Reviews by gmuzza

I love Madness and this definitely their best album. There are some of their finest tracks here “Tomorrow”, my favourite “Our House” and if you select the reissue “Drive my car” and “House of fun” (how was that their only number 1). You just cant beat that bass at the beginning of “Our House”

The album tracks are all strong and enjoyable, capturing the Nutty Boys at their peak. They genuinely feel unique in UK music as they blend ska snd pop so well, with the piano and horns making things instantly recognisable as Madness.
Part of me wants to give this a big fat five but think it falls just short

My hopes were high on seeing this and ‘Take on Me’ is a great opener. Track two wasn’t for me, but i was safe with track three i thought as i vaguely remember‘Hunting High and Low’ from my youth. Turns out i was wrong and sounded as dated and crap as the track before it.
Other than ‘The Sun always shines on tv’ the rest of the album is just dated pap.

I wanted to like this album more than i did. I quite like Lydon’s delivery and enjoy the music, but it just didn’t connect.
The spoken word Religion I felt like something that should have existed as s live ranty poem and not committed to record, although i did enjoy some of yhe laboured rhyming (done……..relig(i)on).

‘Fodderstompf’ is just annoying and goes on forever

I dont mind a lit of the crunching guitars, but Durst is not w vocalist and the lyrics ate just purile. It all feels manufactured to appeal to immature boys.
‘Take a Look Around’ and ‘Rollin’ are at least reasonably enjoyable, but that isn't enough to lift this from the garbage heap of history.

I think Fred sums my feelings up perfectly on ‘Boiler’. “Wwwwwhhhhhhyyyyyyyy?”

Dull, generic 70s rock.
I strggled to care to decide whether the sax in ‘Dont let me down’ lifts the mood up. It doesn’t, it just sounds dated.
I imagine they though Seagull, they thought they were capturing Led Zeppelin et al, they were not
This feels like what AI would create if i asked for a bog standard rock album. Move along, nothing to see here

I generally like Cee-lo’s vocals but over a full album the high pitched whine element can be a bit much. Given this the best tracks for me are where there’s a feature.

The production is great and the first half/ 3/4s of the album is generally fun/easy to listen, but just feels like there’s something lacking and the whole thing just goes on far to long, reducing the enjoyment levels massively

It makes a steady start with tracks like ‘Watch That Man’ and the title track ‘Aladdin Sane’ and ‘Drive-in Saturday’ being perfectly listenable if not spectacular. I was therefore bedding in for a further procession of ok but not inspiring tracks all the way to ‘Jean Genie’, however’Cracked Actor’ quickly grabbed my attention. You can tell it’s from the same album as JG and represents a proper Bowie rocker. Possibly more surprising was ‘Time’ which is a real gem, despite some not so elegant wordplay “falls wanking to the floor”.
‘The Prettiest Star’ carries on this more interesting vibe with an almost musical feel to it and imaging of silver screen America.
The cover of ‘Let’s spend the night together’ is another chance for Bowie to speed things up again with Ronson’s guitar allowed to sing with a heavy dose of piano for good measure. Like a good time in a club give a hypersonic injection.

…..and only now do we reach the classic that is Jean Genie. Stomping Ronson guitar, harmonica singing merrily away and a faultless Bowie vocal.

In many ways it’s a bit sad to reach the final track. ‘Lady Grinning Soul’ almost sounds like a Bond song and things off in splendid fashion.

The second half of this album massively lifts it from middling to really good for me

A good slice of old school hip hop. The opening four tracks are great climaxing with the irresistible’It’s a Shame’. But then ‘Dreamin’ and ‘ You Are’ take us down a very different road and not one i enjoyed before the stonewall classic ‘The Message’ steadies the ship. For the main it felt like this album was a 4/5, but 2 duff tracks out of 7 mean this cant be anything above a 3

Despite owning every other Blur album and having bought them roughly around release i’d never actually listened to this.

Obviously the singles are great but the rest just feels fairly middling to me and far from their best. Sunday Sunday is the highlight as it bridges this to the poppier Parklife that came next

The Cure have produced some really good songs across their career, unfortunately none are present here.
It all just sounds like pointless noise. The songs dont go anywhere Robert aSmith may as well just be crying in despair.
The doom ridden synth of Cold at least offered something slightly different, but ultimately still doesn't develop and eventually Smith arrived to mumble sing his despair.
Pornography sees Smith moved lower in the mix and makes drums the main player…..doesn’t help.

I remember getting this album from the library on cassette when i was younger.
It represents Janet’s strongest most cohesive collection and is just so damn catchy.

Rhythm Nation, Miss You Much, Escapade and Black Cat are all classic pop songs.

I enjoy the industrial feel that the production brings to these songs and its hard to hear the accentuated beats without picturing the military style dancing.
The tracks post Black cat are just superfluous filler
Overall it’s just a bit too long and this drags it down to just being a good middle of the pack album with some outstanding moments..

Just droning 60s psychedelic rock. The only positive i can offer is that the keyboards sound like the Doors. Oyher than that the title track is catchy but unnecessarily long

I didn’t mind the first two tracks, but it was generally downhill from there. I’m not sure i actually like his voice or at least his delivery style.
Its just too twee in places for me, especially the more Baroque elements. ‘Knight-Errant’ is particularly bad with its lyrics of loving his lady upstairs and downstairs, his lady’s chamber….

Not my favourite Beyonce album, but still highly enjoyable. The lyrics here have bite and they hit hard despite Beyonce sweet vocals.

The production is great and some really big songs like ‘Drunk in Love’ and ‘XO’ and ‘Superpower’

Sounded fresh in the early 2000s and was surprised to find it stills feels that way 24 years later. It represents the enjoyable side of the UK garage scene.

This album is full of catchy tracks that are perfect for a sunny day. It taips off toward the end but the first 3/4s mean this is probably a 3.5/5 but alas it will go down here as a 3/5 for Ms Dy-Na-Mi-Tee

Red Rain is very much not for me as i just felt bored and slightly irritated by it (no mistaking what decade this was from). It is far too long. Sledgehammer is obviously a great tune and cannot be heard without conjuring up images of its equally brilliant video. Whilst i’m not a great fan of either Gabriel or Kate Bush ‘Don’t Give up’ is also a really good song, despite its synth pan pipe vibes.

‘That Voice again’ sounds like a poor Sting track and i much prefer Guy Garvey’s version of ‘Mercy Street’.
Outside Sledgehammer it all feels a bit too Ernest and pretentious to be an enjoyable album.

Big time brings the horrible 80s synths back to the fore, i do not like 80s synths

I mean it’s a perfectly serviceable album. Not exciting but not horrendous. Just kind of passed me by. That said the last three tracks did irritate me.
There’s a reason why a compilation is enough for some artists (and why Berlin is the only track on that from this album).

The opening track wad worrying ok and i might even stretch to say enjoyable, albeit could have been shorter.
Up to ‘the more you ignore me…’ this is actually quite a good album, but the tracks after that dont really maintain that level and its all a bit meh.
Overall its a 2.5/5 but as that’s not possible i think it’s possibly slighter more a 2 than it is a 3

Enjoyable melodic rock with several highlights (That’s Entertainment and Start!).
For a relatively short album I would have happily foregone Scrape Away as it didn’t match the relatively strong standard of the rest of the album

I didn’t enjoy this, but struggle to put my finger on why. A lot of the time it felt too old fashioned country for me.