Reviews by gmuzza

Manchild and Buffalo Stance are classics and I’m a sucker for a bit of scratching, but too much of this album sounds like generic late 80s pop. There are far too many synth beats for my liking.
Better in the memory than in actuality

The songs on this are obviously good, but the live recording is hardly great and again it makes you question the inclusion of live recordings on this list.

Chain Gang is great and you get some sense of the joy that must have filled the room, but on records the limitations of the live recording is just highlighted. At least unlike a lot of live recordings it moves along at pace delivering classic after classic. Cupid is great, but would be better served by a studio version or even a better quality recording.

It’s all nice and floaty, but it just feels like there’s something missing. It’s just a bit dull and samey.
Aside from their great interpretation of ‘Mrs Robinson’ is just beige background music

Elvis Costello just doesn’t disappoint. Alison and Watching the Detention are obviously standouts, but the overall quality is excellent if just lacking that extra little spark to make this album a classic.

This is just dull, I had alreay list all will to live by the end of the second song. The outros are tedious and my god ‘Poem 58’ not happy being a dull instrumental introduces boring vocals after 5 minutes of noodling.
Not to worry ‘Free Form Guitar’ takes it to the next annoyingly step by doing what it says on the tin.

And my god if the rest wasnt enough a 14 minute last song. Oh the humanity.

This is just blue collar rock at it’s most tedious. Nothing stands out just a 33 minute long drone. I cant understand what makes this something that deserves to be on this list. Yes I dont like it so my view is bias, but is this genuinely one of the best examples of this type of music, let alone of everything?

My knowledge of Alice Cooper is limited to ‘School’s Out’, ‘I Wanna Be Elected’, ‘Poison’, ‘Feed My Frankenstein’ and ‘Hey Stoopid’, so I was reassured by the presence of SO. Turns out that was a mistake as it very much an outlier in a lot of ways. Coopers vocals work when he is screaming over loud guitars, but I was surprised by how little of that there is. Away from this style of song Cooper’s vocals limitations are highlighted quite starkly.
A lot of the music also feel like first takes and could surely have been improved by subsequent run throughs. ‘Gutter Cat vs the Jets’ is like a poor man’s Elton John crossed with Prog Rock and whilst having theatrical promise fails to deliver on any level.
For an album that is only 37 minutes it somehow manages to feel it drones on and ‘Grande Finale’ is just unnecessary, but I feel the band put more into that than elsewhere.

Run to The Hills and Number of the Beast aside this all feels very dated and heavy metal by numbers.

This is just dull bog standard pub rocked with one exception. ‘Stay with me’ is a classic track and stands out a mile amongst the rest of this album. You would be better off just listening to that one track and not bothering with the rest.

Non. French language industrial music is not for me.

I did like the accordion intro to ‘Charlotte’ and French Tom Waits vocals

I much prefer uptempo Elvis, so whilst this is alright there’s nothing really special about it.
Fever is a prime example, it’s good but not as good as Peggy Lee’s version

I didn’t know what to expect coming into this album and was genuinely shocked at how timeless the first few tracks felt. Expectations raised by this start probably worked against the album overall as it became fairly generic 60s fair after that.

I enjoyed the brass on ‘This will be our year’ and obviously ‘Time of the season’ is a beautiful track. Overall this would probably be a 2.5/5 but I’m rounding down which I cant help but think is partly because the first few tracks were so much better than what came next

I’ve loved Belle & Sebastian from hearing ‘It could’ve been a brilliant career’ on the radio (possibly mark and lard) and ‘The boy with arab strap’ as the theme from ‘Teachers’. Whilst not as strong as either TBWTAS or Tigermilk all the key ingredients are hear. The floaty dreamy music combined with their wonderful knack for storytelling.

I feel bad saying this but i prefer Harry Connick Jr’s version of ‘it had to be you’. Obviously the music here is all smooth as is Ray’s vocal delivery, but there’s just nothing to get excited about.

I did enjoy the luscious strings on ‘Don’t let the sun catch you crying’, but I guess this sums the issue up in that that some of these songs and stylings ate so classics and standards that familiarity means its difficult to separate them from the rest.

I generally dont feel live albums should be on a list like this, but there are a few exceptions (see Nirvana unplugged). Metallica also get a pass on long song moan, as their light and shade approach to these mean the song actually progresses.

Somehow adding a symphony orchestra to Metallica just makes sense. A lot of their material like One and for Whom the Bells Toll, lend themselves to such augmentation. However this generally works across the board, even allowing a live version of their traditional wall on music (theme from the good, the bad and the ugly)

Musical scores to film serve a purpose, but only the truly great ones stand up to be listened to in isolation or without a strong attachment to the film. Obviously you cant have an attachment to a film that doesn’t exist and this is far from great.

This has to be one of the most annoying listens i’ve had on this process and there have been some bad albums!

Good upbeat Irish music, whats not to like. This album includes at least teo (three if you include the additional tracks) of their big hitters in Fairytale, Fiesta (and Iris Rover) and is a thoroughly enjoyable listen.
McGowan’s slurred delivery just makes this feel more of a drinking album and that’s its charm.

Unsurprisingly the guitar is the star here. Beyond that ‘average’ is probably being generous.
‘Farewell’ is abysmal. Jeff’sBoogie is an obvious highlight (having mo bocals), as is discovering that the Pussycat Dolls lifted from ‘He ‘s always there’

I expected to hate this. So was pleasantly surprised by how catchy and light ‘Come All Ye’ is as an opener. It verges on being a bit too long, but just about gets away with it.

The pleasant floatiness continues, but it does get a bit too hippy folky for my liking at times. The intro to ‘The Deserter’ got my hopes up thst this track was gonna offer something different but it didn’t.

‘Medley: Lark in the Morning’ is a bit too much of a folky village dance for me, although I did like the slightly rockier but at the end.
‘Tam lin’ does actually offer something slightly different but the album quickly snaps back to its established sound on the subsequent tracks.
Overall this is a 2.5/5 but as it is a bit too (old English) folky, I’m afraid it’s a round down rather than up

Another bloody live album!! I dont need introductions to every song.

I really dont enjoy the organ sound of ‘Let’s Start’ and it’s just too repetitive. As the song progresses it just makes me slightly anxious. I didn’t mind the vocal parts though.

‘Black Man’s Cry’ run time 11 minutes 38…….ffs. The more percussive bits are fine (the less keys the better on this I’m learning). However very few songs will ever need to be this long and this is not one of them. Half way in the keys take the fore and all hope is lost. It feels like a battle of attrition, rather than something to be enjoyed.

‘Ye Ye De Small’ brings Ginger Baker snd the promise therefore of more drums (after a minute chat about smelly people and the fact GB takes his bath). It delivers plenty of drums, but if i’m honest there’s not a huge shift from what has come before so another overlong meander that gets more annoying as the song goes on. I didn’t mind enjoy Ginger’s drumming though.

The spoken intro to ‘Egbe Mi O’ says it means “Carry me, i want to die’ which unfortunately is pretty much how I feel at this stage and Ginger Baker agress😆)

The drum duet bonus track is more enjoyable than the rest, but even as someone who generally enjoys a good drum break this is just too long