of its parts, and that I think really works best as a single work. The brightness of psychedelia meets the breeziness of folk music here, and a lot of these songs reflect this. The songs on here are largely brisk, occasionally even vignette-like, and it does really cool things for the pacing here, and helps the album maintain its kind of surreal, psychedelic tone. And speaking of this album's tone, it has something really unique going on. Little streaks of darkness manifest here, minor passages, oddly textured moments, and unusual lyrical ideas here help counter-balance the aforementioned brightness here, resulting in a more complex, mature sounding work. I honestly consider a lot of these songs to be among my favorites: She Has Funny Cars, Somebody To Love, Today, Comin' Back To Me, and D.C.B.A.-25. And let's not forget the ending here. White Rabbit is an iconic piece of Alice In Wonderland inspired psychedelia, and Plastic Fantastic Lover has some of the most interesting lyrical and textural work on the whole album. I will say, I'm not as into My Best Friend or 3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds, but they don't really get in the way of my enjoyment of this album. I can absolutely see why this is considered the cream of the crop of the San Fransisco psych scene. This album is fascinating, well written, and it's aged well to boot.

Guess who's back: Back again.

It's Elvis, he's back. Back from what you may ask? Mandatory service in The U.S. Army of course, which is as good a reason to slow your artistic output as any. But, as we've already established, Elvis is back, and he has approximately 31 minutes of new material to sustain his horde of admirers. If you've heard an Elvis song, you could probably tell me what this sounds like. Which isn't to say that this is bad, it's just that Elvis is so ingrained in music as a cultural reality that we have a Seinfeld syndrome situation. The 65 years since this came out saw music like Elvis, and the Rock and Roll that he was inspired by being built upon, mutated, stripped back, hardened, baked, fried, and boiled so many times, by so many people, and in so many different ways that I just can't really find Elvis' music exciting. That being said, for the rare situation in which I want to hear an Elvis song, any of these would do, but I just don't really need them *all* together as an album. I will say that Such A Night is unquestionably my favorite here, so I guess I advise you check it out first. But everything here is deeply "Elvis" as well. Basically, for better or worse, this is just 12 Elvis songs in a row, so your mileage may vary depending on your enthusiasm for the idea of listening to 12 Elvis songs in a row.

There's something about Coldplay's combination of mass appeal and melodrama that both made them a shorthand for sad songs in the 2000s, and makes them a target for easy bullying now. Coldplay is a punchline as often as they are a serious recommendation at this point, and 15 years or so of *very* mediocre music as of now isn't doing them any favors. But I must assume this empire was built on something, so I'm trying to go into A Rush Of Blood To The Head with an open mind. A lot of people really like this album, and this appears to be one of Coldplay's consensus best: there has to be *something* here. And I will say that we kick off with a pleasant surprise. Politik counterbalances Coldplay's aforementioned signature melodrama with some great tension, and the result is a pretty tasteful, enjoyable song. Although, unfortunately, In My Place sounds exactly like I expected, and much of the album follows suite. To mention the other positives, A Whisper is another song that gets the tension right. And The Scientist as well as the title track here dial Coldplay's sound in, and deliver some more intimate, earnest sounding music that I think really works. However, everything else suffers from being "sad" music that is for the widest audience possible. The emotional meat feels insubstantial, and impersonal, and everything is pasted over with, and I want to emphasize this one more time, oh *so* much syrupy melodrama, delivered through huge arrangements and overdone vocals. The result just usually sounds hollow to me. I actually think Clocks is one of the worst tracks here. Here's an exercise if you want to participate. Put on the beginning of Clocks while watching drone shots of any University. You will be *instantly* transported mentally into an advertisement. I get Coldplay on a few songs here, but so much of this is exactly what I expected. If this is just about Coldplay's best, I'd hate to hear their worst.

This was exactly what I needed after being assigned the 3 hour long Ella Fitzgerald box set yesterday (no offense Ella Fitzgerald). Sleater-Kinney deliver their riot grrl with all the conviction, power and righteous anger you could ask for. And they have kind of a unique niche in the genre, coming across with flavors of alt rock, noise pop, the punk-end of grunge and a little bit of straight rock and roll. The songs across this record embody this style from front to back, serving as a canvas upon which their lyrics can be painted. And the lyrics are compelling, it's the confrontational feminism you would expect from Riot Grrl, coupled with very personal subject matter. We cover the queer experience, heartbreak, invasion of privacy, gender stereotypes and more. Tucker and Brownstein both share vocal duties, and their passion and intensity comes through cleanly, reminding you that this is very much a punk album. This whole album is worth a listen, but at least be sure to scope out Dig Me Out and One More Hour.

I just received this mission.

196 minutes, 48 seconds huh. Let's see how we fare.

To be Frank, I will probably not listen to this in one sitting, but I think that's fine. I don't even think this was intended to be listened to in one sitting. It is an entire fucking box set, that is cleanly separated into discs. But I do intend to hear the whole thing. I suppose my "break glass in case of emergencies" is that the first 3 discs consist of the body of the material, but according to the wiki article, the rest is largely alt. takes and different mixes. So if I really need a break, I think I'll declare a success If I can at least make it through the first 3. See you on the other side.

Alright, I did make it through everything. The first thing I noticed is that the Spotify upload has the discs with a tracklist in an order different than what is cited on the wiki article, so I kind of resolved to just go through the whole thing. Second, I'm more sure than ever that this isn't even really an album. Like the format of this website's challenge fails to accommodate a project like this. Something that was never, *ever* intended to be consumed in one sitting. I think this is the kind of thing you would have bought, then you would have slapped one disc on every once in a while. Although I will say, digesting 196 minutes of '50s pop/vocal jazz does put you in a really unique space as a listener. I have never felt more like an archivist than I did during this. This project really does feel like something you are forced to contend with, and it almost feels like it's challenging you to find a way to present the, admittedly strong content here in a more digestible way. I think there is a really cool exercise in curation here. Spoiler alert, I'm giving this a 3, I'll talk more about that later though. But I think that if you went through this, picked the right songs and sequenced it right that you could pull a really fantastic 45 minutes out of this. The music itself here is generally cool, even though it's hard not to get a little tired of '50s pop over the course of the whole thing, unless you are a very particular kind of person. However, the performances by Ella Fitzgerald are spirited and charismatic, and the compositions by The Gershwins have such a classic sound. They are dated, but they are ultimately well written, classy tunes that aren't afraid to have some fun. And I'd be willing to bet that these performances are the defining interpretations of these songs. As for how to rate this, I'm a little torn. On one hand, this is an unceasing obelisk of pop music: an absolutely unmanageable volume of largely similarly textured and written songs. On the other hand, this was never intended to be consumed in the way that this challenge demands, and the magnitude of the achievement here is not lost on me. This is one of Fitzgerald's greatest accomplishments, and it is, at the end of the day, a *very* robust collection of very well written pop songs. As such, I'm playing it boring and splitting it down the middle, getting to the aforementioned 3. Definitely listen to this, just never in one sitting.