Reviews by henry-winchester

This never seemed to end, but I didn't mind at all. Love them.

After something like 20 years and numerous attempts to like Floyd, this suddenly just clicked for me. But does this mean I'm old?

Loved the Buckaroo Banzai track! And the rest was great as well.

"Basics" is subjective here (it probably cost a few million to produce), but every track is just so slick and enjoyable.

This is such an odyssey and I loved the elongated introductions (including the Quincy Jones shout-out!), but it loses a star because I think the solo on "Festival Junction" burst my eardrums.

I've usually loved the world music this project has introduced me to, especially African albums. But this totally sucked ass. I was having a very stressful time with a bicycle when I was listening to it, but it was still so absolutely incredibly awful and irritating.

Really loved all the samples on this and the way it has that 70s kung-fu theme all the way through. Proof that hip-hop can be darkly fun.

I'm sure I used to like this, but now it's just somewhere between profound genius and profoundly irritating.

There's something so innocent and lovely and just so bloody English about this that I don't think has been replicated any time since.

I fell out of love with The White Stripes after "Seven Nation Army," but I shouldn't have. So many great tunes here, just Led Zep-level riffs all over the place. Doesn't let up at all.

I'm not sure how something can be so Christian while also sounding like a pagan ritual that will end up with your sacrifice. But it also sounds interesting and I think the band pushed psych-folk forwards technically. Surely an influence on the Super Furry Animals as well.

Such an 80s sound, but all the better for it; that density of sounds and layers and those butter-smooth vocals. Reminds me a lot of Prince and George Michael. So interesting to hear the band's story as well, they took the ethos of punk and rebelled against punk by becoming a pop band.

Almost metal, liked it a lot.

Hate myself for wanting to hate this. I think Nick Broomfield saying Courtney Love basically murdered Kurt Cobain (Kurt Cobain murdered himself) plus just the horrific but deep-seated misogyny of the 90s always put me off.
I missed out so much. This is every bit the sister album to Nevermind, angry but literate. But I love it even more because it's a decent grunge album that is not Nirvana.

Very, very steady rock, but enjoyable for what it is.

Mr Come Down, so pleased to see you again.

I could write so much about this album, and the band. It was nothing short of revelatory when I first heard it, aged 17. It was the antidote to both tedious Britpop and increasingly middle-of-the-road American rock, existing somewhere in a swirling bongwater ether of the Velvet Underground and Rolling Stones, but also taking in influences from shoegaze and stoner rock, with a snide, cool, and nihilistic attitude.

Come Down was at once deeply uncool and the coolest thing I'd ever heard, and I just couldn't understand why more people didn't like them. I saw them live a lot. I got the t-shirt. I wrote an essay about them at university. I got a tattoo. I was obsessed.

I still think it hangs together as an album, and it needs to be listened to as loud as possible. "Be In" builds layer upon layer, "Boys Better" smacks you with one of the short, sharp catchy pop songs that the Dandys do really fucking well, then the pace slows and it gets into this soporific sludge, in the best possible way, before hitting the double-whammy of "Junkie" and "Holiday," and then "Good Morning" is a come down from that burst of energy and a return to the more stoned fug of the first half.
It's by far their best album and I wish they'd continued on this track and not tried to go all electronic.

So yeah, five stars, always and forever.

A definite contender for my favourite Beatles album. Halfway between their poppy early work and their more experimental later work (which I've always found a bit patchy), but what's remarkable about "Rubber Soul" is the way it's so coherent and never strays too far from its central core, never loses its focus, like the words printed in a stick of rock.

60% Bond theme, 40% mariachi band, 100% genius. His voice is heartbreaking.

This was a pretty good soundtrack for a stressful morning spent trying to cancel my broadband, which is obviously what Nina Simone had in mind when she was recording it.

This was great. Loved that final freak out.