Reviews by gregorsmith

J'ai étudié le français pendant quatre ans au lycée ; je dois avouer que je ne saisis pas grand-chose aux paroles, mais le groove est indéniable. Le flow de MC Solaar est d'une fluidité incroyable et s'intègre comme un instrument à part entière à la production jazz-rap de haut vol signée Jimmy Jay. L'album soutient la comparaison avec A Tribe Called Quest ou Digable Planets, porté par des titres phares comme "Caroline" et "Bouge De Là" qui rendent la barrière de la langue sans importance. Malgré une rupture de ton un peu déconcertante sur "Ragga Jam", c'est un disque magistralement conçu et imprégné d'une ambiance unique.

I'm usually down with the jangly guitars, and this starts out super jangly with "I Will Dare" then I found out the jangly guitar part was played by Peter Buck of R.E.M.... They fooled me, they weren't jangly at all. They were just dull college rock. Not cool man.

Influential album that ushered in the loud-quiet-loud era of rock. Good thing it's a total banger, Black Francis is in fine form, Kim Deal is driving with her bass, Lovering and Santiago are tight as all hell and there's no wasted time in the sub 40 minutes runtime (always good when it fits one one side of a 90 minute cassette).

Hard to pick a favourite song but "Hey" has a special place in my life as it was the first baseline I learned and could still play it 100% on expert on Rock Band some years later.

"The Buddha Monk on the hunt for machine gun funk" is one of many bars I've absolutely glommed from this album, so let me get raw with my southpaw style while puffing on a fat blunt from Cuba...

One of the better Wu Tang solo albums, Method has that drawly flow thats just superb, literally sucking in all the air in the room as he does it. RZA production is sublime also, just a great album overall.

It's no Ingénue, thats about all I can say.

I had Shleep a few days ago and now this and its probably even worse then that. Shorter, yes, but every song, if you can call it that, is interminably long.

SO. BORED.

"You Want It Darker"... Is that a question or a threat???

I'm treating it as a threat. Like Leonard Cohen said to me personally, "I'll give you something to cry about" and instead of beating me with a sack of valencia oranges, he, instead, cursed me with old fashioned mental disease.

One of those albums where people say "this is it, this album will *change you*" and you're like "ok, lets give it a listen" and once it ends you find are absolute unmoved in the slightest...

Is it me? Is my soul lacking something? No, it's Ride, Ride are the ones who are in the wrong....

Good music to drift off to, I suppose. Didn't really do much for me, sounded very "ye olde lute player" lyrically though.

Don't threaten me with a good time... I mean, its the goddamn White Album by The Beatles... A band being torn apart never sounded so good, so many killer songs on this double album. "Dear Prudence", "Glass Onion", "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", "Blackbird", "Birthday", "Helter Skelter", "Revolution", "Savoy Truffle".... Just typing that list out gave me blisters on me fingers. But it also has "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" so lets not say it's perfect by any means.

Honestly, a lot of it sounds like throwing shit at a wall to see what sticks, but when it sticks its so so good that you can forgive the mediocre (or way below in Ob-La-Fucking-Di's case) efforts.

Sweetly soothing, borderline twee and breezy. Just a gentle hug for whatever is left of your soul at the end of a long week and 300+ days into this endeavour.

Bland, forgettable, in fact I have no recollection of this band even existing. Are we sure this wasn't some weird A.I. Mandela effect / Baader–Meinhof phenomenon (pause for irony) where they take the sonic signature of a dozen bands and try to make the most pleasing sound out of it in a lab but instead this heap of boredom lurched out instead.

Starts out with a stone cold banger of an instrumental in the title track, but everything else is just dripping with the understated funkiness of 4 guys just jamming on an organ, drums, bass, and guitar.

Felt like the shift away from down and dirty grunge into a more nuanced alternative rock world. This raised the bar, the singles like "Disarm" and "Today" just lift everything higher as, simultaneously, Billy Corgan descended into madness... You can just hear the proto-Mellon Collie songs if you listen hard enough.

Madonna's last good album? Good in a artistic sense, but it's really William Orbit's Strange Cargo III part 2... Strange Cargo IV?

Regardless, the last time Madonna moved my needle.

Couldn't be more MOR if it had yellow lines painted down the middle of it.

Finally, I've already landed on The Dreaming and The Sensual World prior to this and its the big payoff. Hounds OF Love is a certifiable masterpiece, its got the monster hit in "Running Up That Hill" but it's also got "Cloudbursting", "The Big Sky", and "Jig Of Life", its got production for days, like that gated reverb drums on the title track.

Kate deserved to be a pop star, shame she released this 20 or 30 years before its time.

Germfree Adolescents is a five star masterpiece, fuck whatever you're saying. Poly Styrene’s sharp critiques of consumerism, her incredible vocals, and the genius inclusion of saxophone create a vibrant, boundary-pushing punk record. While the raw, lo-fi production may be an acquired taste, the sheer originality and electrifying energy make this an essential listen.

Generic 80s pop rock mixed with even more generic 80s pop rock with a shot of 80s pop rock as a chaser. Stir well, pour into a higher than room temperature mug and serve.

Sounding like some weird procedurally generated soundtrack from a video game, it rises and falls in time with whatever you're doing.... Working from home? Folding laundry? Cooking dinner? Walking the dog? Having another existential crisis? Everything matches, everything vibes.

Its amazing. 51 years old and it scored my mundane life perfectly.