Reviews by gregorsmith

Their first album was so good that this was so disappointing in comparison, so disappointing that it would take them a few years to even come close to the highs of that first album in their 4th album. This just sounds to bland and by the numbers that absolutely nothing stands out or is relistenable and I'm shocked that many critics rated it so highly.

I could listen to Fiona Apple any day, you don't need to tell me to do it. Hard to believe she's less than a year older than me, in 1996 I was still young & dumb yet she sounds wiser beyond the ages we are now some 27 years later.

90s Rock was officially over in 2001, we'd survived the few years dalliance with Nu-Metal and bands like The Strokes, The White Stripes, The Vines, and Kings of Leon were here to bring the garage band style cool back. Low production values are the order of the day here, make it sound like it's recorded in one take on a busted 4 track in some guys 3rd floor walk-up in the Lower East Side (in reality it was in a basement in the East Village, but who counting here?).

Julian Casablancas is dripping in understated coolness, Albert Hammond and Nick Valensi have serious guitar duels throughout, Fabrizio Moretti brings a tribal drum feel but my MVP is Nikolai Fraiture and his driving bass, it kicks in during the title track and then I knew what I wanted to do, I wanted to play bass like that.... But I never could.

Anyway, this is a classic, stone cold classic garage rock revival, biblical!

29(!) years ago, I remember skipping school classes so I could buy "Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain" on cassette and listened to it all afternoon. I was 16 and I’m confident it altered the trajectory of my life. I can still remember the feeling of turning over to side two and being met with "Gold Soundz" and it hitting me like a shotgun shot to the soul.

Because you’re empty
And I’m empty
And you can never quarantine the past

This is when Alt Rock became Indie Rock and the too cool for school kids pontificated about Midwestern rock bands from California like it was a secret only to be whispered on street corners. You can never quarantine the past!

I only know them from their easy listening reggae infused covers of "Red Red Wine" and "Can't Help Falling in Love" that my mum used to like, so imagine my surprise at full blown political discourse against Maggie Thatcher and the fucking Tories... Get it right up you.

Me (glancing at the title): Love & Devotion, sweet, ready for some Depeche Mode, feeling that...

Well, ladies and gentlemen, it was not Depeche Mode, not even close, not even the same continent, and that disappointment soured this listening instantly. *Sigh*

So yeah, Islamic Devotional singing isn't for me even with my initial disappointment. But I applaud the attempt to break away from the western anglicized norm (though I have had French and German music tossed my way already) and throw in something that's pretty much guaranteed to give you a strong reaction one way or the other. This is my first 1 star, but it is more a solitary star for my personal ignorance.

Its hard to imagine 2002, but when this came out, Coldplay were still a small band... They played in bingo halls and high school gyms on the relentless tour for this album that would make them global stars, they played shows to 600 & 800 people early in the tour in Boston and Philadelphia respectively. That's insane...

Now, this album is good to great, yes it's played out because how worldly popular the band became, but it was all built off hard work, they pounded the hard yards to be hated by millions and richer than god, with a smile on their face. Screw the haters, put this on and remember a simpler time where you could see a band on the cusp of megastardom for less than $10 in a sweaty ballroom or gymnasium playing the best music you had heard at the time.

Oh merde! J'ai terminé ma dernière critique avec une touche française, et cela m'a valu un album français en retour, alors je suppose que c'est une chose maintenant?... Anyways, I like the first song, or chanson, called "Amsterdam" as Brel puts his full chest into it, but there after is very hit or miss. The recording is also very rough around the edges, applause fades in and out and sounds like basic stock audio clips inserted between songs, and the overall feel has the taste of half smoked Gauloises and Gitanes cigarettes.

A perfect Pop Rock album? Definitely a solid track list with timeless classics like "One Way or Another" and "Heart of Glass" but solid gold behind it like "Hanging on the Telephone" and "Sunday Girl", though for that song you should make sure you get the Frenglish version that inexplicable s'est mis au français à mi-chemin. Pourquoi? Je n'en ai aucune idée, c'est vraiment super mimi et bien plus tard Zooey Deschanel a repris cette chanson avec She & Him et elle correspond parfaitement à son esthétique. Mais je m'égare...

4 étoiles

"Fear of Music" is perhaps an apt title, that or, as the excellent "Life During Wartime" repeats, This ain't no party, this ain't no disco. This might be the album that signified the glammed up 70s were dead, long live the post punk, new wave, fuck your disco 80s?

Anyway, this is my second Talking Heads album, and I'm a convert, a true believer. Every song brings something new and different from what came before it. This is a truly great album and anyone who says otherwise is a cop. I said what I said....

One of those albums where they, the The Beatles did on many an occasion, took stereo sound to extreme lengths, where nearly every instrument is placed in the far reaches of your aural capacity, except the bass that just grooves along somewhere near the middle. I've never been a fan of 60s music that has, say, the drums only in one earphone (for example) and the wah-wah infused guitar in the other, its so disorientating, and annoying of you need to take one earphone out to talk to someone quickly during one of the many drum solos.

Anyway, this is the longest 33 minute album I've ever listened to, mainly because the 17 minute title song *never ends*... Such a drag. And it's not even that good outside the god tier riff. Hell, Nas got more use out of that riff as a sample for "Hip Hop Is Dead" in 2006 and that only uses like 6 seconds of it.

I'm yet to 1 star anything (and I've already gotten "Kollaps" by Einstürzende Neubauten), but this came *really* close, it's like 1.5 stars on a good day.

There's a point about 1:30 into the second song where Neil Tennant muses "what have I done to deserve this?" and it hit me light a bolt from the blue, what have *I* done to deserve this??? I mean, I signed up for this 1001 albums thing to shake up my algorithm mix way from the same tired old songs, and here I let Pet Shop Boys sully it, We're not at the "how am I gonna get through?" part and I'm questioning how am *I* gonna get through...

"It's a Sin" still goes hard though, this was enough to push it up to a mid level album

Music to listen to while curled up in the fetal position in that closet under the stairs, rocking back and forth...

Smooth as silk, un-Common-ly good... The "They Say" song with Kanye and John Legend is just peak mid 00s vibes, great soul sample, twinking keyboards, again smooth as all hell. Kinda crazy that the beats Common turned down ended up making Kanye's "Late Registration", think how much better this could have been...

Proto-grunge and obviously a huge influence on the Seattle bands that would soon follow. In your face distortion is the order of the day here, and if you don't like that then your in for a fairly miserable ride here.

Proto Prog Psychedelic Rock Opera, pretty dull despite its best intentions.

This is like stepping directly into a high-stakes, Technicolor Western. Marty Robbins’ voice is absolute gold, smooth as a crooner, but with a persistent, underlying grit that makes these stories of outlaws and frontier justice feel incredibly visceral. From the iconic, quick-draw tension of "Big Iron" to the sweeping, tragic romance of "El Paso", the album masters the art of cinematic storytelling.

Very much alright, nothing really stood out apart from some songs sound like Badly Drawn Boy, "The Devil's Eye" especially.

How have I never heard of this before??? This is my jam, folksy earnest singer songwriters with great melodies and harmonies. It's very Band of Horses-ish vibes and I loved it wholly.

Start of Bowie's Berlin period, the first "side" of arty krautrock synthesiser inspired jams flys by, aided by timely fade ins and outs, and contains the excellent "Sound and Vision" which sounds like it could go on for far longer than its posted 3:03. Try and listen and no have the do-do-do-do-dooos in your head for days.

Side two slows down more than a little with the bleak as fuck "Warszawa" and the rest is ambient instrumental music. Truly a tale of two albums smashed together, but it works, mostly.

Less than a year later he'd release "Heroes", madness.