Reviews by gregorsmith

Performing a song about murdering a man in Reno to the wild applause of actual convicted murderers. Thats dark, dark as the dungeon that held them...

Soundtrack to the speedboat ride from Monaco to Cannes, watching the Côte d'Azur drift past as you head towards the setting sun

This was my real introduction to U2, 80s U2 had been my dad's U2 and the initial sound of "Zoo Station" had forever changed that, the building industrial growl, the distorted guitar sending shockwaves through you, the distorted vocals making Bono sound like he's smoking 2 packs of superkings a day. The rest of the album veers around the landscape wildly with a great run of "Zoo Station", "Even Better Than The Real Thing", "One", "Until The End Of The World", and "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" on side 1, side 2 is a little weaker but I'll hold "Ultraviolet (Light My Way)" over anything by most other bands.

Not Happy Sad, just Sad Sad, Tim's too busy elongating every word in "Strange Feelin'" to realise this album of a mere 6 songs overstays its welcome by about 20 minutes.

The dark side of the funk, but thank you for letting me be myself, again...

Occupying the space between their 80s synth Some Great Reward and Black Celebration days and their 90s dirty gothy alt rock Violator and Songs of Faith and Devotion days, not quite a smooth segue but you can tell the shift is happening. Dave Gahan stalks broodily over each song, just a menacing figure in the shadows...

With refrains like "kill kill kill kill kill the poor" and "economy is looking bad, let's start a war / fan the fires of racist hatred, we want total war", just shows that time is a flat circle. What big business wants, big business gets...

Face kicking punk for you fuckers

You really need to be in a certain mindspace for a Nick Cave double album, otherwise the side effects can be jarring.

There came a point after her first 3 or so albums that I just couldn't take the out-there-ness of Bjork going avant-garde that everything just became an unenjoyable listen, and, sadly, this is a continuing trend...

I didn't like this almost 20 years ago when it came out, it just didn't click with me but I still liked "Supermassive Black Hole" but re-stumbling upon it about 15 years ago made me like it, I could put it on and there would be no skips. But then I stopped again and now it's nice to come back to but it might be the zenith of Muse, pretentious lyrics and guitar wankery goes hard here...

That said, "Exo-Politics" rocks, even with the conspiracy shit...

McCartney and only McCartney (with a little Linda), recorded at home, and plays like it's being recorded in your living room. Contains "Maybe I'm Amazed" and thats still a great song.

An actual goddamn delight, open with the quintessential blues song "Mannish Boy" and the smile will never leave your face. The hoochie-coochie Chicago blues bars, Johnny Winter hollering in the background like a maniac, the tight band, the fact it was recorded as is in, like, a couple of days, its just so raw...

This is that sauce. This is the shit.

The prototype of Glam Rock, mostly, I mean "Bang A Gong" and maybe "Jeepster", a lot of it is still like their early folky stuff. But its a pleasant listen.

60s rock and concept albums, man... Why? The band would go on a near 10 year hiatus after this so it doesn't really bode well, does it?

So this led to 3/4 of the band joining Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood for some seriously dirty rock and roll via the Faces band, so not all bad.

There is definitely a line where modern music just become unenjoyable, and while I try to remain enlightened and open minded, these kinds of mid millennial bats over mumbly lyrics just does not resonate with me (also looking at you LCD Soundsystem)

Where's the bass???

An album that spawned many bands like Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet and basically gave us 80s music in the late 70s... And for that it must be tried for its crimes against humanity.

Not the best Dylan has ever done, but not the worst either... Has a couple of genuinely great songs in "Not Dead Yet" and "Make You Feel My Love" with the latter I had heard before covered by many other artists like Adele, Garth Brooks, and Billy Joel.

Its an enjoyable return to form for Dylan after the 80s and most of the 90s were lost times.

The singles are cool, like "American Girl" has that timeless introduction that just builds and builds, and "Breakdown" is a cool jam, the rest is just kinda there.

Oh great, *another* Byrds album (3 down, 2 to go)... This time they go alt country with Gram Parsons on board, and it’s kinda cool?