Reviews by ikejiri

Stankonia
‘Gobble up jism like school lunches’

I love the eclecticism of this, that they would take forward into Speakerboxx/The Love Below. I loved the overtop-ness and anything goes-ness of that album, but this benefits from being more condensed, even if it's still quite long at 73 minutes and even if it does tend toward sex quite a bit.

It occasionally falls into slightly demeaning and misogynistic, although I think they are mostly commenting on those attitudes rather than perpetrating it, although sometimes that line is a bit blurred. It definitely feels less problematic than Ice Cube the other day, balancing some of the horny teenager-ness with genuine empathy, like the superb Ms Jackson, or introspection like Humble Mumble, or zeitgeisty-ness with the excellent Bombs Over Baghdad.

Musically it is fantastic though, the Drum’n’bass of B.O.B., the homemade beat of I’ll Call B4 I Cum with a great synth line, the funk bass and guitars of Toilet Tisha, a the groove of Slum Beautiful, as well as the generally atypical rhythms and beats throughout.

I don’t know this as well as Speakerboxx/The Love Below outside the 3 big singles, but it grew a lot on me on repeat listens, although I think it sits a notch below that. Despite it being shorter, it could possibly still do with a bit of an edit, its wooliness isn’t quite as charming as S/TLB. Still a great album though, and a solid 4.
💣💣💣💣
Playlist submission: Ms Jackson

Timeless
I listened to the 2 CD version first, and then I made a playlist of the 8 track single CD version for repeat listens.

It’s a perfect album for working to, if you need to focus. It is long though, whichever version you listen to, but despite an inevitable similarity across the tracks I didn’t find it boring at all, or inert in the way the MJ Cole album was. The synths, keyboards and occasional guitars give it a great brooding atmosphere, with elements of ambient, and the vocals by Dianne Charlemagne have a lovely soulfulness, a little Soul II Soul, a little Massive Attack.

The title track is great, the ‘Inner City Life, Inner City Pressure’ hook and the flutes are excellent. and Sea Of Tears is great. But it's the overall mood and feel I liked, for an album based around a specific rhythmic pattern and with very little vocalism and lyrics I did find it very expressive, little bit of anger, little bits of sadness, little bits of beauty.

It's on the cusp of 3 and 4 - I'll definitely listen again when I need to focus or am in the mood but does that make it a 4? The length is definitely an issue, but it is a very good album nonetheless. Think it just edges a 4
⌛⌛⌛⌛
Playlist submission: Sea of Tears

Buenas Noches From a Lonely Room
I’m not totally sure of all the subgenres of Country, despite having a general liking for it as a whole. And I had a general liking for this, on the whole.

He has a nice, gentle voice without too much country over enunciation, and I like the relatively stripped back production and instrumentation. Even if it has a little 80s sheen on the sound of the vocals, drums and bass, it has a nice sense of the sparseness of the Memphis Three and some of the 50s country stars. It doesn’t sound particularly rockabilly however, the slide, lap steel and fiddle giving it a more rounded country flavour.

I like the slight bluesyness of I Got You with the walking bass and guitar and fiddle, and it continues to roll along pleasantly with One More Name and I like the snare shot drum sound and guitars of What I Don’t Know, a great slightly more uptempo track. I like the accordion on the title track and Streets of Bakersfield as well, another little instrumental texture, and I really like the little descent into the verses on Floyd County

Overall, it’s a very pleasant listen that I would come back to. I like his voice and the bluesy, stripped back sound, and that it skips by in an unhurried, mid tempo 30 minutes. Not sure how long it stays in the memory though, so I think that makes it a 3.
🤠🤠🤠
Playlist submission: What I Don’t Know

AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted
Bit of a funny one. On the one hand there is quite a bit of cliched misogyny, guns, bitches, dick sucking and beef, but there is also a lot of storytelling of the reality and experiences of the environments he talks about. Things like Once Upon a Time in the Projects, Endangered Species and Rollin’ with the Lench Mob are excellent, angry diatribes about the futility and violence of that world, but things like Get Off My Dick and Tell Yo Bitch to Come Here, Who’s the Mack and the terrible It’s a Man’s World are depressingly cliched and nasty.

I’ve always liked Ice T’s delivery though, and he has some great rhymes, but with the misogyny, cliche and the slight sense of insincere anger the whole album does get a bit tiresome after a while, and pushing through to the end is a bit of a struggle.

I like the Bomb Squad production, it sounds a bit more polished and soulful than on Public Enemy albums, with more of a West Coast sheen and less of their usual frenetic, kinetic energy, and some great grooves, like Once Upon a Time in the Projects, or the fast paced rush of The Bomb.

In NWA he helped birth some of those gangsta rap tropes, but, to sound like a massive knob, they had a visceral thrill to them, talking about a world so far removed from my experience. But on here aside from a few exceptions, it doesn’t carry that same power, undermined by a thread of cynical misogyny. I think a 2, as I don’t think I’ll come back to it
🇺🇲🇺🇲
Playlist submission: Once Upon a Time in the Projects

The Only Ones
I didn’t think I had heard of The Only Ones, from a cursory look at the wikipedia page they seemed to be in that post punk power pop world I really like. Listening to the first song it had more sax and island vibes than I was expecting, but I thought the singer sounded like the guy from that Another Girl song. And of course he is because Another Girl, Another Planet is the second track. It's a 6 Music staple, but I never knew who sang it, and it is an excellent post-punk power pop song, the best song on the album.

While nothing is quite as good as that there are some very good songs, City of Fun’s high paced shuffle is great, the riff/hook on The Beast is excellent and I love how it builds to the climax with horns and guitars, and The Immortal Story has some great organ and more excellent climactic horns.

There’s quite a bit of Television and Velvet Underground to them, and some Howard Devoto, and I like the looseness of the playing, particularly the drums, and there are some lovely guitar runs and riffs with some little psychedelic touches. It’s on the edge of 3 and 4, it’s an enjoyable, loose 30 minutes of power pop with one excellent song and a couple of very good ones. I’m quite likely to come back to it, so it just slips into a 4
🪐🪐🪐🪐
Playlist submission: Another Girl, Another Planet

Welcome to the Pleasuredome
Relax, don’t do it, when you want to suck a Chewit.

I love Trevor Horn, and this showcases his skills brilliantly, I don’t think there’s anyone else who can make that hi-nrg-disco-rock-new wave pop sound as good as he does - Welcome to the Pleasuredome, Relax and Two Tribes are excellent in that regard. And I love his art meets commerce sensibility, I feel like he’s a bit like a musical Roy Liechtenstein or Keith Haring, a pop-art pop producer.

However songwise this is certainly a bit of a mixed bag. I really love the ambitious eclecticism and all the bases it touches, but I’m not totally convinced it quite works as a whole double length album. It does feel a bit scattershot and unfocused as it gets to the 3rd and 4th sides of the original vinyl. A single, more concise album, probably just the first 2 sides plus a couple of other tracks would be a great album

I like how The World is My Oyster and Welcome to the excellent Pleasuredome act as a bit of an overture, you hear glimpses of songs from the album running through it, as well as some great bass and synth driven grooves, and Welcome to the Pleasuredome leads brilliantly into the fantastic, mischievous hi-nrg disco pop of Relax - it may be ubiquitous but it is absolutely brilliant.

I do like the cover of War, hinting at the rhythmic hook of the original, and although it’s a bit dated now the Reagan impersonator speaking about Che Guavara and George Jackson and War would have been very zeitgeisty for the time it was released. And Two Tribes is of course another absolutely superb song, fantastic guitar and bass, its timelessly and brilliantly 80s.

I like the melancholy and tender little cover of Ferry Cross the Mersey, an interesting but successful song choice I think. I presume the juxtaposition of Bruce’s widescreen American open road freedom yearning bombast of Born to Run sung by a Liverpudlian pop group is part of the reason they covered it, and while that is quite amusing and despite the energetic performance and Holly Johnson’s hyper-committed vocals I’m not sure it’s ultimately that worthwhile. That goes similarly for the cover of Do You Know the Way to San Jose, I guess the connection/contrast with Born to Run is partly behind it, and while it’s a fine enough version, it also feels a little unnecessary, those two covers signalling a little bit of wooliness as it heads towards the end of the album

There are a few good songs to come though, Wish (The Lads Were Here) is a nice bit of pop, and similar to the cover of Ferry Cross the Mersey, the slightly melancholic instrumental of The Ballad of 32 is nice. And Black Night White Light is a great disco-soul groove. I’ve never liked The Power of Love, I’ve always found the melody a bit hard work and the whole thing has a slightly flat, dirge-like quality. And although I presume the OTT power powerballad-ness of it is deliberate I’m just not keen.

Holly Johnson has hints of Freddie Mercury, he must surely have been an influence, but he has a bit more of a knowing punkish sneer and playful sensibility, so that he stops himself falling too far into melodramatic theatricality.

Length, inconsistency and being front loaded with 3 absolutely fantastic songs in Welcome to the Pleasuredome, Relax and Two Tribes aside I really enjoyed it and will definitely come back to it. It may not totally work, but it’s got a huge amount of scattershot, eclectic charm, and Trevor Horn’s production is fantastic throughout. A single album of the first 8 tracks plus Ferry Cross the Mersey and Black Night White Light and I think it would be a 5, but as it is I’ll go for a solid 4.
😎😎😎😎
Playlist submission: Two Tribes

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
‘You took your pussy game up a-whole-nother level, this is some Cirque du Soleil pussy now’

Kanye being a dickhead aside, having liked The College Dropout and knowing this is regarded as his best album I was interested to hear this one.

But I thought it was a bit of a mess. He’s of course not the greatest MC, but it worked on The College Dropout when there was a sense of humour and fun to the lyrics and a sense of a viewpoint, whereas this is either lazily misogynistic or ludicrously self referential and self indulgent.

I don’t really like the production either - although TCD did feel of it’s time, the lush, soul sample heavy sound worked well. Whereas on this, despite some nice grooves here and there, Dark Fantasy’s verses, I didn’t really like the layered voices and self important gospel overtones, and the nature of many of the hooks - despite some being catchy I found a lot of them a bit annoying, particularly POWER and Lost in the World. And Blame Game is a really bad song.

Maybe it’s that you can see some warning signs of the narcissistic fascism that he slid into that affected my opinions, but I didn’t think this was much cop, and I can’t imagine listening again really, so it’s a 2.
🤡🤡
Playlist submission: Monster

Fred Neil
I listened to this not so long ago, I’m not sure what prompted it, I think it might have been because The Dolphins was in an episode of The Sopranos.

The Dolphins is a fantastic track, the tremulous voice and tremolo guitar are a great combo and I love the solo on, I think, the Bouzouki. Aside from perhaps the very nice psychedelic drone of Cynicrustpetefredjohn Raga it’s perhaps a little bit of an outlier from the majority of the rather lovely folk-blues with a hint of country on the rest of the album.

He has a great wearied and worn voice and the melancholic melodies and arrangements remind me a little of Jackson C Frank. Everybody’s Talkin’ is of course also a great song, although Nilsson’s cover is probably the better version, but all the songs have a very pleasant and unhurried feel, the electric guitar working nicely with the acoustic and the shuffling rhythm section.

It's comfortably a 4, I know I’ll come back to it for some soothing folky blues with some 60’s psychedelic touches and that great careworn voice and sensibility.
🐬🐬🐬🐬
Playlist submission: The Dolphins

Highway to Hell
It has no pretension, no swords or dwarves, no parental angst and it is entirely successful in executing exactly what it set out to do - riffs, grooves, booze and sex.

But don’t mistake simplicity for basicness - underneath that apparent simplicity they have a very smart and canny understanding of what works and what doesn't, and they also have their secret weapon; in Malcolm, Cliff and Phil they have a great rhythm section, not particularly ostentatious and obviously capably steady, but they have the ability to give the songs groove and an element of slipperiness that belies the plodding headbanging reputation. And Angus understands exactly what he should do, never overlong or self indulgent, punctuating things with excellent white man overbite air guitar style riffs and runs.

That’s what I wrote for Back in Black, and this is pretty much the same - incredibly enjoyable and fun good time rock’n’roll. I think Back in Black is marginally better, in that it has 3 all time classics in Hells Bells, Back in Black and You Shook Me All Night Long, whereas the title track is probably the only true classic on this. However it’s still an excellent album with great seedy tracks like Girls Got a Rhythm, Touch too Much, Beating Around the Bush, Shot Down in Flames, If You Want Blood and the uber-sleazy Night Prowler.

Despite being a notch below BIB it’s still a 5, another brilliantly fun 40 minutes.
🛣️🛣️🛣️🛣️🛣️
Playlist submission; Highway to Hell

Snivilisation
I really liked Orbital 2, and initially I didn’t enjoy this as much, finding the first half in particular a little too uniform, and with too much of a twinge of shirtless male dancers in headdresses and goggles banging mad max style oil drums with spanners on Top of The Pops.

However, in the back half there’s a bit more variation and texture, eg the piano on Kein Trink Wasser, and the feel of Philosophy By Numbers and Are We Here? And on further listens the whole thing grew on me a lot, especially as I just let it run on repeat while I was working. And I started to really like the sampled voice on Philosophy by Numbers, it had a 90s fly on the wall doc/information phone line vibe that was pleasingly nostalgic.

I don’t think it has quite the same sense of minimalist flow as Orbital 2 though, it feels a little more disjointed between the 1st half and 2nd halves, it doesn’t quite have the feel of musical movement across it’s runtime, but it still is a great electronic album that I’ll definitely come back to, making it a solid 4.
🛢️🛢️🛢️🛢️
Playlist submission: Are We Here?

The Bones of What You Believe
I had no idea they were Scottish or a group, I thought it was the name for the lead singer and she was American.

In any case I liked it well enough, especially the first three songs, some nice synth pop. But it is a bit diminishing returns, as the songs do start to feel a bit samey, although I really loved the final track, You Caught the Light, that oversaturated synth is excellent.

It also falls a bit between two stools for me, there's a lot of 80s retro in the main synth sound with modern electronic percussion, but apart from a handful of tracks (The Mother We Share, We Sink, Gun, Night Sky, You Caught the Light) I’m not sure it comes together convincingly or interestingly enough, or they quite combine those two things with their pop sensibility to create great pop music, that you feel they might be capable of. And although I like her voice, she has a tendency towards breathy sad indie girl John Lewis Christmas song vocalisations, which doesn’t help.

Overall it’s a decent, very well made album that never quite catches light or takes off in a way that you think it might. I’d give it a go again in the right mood but not sure how frequently, making it a 3.
⛪⛪⛪
Playlist submission: You Caught the Light

Vespertine
This slow burns and burns slow like a UTI, albeit an ultimately pleasurable one.

The rhythms and percussion are what stood out on first listen, kind of glitchy but also delicate and textured, and incredibly detailed. And, I imagine, painstakingly constructed. Vocally it took a bit longer to appreciate, the floaty whisperiness and unusual meter on many of the songs adds to the slightly untethered, snowy, ghostly atmosphere, but once I listened a few times the subtle, expressive, introspective tone really appealed to me.

It really doesn’t sound 24 years old at all, it’s moody, swirling soundscapes and fractured rhythms sound incredibly modern, and while the melodies and lyrics initially might feel impenetrable the whole album rewards time and patience and repeat listens.

I’m not quite sure where it lands on the border of 4 and 5 though. For all its unique, Bjork’s-world-in-a-snowglobe feel, and fragile, crystalline, intense intricacy, its glacial-ness can make it feel a bit distant and slightly too remote at times, But it is an undoubtedly unique and singular album by a unique and singular artist, so, despite it not being an easy album, I think it has to be a 5.
🦢🦢🦢🦢
Playlist submission: Pagan Poetry

Who’s Next
I was heavily into this album around 2003/2004, just after the deluxe edition CD came out. I remember buying it in Tower Records in Shibuya. Don’t look for it, it’s not there anymore (actually it's still there).

It’s still my favourite of theirs. Although I like much of their earlier R’n’B and their psychedelic and rock opera periods this is probably the best combination of Townshend's conceptual endeavours (even though the full Lifehouse concept fell by the wayside) and their desire to straight ahead rock’n’roll.

It is also their best sounding album I think, the early ones sound quite thin, and while Tommy sounded better this one sounds excellent. It’s probably Daltrey’s best recorded vocals, as well as his best singing. I think it also has some of Townshend’s best guitar playing, I love his bluesy acoustic on Love Ain’t For Keeping as well as his lead/rhythm amalgamation. The production and its place in the mix also highlights how integral Entwistle’s bass was to their sound, his playing is excellent throughout. And it has some of Moon’s most considered playing, even if he still does a lot, I really like his thumping march on The Song is Over and his rhythm pattern on Won’t Get Fooled Again in the early verses (and throughout) is superb. The synths are pretty interesting too, they are an important part of many songs, Baba O’Riley and Won’t Get Fooled Again most obviously, but they never go too overboard, they make up part of the texture of the record rather than being hugely prominent or purely for decoration.

Baba O’Riley, Behind Blue Eyes and Won’t Get Fooled Again are rightly the big songs, but the rest of the album tracks, apart from perhaps My Wife are also excellent (even though I love the drums and the horns on My Wife, it’s the lyric and Entwistle’s vocals that sour it a bit). Bargain and Love Ain’t For Keeping are excellent after Baba O’Riley. The Song is Over and Getting in Tune are a great duo, particularly The Song is Over, I love the ‘searching for a note, pure and easy’ part. I suppose Going Mobile is a bit throwaway, but I do like it, particularly the treated guitar solo part. I’ve always loved Won’t Get Fooled Again, but it’s interesting listening to the lyrics now, how disillusioned they are for 1971, although I suppose the hippie dream had already soured by then.

A classic album in the classic sense of a classic album, it’s a straightforward 5.
🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿
Playlist submission: Won’t Get Fooled Again

Pet Sounds
I’ve listened to this so many times but apart from Wouldn’t It Be Nice, God Only Knows and Sloop John B it’s always seems to be an effort to recall any other songs or tunes from it. And although I do like it when I listen, I often find myself drifting off, and it doesn’t seem to stick in my memory like Surf’s Up and Holland do.

As I heard it after Rubber Soul, Revolver and Sgt Pepper I think I expected it to be as good as those, or at least as good in a similar way, considering the mutual admiration. And while I think you can hear some stylistic crossover and shared ambition, I don’t think the comparison is that helpful, even though I find it hard not to. John, Paul and George were all fantastic songwriters and combined introspection with a wider interest in the worlds around them, so there was an inbuilt eclecticism, where Brian as the sole songwriter with an inward looking personality makes for a more monolithic album - one person’s vision versus the push and pull and dynamic tension of the group. I presume that's why if you are tuned into Brian’s sensibility then you really love this album.

I don’t think I’ve ever really fallen in love with it, although I think I have learned to admire it greatly and appreciate the intricacies and complexity, the skill, craft and the thematic conception and imagination, it really is an incredible piece of work, even if, apart from God Only Knows, it doesn’t make me feel how say Revolver makes me feel.

Perhaps it’s the density of the instrumental arrangements and the amount going on that makes it hard for me to really get to grips with. Listening closely to it, again I admire it hugely and I do marvel at one person conceiving of it all and managing to translate that into actual music, it really is incredible, with moments of genuinely transcendent beauty, but as a whole it doesn’t quite move me the way some of my favourite albums do, even if it does have some truly excellent songs.

I’ve listened to it a lot over the last few days, as well as listening closely, listening multiple times has made me like it more, with more songs becoming more fixed in my memory, although I still seem to have a disconnect when I see the song titles written down - listening to say I’m Waiting for the Day I really like the tune, but seeing it written when not listening to it I have no idea what it sounds like.

Obviously his death last week does cast a different light over it though, the tenderness and sadness that underlies much of it feels heightened, and That’s Not Me, Don’t Talk, God Only Knows , I Know There’s an Answer and I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times all feel particularly redolent. There’s also a distinct emotional tone to it that I hadn’t really picked up on before that I do find very fascinating, a sort of sense of an introspective and naive psyche - that might be back projection in the light of last week’s news, but it’s certainly there for me.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what to score it. It would be convenient to say that in listening to it on repeat I’ve discovered an affection for it I didn't see before, but that’s not really the case. My appreciation of, and wonder at, it, however, have grown hugely, and there is something about its thematic tone that I never noticed before. I may not always love it, but God only knows I do think it is an incredible album in conception and execution, and removing its veneration and comparisons to my favourite albums (and looking at what I’ve given 4s and 5s to), it has to be a 5.
🐕🐈🐇🐐🐏
Playlist submission: Obvious, but God Only Knows, a truly sublime song

Djam Leelii
I’ve heard of Baaba Maal, but have never heard any of his music, and I’d not heard of Mansour Seck at all.

It’s hard to describe this other than just a lovely series of hypnotic, beautifully woven acoustic and electric guitar lines and vocals, seemingly simple percussion and the occasional embellishment of kora and balafon (I’ve just learned they’re called that)

Those excellent, circular, fantastic-sounding guitars wash over brilliantly, evoking sunsets and sunrises, and lonely nights in the desert (with a Land Rover). Obviously I have no idea what Baaba Maal is singing/chanting/crooning, but his vocal and melodic style add to the enchanting feel of it. It’s less muscular and overtly bluesy than the similarly West African Songhoy Blues we had, and without some of the more middle eastern/North African influences we had with Ali Farka Toure, but it is no lesser an album for it’s apparently more simplistic approach and arrangements

The songs broadly follow the same template and do sound quite similar, but I didn’t find that a bad thing at all, the sound is so expressive and the feeling they elicit so lovely I could (and did) listen on repeat all day, especially the final 4 songs in Maacina Tooro, Djam Leelii, Bibbe Leyde and Sehilam.

Similar to Songhoy Blues and Ali Farka Toure, it's a 4, another great album I’m looking forward to coming back to, and another artist to find out some more about.
🇸🇳🇸🇳🇸🇳🇸🇳
Playlist submission: Bibbe Leydy

Sincere
Call 999, it's an emergency
Beats and Grindah killed an MC
Someone take him to A&E
Then perform some lyrical surgery

I’m sure it was included as Garage was a nascent, new genre when the first edition was released. It’s good to have some representation, and I’ve always liked the title track and Crazy Love, but I think there must be better albums, or shorter albums or less repetitive albums.

It’s not awful, I actually found it quite easy to work to, but it is very, very one note and very, very long, the slightly imperceptible variations on the same beat and keyboard sound does just make it feel like one long lump of Garagey-ness. When there are little interjections and variations they don’t always work. The jazzy inflections I think are supposed to evoke sophistication, but they just tend to add to the flatness, the Spanish guitars on You’re Mine feel quite cliche and trite and the Stevie-esque keyboards on Slum King sound unconvincing. Rough Out Here is pretty ropey Curtis Mayfield knock off.

There are some good vocals, Crazy Love, Sincere, I See, but some of the rapping isn’t great, MJ FM Interlude for example, but there’s not really anything on it to make you want to come back to it, unless you need some rhythmically undynamic music to work to, so I’ll give it a 2.
🛍️🛍️
Playlist submission: Sincere

A Night at the Opera
While You’re My Best Friend and of course Bohemian Rhapsody are excellent if a bit overplayed, after a few listens this added to my feeling that Queen aren’t really for me. Although I think I liked it more than Sheer Heart Attack I still have the same issues of struggling to connect with it and finding Freddie’s vocals, May’s guitar and their overall melodic style hard work.

Death on Two Legs is better than the more overtly show tune/cabaret/vaudeville/music hall songs like Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon, Seaside Rendezvous and Good Company but on repeat listens it felt like the vocal histrionics and guitar sounds were all there was to it, the melody is kind of unsatisfying.

I actually quite liked I’m in Love With My Car, Roger’s earnest daftness is quite appealing, and I thought ‘39 was good in a folk sea shanty singalong way. Sweet Lady is probably the most successful rocker along with Prophet Song, although again I started to find them less enjoyable the more I listened to them. I know Love of My Life is considered one of their best songs, but I struggle with it, again I just find it hard to enjoy the vocals and the harmonic and melodic style.

Perhaps my preconceptions and biases have got the better of me, but I found this harder to like the more I listened, it was probably somewhere in the 3s at first but after repeat listens I started to like it less and less, and despite the excellence of You’re My Best Friend and some other decent tracks, I can’t really see myself listening again.

Maybe 4, but ultimately for me its a 3, Bohemian Rhapsody and You’re My Best Friend are of course excellent, and I liked Death on Two Legs, I’m in Love with My Car and ‘39 but there are at least 3 awful songs in Lazing on Sunday Afternoon, Seaside Rendezvous and Good Company with the rest a bit too fillery for me. Unlikely to listen again, but 2 feels too low for the quality, so I’ll say 3.
👫👫
Playlist submission: You’re My Best Friend

The Electric Prunes
I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night) is a garage-psychedelic staple, a Nuggets classic, all ominous bass, fuzzed out guitar and ‘mind-expanding’ lyrics. There’s nothing else quite as good as that, the rest of the songs being either more bluesy-garage-psych in the vein of I Had Too Much to Dream or semi-baroque whimsical hippie psychedelia. The former camp is far better; Bangles, Are You Lovin’ Me More, Train for Tomorrow, Get Me To the World on Time and Try Me for Size are all decent enough, but the latter camp is mostly not very good, About a Quarter to Nine and The King is in the Counting House in particular, and The Toonerville Trolley is absolutely awful.

It follows the pattern of a lot of those late 60s psychedelic-garage-acid-blues-hippie rock albums, in that they aren’t that great overall but they have one or two little gems that are worthwhile, backing up the idea that it’s best served as a compilation/playlist genre. It’s on the cusp of 2 and 3, I Had Too Much to Dream is definitely in the plus column, but the sub (Listen to) The Flower People whimsy and the awful Toonerville Trolley mean that I’m unlikely to want to listen again.
🍇 🍇
Playlist submission: I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)

Either/Or
Similar to Figure 8, had I listened to this when I was between 16 and 21 I think I would have loved the morose sensitivity of it all, but it doesn’t quite hit the same in my mid 40s, despite it being a well crafted and obviously sincere album.

He is good at what he does, although he does have a particular vocal, melodic and harmonic style, a kind of drone, which I do actually like, but it does start to feel very samey over the course of the album, even one one that’s only 37 minutes.

Although I did quite enjoy the overall soporific feel, I did struggle to really pick any songs out, probably due to that sense of sameness. I can, however, see that in the right mood it might land better, and although I would listen again if I’m in the mood for some gloomy acoustic introspection, but there are other albums or artists I’d likely go to ahead of this. Think that makes a 3.
🥹🥹🥹
Playlist submission: Ballad of Big Nothing

American Beauty
Slighty wary after the rather trying live album we had early on, although I did have some expectations that this would be good, based on its reputation.

In truth it's a fine if ultimately unremarkable late 60s country rock album, not really at the same level of skill or interest or quality as CSN/Y, The Byrds or CCW from the same period. Sugar Magnolia is nice though, with its CSN harmonies, Candyman has some good guitar, Brokedown Palace has a pleasingly fractured feel and Till the Morning Comes also has some toe-tapping energy. But the rest passes by in a bit of a blur of unexceptional country rock.

If this is considered their best album then I’m struggling to understand the reverence, or the idea that they broke the rules, or they transcend to a different plane of psychedelic musical consciousness. It’s not awful, it’s a much better listen than Live / Dead, but that is a low bar. Maybe it’s because I had some (any) expectations for it, but it just feels a bit inessential, and I can’t think I’d come back again, which I think means it's a 2, if a high one.
🌹🌹
Playlist submission: Brokedown Palace