Reviews by giddy

Man, this guy's voice stinks. I mean, it certainly has a draw (or should I say drawl) to it that makes me keep listening, but only in a "can't look away from a car crash," sort of way. That being said, I still enjoyed my time here. I find this to be more monotonous than what I remember of Aha Shake Heartbreak, and the sound of garage rock revival bands I do like is absent more than that album, too, but there is just enough rocking southern anthems to keep me engaged, and I quite like the softer, almost folksier stuff, even if they are still going in too hard sometimes. A different singer and some better, more understandable lyrics and I think this band would've been just as critically liked as commercially. Not LOVED, just liked.

I almost like this a lot more than I actually do. It has great harmonies and melodic structure to put it among the greats, but there is a shallow softness to it that no doubt inspired acts like America to get together and truly embrace the sound arguably coined by this and some Byrds records. However, that just makes this album sound simple for the most part in retrospect. My favorite parts of this album are when Graham Nash comes on and delivers his more oddball tunes, as they have a unique style to them that feel like they inspired the twee sound of the 90s, but a lot of the album just feels like it is missing something. You may be thinking "Then listen to Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young,' but I already tried that one, and my opinions come out the same. It's decent, it has merit, but I don't think it stands up much against other '69 offerings, not that it was trying to do so in the first place.

Ice CUbe's flow and beats have assuredly taken influence from other west coast rappers at this point, and because of this influence Ice Cube's lyrics and flows feel punchier, more aggressive, on this album, and that alongside some great lyrics in the first half, it wouldn't be difficult to compare this to some of Public Enemy's best work! ...at first. Unfortunately, the album quickly devolves into having the same issues as his prior work: "Women suck and my life is monotonous." There are some new ideas here that keep things feeling fresh, and the beats are stellar, albeit homogenized, but after a while you start to realize that the album seems to lift every radical idea from an earlier, stronger hip hop album, and those influences become copy-and-paste jobs. It can be a good time in a bubble, but with any outside context this album loses a lot of its standing. It Was a Good Day stands out because it flips the script while still putting in everything Ice Cube is known to spit about, but the rest of the album doesn't follow suit, and you start to piece together why the album only had one hit of that magnitude.

Not so painful from its Oasis influences that the album falls into bottom of the barrel territory, but this album still suffers from being so incredibly dull and stereotypical, not to mention derivative of the rock sound that came from across the pond at the time, that it fails to have any memorable identity of its own. I couldn't tell you anything about the instrumentation, or Robbie Williams' voice. It'll always pick the route you expected melodically, it'll always hit you with the easiest rhymes, which leads to some truly terrible lyrics, and it'll always make you groan with each track, without fail.

Perhaps my mood is just improved from when I had to trudge through Orbital 2, or Brown Album, but seemingly controversially I found this album to be just barely better than its predecessor. I think that comes from far more engaging hooks that feel less "holier than thou" in their delivery, as well as just catching my attention for longer periods. However, Orbital still tries to fight these enjoyable aspects by creating songs that refuse to end filled with frankly obnoxious verbal interjections that don't pose the same intrigue or mystery as an act like Boards of Canada, nor does the album do anything interesting with these chilled out grooves, just letting them hang for multiple minutes with no variation to a degree where I can only imagine a listener is blown away if they are tripping in some other way. A build up to a climax is always great, but stop edging me Orbital, seriously. Your contemporaries are way better, and I really don't want to resort to faking it.

I thought from the album cover we were going to get something less psychedelic than their prior two albums, but save for some country influence that'll become a lot more apparent on the next album this is still pretty trippy at points. That means a lot of perfectly okay psychedelic rock songs that don't really do anything to blow me away, nor is there anything obviously poor. It's just another album from the era for me, and it is obvious at this point that most of the other rock groups from the time are outdoing the Byrds at what was originally their own game. It's alright, but as time passes and the necessary classics shift and change, this one fades from view.

This album is perhaps the most definitive evidence that despite the naysayers, Neil Young can absolutely sing, he just has a unique cadence as well as a roundabout way of getting across his emotions. This album is mostly just pretty, with hints of that regular ol' rock 'n' roll edge sprinkled throughout its short runtime, but I would call this album mostly a ballads album. Now, Young is talented when it comes to making those types of songs, and it is why I prefer his solo works over those with Crazy Horse, but I'll admit I was a tad fatigued by the sound, and was happy it ended pretty quickly. Otherwise, I could've seen this album not sitting with me quite as well, but instead I was happily whisked away into a somber lullaby, and when everything swelled into a climactic piano paring or even a rock song, it was all the more mesmerizing. I think it could just stand to cut some of the fat, such as the oddball finale, and I'd say the ballad after ballad approach can lead to the idea well feeling a tad dry, but this album still earns its title as one of Young's best, even if it isn't my favorite.

I was wondering what route this album would be going after the first song's big band, proto-ska, influence, and even after the album is over I'm wondering what was going on here. You have post-punk, garage rock type stuff, some pretty noisy, aggressive works (especially for 1978, holy cow!) and more jangle-y guitars like something outta Violent Femmes, it leads to a very versatile album, especially for the punk scene. It can still be pretty repetitive because of the amount of songs here, but I'm just impressed by the work involved here, and it leads to a pretty cool sounding album, especially, again, for 1978. No, Your Product is an awesome punk track.

Boy, what a bunch of quirky yet funky grooves, if only two extremely talented vocalists were attached to this, it would be better with actual lyrics. Shame no one was available.

Satire is a tricky topic, one that I have no right discussing, so I'll just avoid the slur can of worms that this album can be. Otherwise, this album just sounds like the guy who wrote the Toy Story soundtrack decided to make a bunch of Harry Nilsson-esque tunes, which is exactly what it is. That means there are some really pretty tunes, some songs that make you want to bob up and down, and a lot of songs that feel just like they could be played on a speaker and no one would bat an eye were they not paying attention to the lyrics. It's okay, dare I say pretty, but whenever I focus on Newman's voice something just bothers me. It isn't grating, per se, but it is lacking, and that fits for most of these songs, luckily, but thirteen tracks of it can be a bit much, even with how short it is. Still, nice enough, I suppose.

Lots of 80s for me lately, and that means that I'm starting to get a bit sick of the sound. Feels unfair to go into this album with those expectations, but I don't think it would've helped it much, any way, as the production is the culprit behind the murder of a lot of great melodies here. The songs have a good outline, a blueprint for something to be just weird enough to not appear on the top forty, but have more than a simple underground success, but decades later nothing pushes this over the mark for me. It just feels safe, and while Soul Mining was weird enough for its time, by '86 I think this album is just begging to enter the sound of a new era, but it must wait until the 90s to escape the fake sounding strings and repetitive choruses. It's an album with a lot of great moments, but they're buried, and you'll have to dig to get to them. Not to mention the fact that they're all in the A side, I wouldn't even bother with the back half.

A simply good album with songs that admittedly took some growing for me to appreciate, such as the extremely famous Running Up That Hill. The whole album does feel a bit of that 80s age, but it goes for a surreal tone just enough for it to stick out, especially how the instrumentals are a tad more sparse than your average 80s pop song. I think the album gets a little too full of itself during the back half, as while some great songs do still appear, the pseudo-instrumental tracks feel odd and repetitive, even boring at times, and it sours the experience for me. However, there are so many good pop tunes on the A side that I still come away from this album with a positive mindset. I don't think it is one of the best albums of all time, but it's good, and that's satisfying enough for me.

This is a disappointment to a nearly immeasurable degree. Sure, it still sounds like Pulp, with Jarvis Cocker's ironic suave swing found in his voice, and the sensual lyrics and melodies that sound like they came straight out of a 70s Bond film, but it nearly completely lacks that pop-focused outlook on music, and it makes the music sound aimless. Many songs just don't have that driving charm with a vision, and it leads every deep cut to be extremely forgettable, save for maybe Seductive Barry, but that certainly isn't remembered positively. The hits fair a bit better, but they try much too hard to be different. "No, I don't wanna be popular!" Cocker cries, as he pens The Fear. Maybe it would've been a genuinely daring tone change in '98, but sad British white guys aren't meant to be frightening, and it is just a little goofy. Especially when that funny feeling bleeds into styles JArvis and co. already nailed on the prior album, such as the seductive tunes. The titular song has a great instrumental, but the lyrics are so stupid that I can't help but groan by the end, and the whole album gives off that unfortunate feeling. Just a few knob shifts and this could've been an album on par with Different Class, but it just leaves me hollow inside, and wishing I spent my hour elsewhere.

I, at the very least, understand where her idea for her album, Mingus, came from, as this album is far jazzier than expected, although once you actually hear Mitchell perform this way, it makes total sense. She has always used her voice as an odd, "do whatever the Hell it wants," sort of instrument, and that allows a lot of the tracks to not only exemplify the poetic lyrics a lot stronger, but also be catchy in a way no other musical artist can be. It can be repetitive, but every song here is at least good, and some unique ideas allow this album to feel like a new experience to those familiar with her work while still feeling like you're right at home. A solidly great album, with very little notes.

It completely lacks the interesting variation present on the follow-up album, leading to a pretty generic pop punk album that struggles to separate one song from another during its short run time. What helps its case is the fact that the formula is strong enough to make it almost hit for most of the album, but it rarely if ever hits its mark, and so it's just mediocre instrumentals with lyrics that admittedly are weird enough at times to grab your attention, but, still, it could be doing a LOT more.

I'll admit, I'm pretty shocked how much I enjoyed this album. Pharrell Williams may be a bit of a laughing stock in the general conscious because of his work on many a pop song in the mid-2010s to a ridiculous degree, not to mention his close work with Illumination, but can the man produce. This is obvious to anyone who has heard a hip hop album in the last couple decades, but it is clear on this record as well, where it really makes a lot of the tracks. Kudos to Chad Hugo as well. I think the album can be great when the listener is just stewing in the vibes, which is why my main flaw with this album can be such a dealbreaker: the lyrics. Some of them are just plain bad, and most of them make you kind of just wish there was solely harmonizing going on. The lyrics add nothing, and most of the time they're just so weird and a special brand of 2000s uncomfortable, it can really take you out of it. There is enough good instrumentally for it to be ignored and allow the album to glide through to the end with no major hiccups, and in the end I can call this album good because of that, but just be prepared for a few eye rolls. Otherwise, a pleasant surprise.

While the album isn't as consistently fuzzy as their prior album, as the fuzz is mostly abandoned after the third track, the entire album captures this dreamlike state of exploring an abandoned town, but rather than feeling fear you instead feel at peace. This feeling may be familiar to those who've listened to Cocteau Twins' more ambient records, and I'd say while the overwhelming emotion that comes from heavy distortion is missed on this record, its ethereal substitute feels very mature and is a perfect natural progression after nearly twenty-two years in the melting pot. It isn't as mind-altering, or as much of a force to be reckoned with, but it is something to just gaze into. Like a Summer's night to Loveless' Summer's day, this album may not be a worthy follow-up to some, but in my mind this just feels like a natural conclusion is a sound decades in the making. That being said, I wouldn't mind a fourth album, Kevin...

This feels far more deserving of being a hit album over other electronic 90s albums. It has the definitive classics for better or worse, the deep cuts that also keep the pace moving, and enough filler to still give it that stereotypical big beat sound!
Less racing game, more street-racing game, the Prodigy is an act that has the potential to grab me, but often it just comes off as shallow. Party music, fun in the moment, but not worth the listen any other time. Perhaps I seem harsh, and I don't mean to be, as the album has good moments, especially when it takes influence from industrial scenes, but the album just feels like nothing extraordinary. Definitely from the 90s, which gives it its infamous success with tracks like Smack My Bitch Up, but thirty years later all I can think with a modern mindset is "look at that little guy on the cover go!" Still, will give it that boost for influence so it can scrape by into a middling spot for me.

Easily one of my favorite albums of all time, Odessey and Oracle treats you to pop perfection right out of the gate with Care of Cell 44's mind-blowing, jaw-dropping chorus, and only tries to top itself to the very end of the album, with twists and turns, such as the percussion heavy sound on Changes, or the oddly fear-inducing Butchers Tale, culminating in yet another pop masterpiece, fit not only for 1968 with its more devious storytelling and oh-so memorable organ solo, but even relevant today as proof that the pop sound left behind by the greats like the Beatles was not tapped out of potential, and while the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds may have mastered the sunshine pop sound, this album perfected it. Every single moment is used perfectly, not a moment of the listener's time is wasted, not only leading to a concise yet filling album experience, but also ensuring every single note, harmony, and lyric leaves the listener in pure bliss. Its lush, its teeming with life, and its easily one of my favorite records of all time. Were the Beatles not the masters of music that they were, this would easily be my album of the 1960s, and if you've skipped out on it because Time of the Season didn't do it for you, give it in a listen any way, you won't be disappointed by what's offered.

This album lays the groundwork for the far more experimental Metal Box, and in turn, also has those moments of pure creative, destructive, funky punk, where John Lydon and co. (especially Jah Wobble's bass) deconstruct punk rock to its amateurish, raw roots and ironically make something a bit disco. Because of this, the album has a lot of great, heart-racing moments with an actual pulse behind them and a reason to keep listening to the end. I think what leaves this one a tad bit lesser than its follow-up is that this album feels less haunting, less demented, and instead, juvenile. Does that fit the punk aesthetic more? Yes, but after the first track you're going to get something "lighter" in tone, and while just as quality musically, it isn't quite as memorable. However, still a great new step in the punk landscape, and if that new era wants to end with a goofy ass song, so be it.