Reviews by galway_rat

HL: "GET FREE", "Sunshinin", "In the Jungle", "1969"

🎶I’m sure, I’ve heard it all before, but I don’t really give a shit

Can we have 3 five-stars in a row?
(Checks to see Limp Bizkit is next)
fuck

I’m serious, if this is on the list because it’s important to early 2000s rock and sold a bajillion copies, then Nickelback’s Silver Side Up has the same right to be here

Not totally unredeemable, but the best tracks were the ones that made me forget I was listening to a Limp Bizkit record

HL: “My Way”, “Hold On”, “Rollin’ (Urban Assault Vehicle)”

December 5, 2023

Neil Young #4
and this might be recency bias, but if this list could only have one Young/Crazy Horse I’d probably choose this one

Tracks 3-5 together are a real Canadian rock powerhouse (recorded in California, yadda yadda, give us this please)

Thought the sad-sack performance of “Oh Lonesome Me” was uncharacteristic until I realized it was a cover. Still really like the song

An all-weather classic

HL: “Tell Me Why”, “Only Love Can Break Your Heart”, title track, “Southern Man”, “Oh Lonesome Me”, “I Believe in You”

December 4, 2023

There are only 4 songs I haven’t heard yet from this album, and of those 4 “Mercy Street” was the most welcome surprise, followed by the opener “Red Rain” and the spacey interlude “We Do What We’re Told”.

If I have to say “That Voice Again” and the hyper-80’s-pop of “Big Time” are the weakest cuts, that’s another way of saying that there are no weak cuts to be found here.

HL: “Don’t Give Up”, “Mercy Street”, “Sledgehammer”, “In Your Eyes”, “This is the Picture”

December 3rd, 2023

December 2, 2023

HL: “Supreme I Preme”, "Sunday Shining", "Even After All"

Like the guy's voice, and where some of the reggae/electronic was going but ultimately this felt like a lot of nice filler

2.5

December 1, 2023

HL: “Moon in June”, “Out-Bloody-Rageous”

Kind of as a counterpoint to another reviewer, the song order works for me because the spacey loops in the last track are a cool bookend to the atonal electronics in the first.
Aggression slowly gives way to serenity

I appreciated the book’s insight of the members of Soft Machine wanting to make “serious” music, to Robert Wyatt’s displeasure

Though people who don’t like jazz or prog will likely find this interminable… I probably should have a copy/paste of “Wow I liked this more than I expected” for every new prog band I come across on this list.

3 Nick Caves in a month after ~600 albums without him, better late than never I guess

In the first 3 songs, I couldn’t decide whether this was going to be a 5 or a 1 star. Lyrics are certainly grisly and profane, yet there’s something admirable about the stubborn commitment to the titular murder ballads. Will need more time to process, but loved much about the music, even though the over-the-top morbidity of the lyrics started to wear me down.

Highly recommend listening after dark

HL: “The Curse of Millhaven”, “Henry Lee”, “Wild Roses”, “Song of Joy”

3* or 1* or 5*

November 29, 2023

Morrissey albums this year: 3
Morrissey albums this month: 2
The Smiths albums this year: 0

Good thing this album is good, otherwise I'd be right annoyed

Stephen Street definitely produced the f*** out of this, but then you get neat diversions like the orchestra in "Angel Angel Down We Go Together" and the new wave dance of "I Don't Mind if You Forget Me"

HL: "Late Night Maudlin Street", "Everyday is Like Sunday", "Alsatian Cousin", "Treat Me Like a Human Being", "Margaret on the Guillotine"

November 28, 2023

Sylvia Plath: lives a short, tragic, yet ultimately influential life

Ryan Adams: would that I could fuck her

HL: “Kinky Afro”, “Bob’s Yer Uncle”, “Loose Fit”, “Donovan”

Bad album name

File this under my “big dumb fun” albums. Which is to say I didn’t need it today, but I might need it down the road.
Music video for “Kinky Afro” added to the positive experience

3.5

November 26, 2023

HL: title track, “New Kid in Town”, “Life in the Fast Lane”, “Victim of Love”, “Try and Love Again”

I’ve been craving some cheese, and here you are

Prefer the rockier songs (bar “New Kid” and maybe “Wasted Time”), though I can go for an Eagles ballad generally speaking. “Desperado” anyone?

November 25, 2023

That Scott 2 did well commercially and Scott 4 bombed… that’s injustice

For album #600, we got some country and/or western!

Production dates it, not as much as (for instance) the synths in I’m Your Man by Leonard Cohen.
Fortunately, I kinda like how the sampled beats in a song like “Tragedy” meshes with the more rootsy song structure, as it doesn’t totally wash away the acoustic elements, nor is it so prominent that it sounds like a remix.

I appreciate that Harris wasn’t interested in making a strait-laced country record at this point in her career, so I’d say the late-90s relics are part of the experience.

Finally, on the subject of production, it’s important for me to share that this album’s producer belonged to a Toronto synth-pop band, Boys Brigade, whose song “Melody” played all the time on the radio during my childhood 🇨🇦

HL: “Michelangelo”, title track, “My Baby Needs a Shepherd”, “Bang the Drum Slowly”, “My Antonia”

And “Melody” by Boys Brigade

November 23, 2023

HL: "Stop Your Sobbing", "Brass in Pocket", “Kids”, “Phone Call”

Hm, there's both a harder edge absent from their radio hits as well as the jangly pop they're known & loved for

Neat-o

November 22, 2023

HL: “Music Makes You Lose Control”, “About Funk”, “Sometimes” feat. Nik Kershaw, “Mdc Vendredi”

Supposedly 80s revivalist, but also sounds like it could only have been produced in 1999

I’d say this album is 1 part banger : 1 part forgettable : 1 part obnoxious garbage
Even one of my favourite tracks, “About Funk”, needs half its runtime to become good

I feel like I’d be less annoyed if it was an album excised from current editions of the book, like MJ Cole’s Sincere, & Justin Timberlake’s solo debut. The fact that it’s still considered essential listening is the real headscratcher

November 21st, 2023

ayo, first Bad Seeds album, let's go my dudes!
(jk I know this is a very sad album)
I held off on diving into Nick Cave's discography for so long because I knew there'd be a bunch of his stuff on this list.
This is the one I cared about listening to the most, as I've already heard a couple tracks and was taken by the analog synths and emotion involved.

Both cinematically grand and painfully intimate.
One of the lines that hit the hardest for me was at the end of the title track, where he wearily concludes: "the moon won't get a wink of sleep / if I stay all night and talk"

My Nick Cave knowledge now mainly consists of this, that song from Deathly Hallows Pt. 1, & the abrasive Birthday Party record. What an introduction

HL: "Hollywood", "Night Raid", "Sun Forest", "Spinning Song", "Galleon Ship", title track

less pop and more menace than the last Banshees (Juju), but much of what I'd liked in their performances is also present in this debut.
Catchy bass. Theatrical vocals. sp00kiness.

HL: "Carcass", "Helter Skelter", "Switch", "Jigsaw Feeling", "Hong Kong Garden" (bonus track technically)

November 20th, 2023

HL: "For Heaven's Sake", "It's Easy to Remember", "I'll Be Around", "I'm a Fool To Want You"

November 19th, 2023

November 17th, 2023 (later)

Three stars for the audacity, though it’s starting to feel like The Fall is a British joke I’m too Canadian to understand.

HL: “Why Are People Grudgeful”, “League Moon Monkey Mix”, “Lost in Music”, “I’m Going to Spain”

HL: title track, “Gold”, “Cold World”, “4th Chamber”, “Investigative Reports”, “Swordsman”

One of my earliest albums on this list, Wu-Tang’s debut, got a wan 3 stars from me. While I still feel a bit out of my element listening to them, I’ve come around to enjoying pretty much every track from that album, going so far as to see the Wu Tang live when they rolled into town.
I remember thinking, man that GZA has a cool, calm presence (and also, maybe a bit tired), and also I’d like to hear more of his stuff.
Enter Liquid Swords! Compared to the other spin-off I’ve heard, “…Cuban Linx”, it’s more serious & less braggadocious, and combined with RZA’s hypnotic soundscapes, it just works better for me.
“Swordsman” isn’t my favourite song lyrically, but it might have my favourite sample on the whole album.

November 16th, 2023