Reviews by ikejiri

Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul
I have very strong memories of listening to this on my headphones in the library at Durham, maybe in the 2nd year. It was a bit of a favourite back then but I haven’t listened in a good while, so it’s nice to revisit now.

He’s possibly my favourite singer of all time, and he’s matched brilliantly to Stax, Booker T and the Mgs and The Memphis Horns/Mar-keys, their country inflected southern soul grit complements his rasp and tenderness perfectly. As amazing as the Funk Brothers and Motown were, I don't think he would have sounded nearly as good with them as he does with the MGs. Steve Cropper is excellent here, as is Booker T and Donald Dunn, but Al Jackson in particular is superb, I just really love his drumming and how well he hits the snare on something like Respect.

I love Ole Man Trouble, it's got such a sweet bluesyness and countryness to go with the yearning soul vocal and contemplative lyrics. Aretha may have made Respect hers, but I do love the energy of this version. Sam Cooke’s original is great of course, but I love Otis’s version of A Change is Gonna Come, the doggedness, frustration and perseverance in his voice is incredible. Again he makes Down in the Valley his own, the band are brilliant, giving it a gravelly, hypnotic groove.

I’ve Been Loving You Too Long is the standout for me, Booker T’s piano is superbly emotive and it’s another fantastic, pleading, powerful vocal.

Shake is a great soul stomper (with an abrupt fade out) and although My Girl is so ubiquitous now, it had been out for less than a year when he recorded it. Al Jackson is great on this and it’s a very nice version with another superb vocal. Similarly Wonderful World is another nice version of the original with excellent vocals.

The interplay of Steve Cropper and Otis on Rock Me Baby is mesmerizingly fantastic, its a superb version. Love Satisfaction, bringing it back to its original Otis inspiration and giving it a frenzied and chaotic soul workout. Banger. And You Don’t Miss Your Water ends things brilliantly, another superb vocal and excellent horns.

I don't think there are many 60s soul albums to match this, the ebb and flow between the ballads and foot stompers, the grit, rasp, tenderness and feeling in his voice and the superb playing. An easy 5.
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Playlist submission: I’ve Been Loving You Too Long

Actually
Looking back at the review for Behaviour that seemed quite patchy, but this feels a coherent and very strong collection of songs. What Have I Done to Deserve This and It’s a Sin are the obvious big songs, but this is excellent throughout, the only song I wasn’t sure of was It Couldn’t Happen Here, although it did grow on me.

On the surface there is a plasticy late 80s yuppie sheen to it all, reflecting some of the themes and lyrics. But underneath that it's a brilliantly constructed set of songs, a great sounding mix of synth, electro, Hi-NRG and pop, all tied together with the coolly detached mundanity of Neil Tennant's delivery, touching on politics, emptiness and loneliness, boredom, money, and love.

One More Chance is a great dancey opener and I have always loved Dusty’s ‘Since You Went Away…’ part, a great pop moment. Shopping is great, despite the lyric occasionally being too bluntly literal. Rent is excellent, built around the excellently sardonic ‘I Love You, You Pay my Rent’ chorus. Hit Music is another bit of frothy and catchy dance pop, celebrating the joy of music, the almost salsa-piano giving it a nice bit of extra texture. I can see how It Couldn’t Happen Here provides a change of tempo and feel with it’s allusions to AIDS, and although it grew on me and the trumpet is forlornly excellent, it does drag a little, maybe just because melodically it doesn’t quite land as well as the songs around it.

It’s a Sin is of course an absolute banger, the campily melodramatic religious overtones of the synth/string line and the chorus hook are superb, a moment of pop perfection. I Want To Wake Up feels perhaps a step below the songs either side of it, but it is another well crafted bit of dance pop, the vocoder and descending chorus are very nice.

I completely forgot about Heart, it’s also banger, that sampled vocal hook is superb. According to wiki ‘The song was also intended to be used in the Steven Spielberg-produced film Innerspaice but the dance sequence it was intended for was at the wrong tempo for the song’ For shame.

King’s Cross ends things on a bit of a down note, the hangover to the upbeat songs, it feels like a glimpse of reality behind the yuppiness parodied and satirised on the rest of the album. Great track.

I’m finding it hard to think why this shouldn’t be a 5 - great hooks, great dancey rhythms and beats, a unique vocal and melodic style, an interesting set of thematic threads and consistently excellent songs all add up to make this a fantastic album. 5.
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Playlist submission: It’s a Sin

Peter Gabriel (3: Melt)
_‘Hans plays with Lotte, Lotte plays with Jane
Jane plays with Willy, Willy is happy again’_

Don’t be blue, Peter

If you were to trace my enjoyment of this album it would look like an inverted bell curve. On the first listen I really liked it, on the 2nd listen I wasn’t as keen, but on the 3rd and 4th listens I really enjoyed it again.

It’s hard not to read about the production and sound of this and its introduction of the gated reverb drum sound, but it does sound excellent (despite there being a liberal sprinkling of Chapman Stick across it), and it does sound ahead of its time.

Intruder starts things off in a suitably dissonant and unsettling way, the vaguely discordant synth noises and sinister vocal and lyric is great. No Self Control has a feel of Remain in Light by Talking Heads, which came out later the same year

Start feels like a slightly unnecessary cheesy sax interlude but it does fade nicely into the excellent I Don’t Remember, which combines more Talking Heads vibes with a bit of Genesis, and has a nice nagging catchiness. Family Snapshot adds more unsettledness to what starts as a relatively standard piano ballad, before a bit of pleading bombast gives it an almost Meatloaf feel

And Through the Wire is possibly the most straight ahead rock song on the album (with some nice Jam guitar from Weller), and it’s a great one before the excellent and catchy Games Without Frontiers. Not One of Us returns to the Talking Heads feel, although it moves into some more proggy territory, before an excellently hypnotic outro.

Lead a Normal Life may not be the strongest track, but I really like it’s insistent nature and that it is almost a palette cleanser between Not One of Us and the absolutely fantastic Biko. The Xhosa recordings, Gabriels emotive vocals and lyrics and the bagpipes all combine, a brilliant and moving song.

Overall I really really liked this and its creeping, odd, Eno & Talking Heads, New Wave, World, singular and idiosyncratic nature. I assumed it did have some Eno involvement from its feel, I was surprised it didn't although there is obviously a crossover with Robert Fripp. It’s definitely a grower, with lots of weird, unsettling details, deliberate artiness and a real density and intensity to it. It’s on the border of 4 and 5, I think I’ll tip to 5 as it’s increasingly the sort of thing I find myself liking more and more.
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Playlist submission: Biko

Black Metal
Yeah, lol, no.
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Playlist submission: Countess Bathory

Suzanne Vega
On first listen this is very pleasant but very mid 80s sounding folk rock. That 80s sound is great for upbeat pop music and pop rock and metal, but for something more hushed and intimate like this it sounds too big and too austere, which is a shame as I really like her voice and storytelling. It really feels like it needs some 70s analogue warmth or at least some fake analogue warmth or something to give it some kind of oomph to puncture either the cold politeness or cheesiness of the sound.

The first side doesn’t seem quite as strong as the second, Cracking has a nice atmosphere, but the spoken word parts don’t really work for me. Freeze Tag has a bit too much of that squeezing extra words and syllables into the meter thing and is a little bit annoying. Marlene on the Wall is catchy though and uses the meter thing more judiciously, you can see why this would be the main single, it has a nice sense of completeness.

Small Blue Thing sounds a little like What I Am by Edie Brickell but is a really nice song. Straight Lines suffers a little from the 80s production, the electric guitar sounds particularly anaemic, but the synth is nice.

Undertow is nice, it has a pleasing sense of rhythm and doesn’t out stay its welcome. Some Journey is great, the one time the production style works and I like the violin solo a lot, its slightly chaotic and brings a nice bit of energy to things. The Queen and the Soldier is very good too, it feels quite Leonard Cohen melodically, with a Dylan-esque lyric. The slightly acerbic feel of Knight Moves is nice too, the bit of anger breaking through the pleasantness. Under that cheesy 80s sound Neighbourhood Girls is actually a nice bluesy song, and reinforces the second side being more interesting than the first

I really like her voice, lyrics and much of the songwriting and its an enjoyable enough album, but it’s slightly removed sense of pleasantness means it doesn’t linger in the memory as much as you feel it should. Would listen again and am interested enough to try some more albums, but I’m unlikely to reach for this too much. Which makes it a 3
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Playlist submission: Some Journey

Appetite for Destruction
Questionable ethics and lyrics aside I love this album, the only hard rock album I actually like from start to finish. Obviously they are hair metal adjacent, but they always had some kind of alchemy that set them apart, the right blend of glam, punk, metal and blues with songwriting nous and a melodic ear. Rather than being slavishly devoted to purely metal influences their rock’n’roll bombast makes this a fun and exciting listen.

Obviously Slash gets a lot of attention for his playing, but Izzy Stradlin is also great, his rhythm and occasional lead is such a big part of why this sounds as good as it does. McKagen is also a very good bassist with a nice tone and a sense of restraint. But I think Steven Adler is probably their secret weapon, he may not be the most technical, but he has a great swing to his playing, and he eschews ostentation or lumpen double kick drum metal cliche, giving the songs groove and motility, like the loping, broken pattern on Mr Brownstone or on Paradise City.

Aside from the obvious bangers (Welcome to the Jungle, Paradise City and Sweet Child o’ Mine), there are other excellent tracks; It’s So Easy, Nightrain, Out Ta Get Me, Mr Brownstone, My Michelle and Rocket Queen. And while Think About You, You’re Crazy and Anything Goes may not be at the same level as those other songs they are still decent enough album tracks, and don’t lack for energy or lasciviousness, and keep the mood of unpretentious fearful and angry griminess.

Welcome to the Jungle, Paradise City and Sweet Child o’ Mine would be enough on their own for this to be a classic, but well supported as they are by the rest of the tracks, this can only be a 5.
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Playlist submission: Sweet Child O’ Mine

Strangeways, Here We Come
My second listen to a Smiths album after Meat is Murder last year. Similar to that one, as I have a bit of a blind spot with Smiths albums I’m not sure how this sits in their 4 album run, apart from knowing it’s their last one.

All the classic Smiths elements are here, and Andy Rourke shines as usual, but Marr really seems to be on one, with more ostentatious guitar hero licks than I expected, especially on I Started Something and Noely G I think must have used some of the licks on Stop Me as the basis for his lead playing. And after listening to Meat is Murder and Death at One’s Elbow on here I hadn’t realised how much country/rockabilly influence there is in the band, but thinking about it, it makes a lot of sense. I also really like the different instrumental colours, the marimbas, synths, horns, harmonium and autoharp, and the piano seemingly being more prominent too.

I Started Something, Girlfriend in a Coma, Stop Me and Last Night are obviously the well known songs and they are excellent, A Rush and A Push is great too, but I really loved Death of a Disco Dancer, it’s maudlin drone, bass line and chugging guitars are fantastic. Not sure where Smiths fans rate this but it already feels like one of my favourites of theirs.

I really like the melody to Paint a Vulgar Picture, and the country inflections of the aforementioned Death at One’s Elbow, but it does feel like the 2nd side isn't as well cooked as the first, running out of steam a little, and Unhappy Birthday is one of those slightly irritatingly churlish Morrisey lyrics, that can be a bit off putting.

I think I’ve still got a thing with The Smiths, I think they’re great, but they’re one of those bands that I like and admire, rather than truly love. I don’t find it that hard to park my feelings about current day Morrisey, and he was capable at this time of some fantastic lyrics and imagery, but I’ve always found his voice and overall presence slightly tough going after a few songs in a row, even before I knew much about his public character, so I guess that plays a part in my overall feelings. It's better than Meat is Murder, there are some excellent songs in the first half and it's a very good album, but overall I don’t think it quite reaches a 5, so I’ll stick on 4.
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Playlist submission: Death of a Disco Dancer

Shleep
I wasn’t sure what to expect from this. Knowing Robert Wyatt’s reputation I thought it may be a bit off beat and it’s certainly eccentric in its serene, childlike folky jazz prog. Some songs are pretty immediate, while others feel like the ramblings of an old man with the mind of a child. But the more I listened the more I was pleasantly surprised by how much I started to enjoy it, quirks and all.

The first two tracks show the mix of convention and eccentricity, Heaps of Sheep is excellent with its bobbling Bo Diddley rhythm and airy feel, while The Duchess is harder to get to grips with. Musically it’s great, a kind of Can or Faust groove but the nutty discordant ramblings and jarring fiddle are tougher to digest on first listen.

However that combination of melodies and discordance makes the whole thing intriguing, especially on repeat listens and upon coming back to it after listening to other things. The sonic and lyrical meanderings really got under my skin; Eno’s synths and textures, the brass band sounds, the folkiness and nursery rhyme and childlike feel, Phil Manzanera’s (hello again!) guitar all contribute to the unique, singular feel.

Maryan is excellent, the picked guitar figure is lovely, the horns evoking a colliery brass band before the almost middle eastern strings come in and it fades out. Free Will and Testament is also great, the spacey guitar is excellent and I like the woozy, dreamy September the Ninth. Alien sounds like it could be from The Next Day or Blackstar, in fact quite a lot sounds like later Bowie. A Sunday in Madrid is another charming, beguiling track. The Subterranean Homesick Blues interpolation in Blues in Bob Minor has a great, naive charm to it

Heaps of Sheep I liked straight away but on first listen I wasn’t sure about the rest, but with repeat listens over a couple of days I started to really like it’s strange and singular charms, even the slightly wonky songs like The Duchess I started to really like, and overall it has a kind of beguiling gentleness to it. As well as late Bowie It reminded me a bit of the spirit of that Julian Cope album, Peggy Suicide, that we had before and I can see why people like Weller and Radiohead are fans of his. I’m really glad this came up, I would never have listened to it without the list, and I can see myself returning to this to try and figure it out further, thus making it a solid 4.
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Playlist submission: Heaps of Sheep

Murmur
Not sure I’ve listened to this, I get a bit mixed up with their albums from Murmur to Green.

I do like REM a lot, but I’m nowhere near an aficionado, so I was quite surprised at how fully formed and ‘REM’ this felt stylistically, I had thought it might be an album of them feeling for their sound, but the jangly guitars, rhythm patterns, bouncy bass and melodic character are all in place, and it it feels reminiscent of their albums post New Adventures in HiFi, Perfect Circle for example sounds like it could have come straight off Reveal or Around the Sun.

I suppose what’s missing is a really great song or two. Despite Radio Free Europe and Talk About the Passion being very good, and there being no bad songs at all, there is nothing that truly transcends as some of their later songs do.

Having said that, it is still clearly a very good album, especially for a debut. And despite the lack of a killer song or two, as a whole 45 minutes it's a very coherent and enjoyable listen, with well crafted songs and the requisite amount of enigmatic lyrics and vocals. Not much more I can say, its a solid 4.
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Playlist submission: Radio Free Europe

For Your Pleasure
I thought this would be good, Do the Strand is great, but I wasn’t expecting it to be such a fantastic album from start to end.

I suppose it’s the band in a nutshell but I love the dynamic tension of Ferry’s croons and yelps, Manzanera’s guitar, the pre-new wave dancey rhythms and bass, the 50s sax and Eno’s synth atmospheres and textures, all wrapped up with an Art School spirit and wonky glamour. All the factions seem to be constantly pulling at each other and with Ferry trying to write catchy pop songs and Eno trying to make them weird it gives every track a really interesting energy and exciting quality.

Do The Strand feels like a continuation of Virginia Plain in some ways, and is a banger with classic Ferry Lyrics. Great bass too. The shimmery keyboard and overdriven slide on Beauty Queen is a fantastic embellishment to a brilliant track that exemplifies the push and pull of the different strands of the band.

I love the keys on Strictly Confidential with the oboe before the guitar comes in and before the oboe goes very high. It’s got a bit of Bowie to it, like something from Heroes, which this predates of course. I like the 50s rock’n’roll feel of Strictly Confidential, it’s a nice bit of uptempo energy between the songs either side of it.

In Every Dream Home a Heartache is absolutely superb, slightly weird with a sinister edge and the theme of poking around behind closed doors and what weirdness happens under the surface is great, something Damon Albarn does a lot.

The Bogus Man is a bit of a grower, but after a few listens I started to love it’s uneasiness and shifting feel, it’s got a groove, but with a bit of hesitancy that builds into something hypnotic, while the sax and synths and guitars swirl and stab and melody moves in a slightly unsettling way. It definitely has some Talking Heads vibes to it and is another great track.

Grey Lagoons has some excellent piano and guitar and I really like the vocal melody and again is a great bit of uptempo 50s influenced rock’n’roll before the fantastic For Your Pleasure. I love the reverby twang on the guitar and those weird synthy noises and rumbling tom tom fills, again theres a an off kilter feeling that really makes the song

I’ve never really considered what a great guitarist Phil Manzanera is, there’s loads of great fills, licks and textures and he seems to play for the song brilliantly, there’s nothing extraneous or overtly showy, everything is in service to the mood of the songs. And the drums and bass are great too, there's a slipperiness and grooviness that gives everything a great sense of movement and momentum.

I loved this and I wish I’d given this and more of RM other than the best of a go earlier. There are so many obvious influences on many bands I love and the whole thing feels about 10 years ahead of its time, it would have fitted right in around Blondie and Talking Heads and all those new wave bands in the early 80s. Fantastic stuff. 5.
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Playlist submission: For Your Pleasure

PS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88am-ZnQ5Yc&ab_channel=2007TGD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BonWfTW7jKc&ab_channel=BryanFerry

Hot Buttered Soul
I’m kind of familiar with the album mainly through the version of Walk on By - a classic on the cusp of Soul going from the 60s Motown style pop to the more serious and gritty 70s style. It’s also been sampled a lot, you hear it cropping up a lot.

It really is a fantastic track, the guitar and various riffs and melodies picked out on the strings, horns and keyboards are fantastic, creating a sense of drama against the at turns languid and pleading vocal. 12 excellent minutes.

By The Time I Get to Phoenix isn’t as successful, despite being excellent from around 8.50, when he starts singing and the strings swell. The horn motif is excellent, the keys and organ are superb and it all just sounds fantastic. It’s just a shame that the extended spoken word intro is so superfluous - it is a bit of a slog to get through to get to the good bit, and unlike Walk on By that makes it feels like its full 18 minutes.

In between those Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic is excellent, a wah wah driven bit of funky late 60s soul with an fantastic groove and some lovely piano along side the superb bass. But then I find One Woman, despite some nice moments, a little bit overwrought with a slightly histrionic string arrangement, and as a result it doesn’t land quite as well as the other tracks.

His keyboard and Marvell Thomas plus The Bar-Kays playing is fantastic throughout though, and it sounds superb, the bass and drums are excellent and it has the perfect amount of lushness, not too cloying or over the top but with a nice depth to it.

Walk on By and the 2nd half of Phoenix are as good as this type of late 60s/early 70s soul gets, but when there are only 4 tracks any weaknesses do get amplified, and the first half of By The Time I Get to Phoenix and the slightly underwhelming One Woman are definitely weak compared to the rest of it. I think that makes it a solid to high 4.
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Playlist submission: Walk on By

Heartattack & Vine
I completely forgot until today that I used to have this on CD. Not sure why, I think maybe I bought it for Jersey Girl.

Heartattack and Vine is excellent. I love the dirty guitar and gutbucket feel, and how it evokes a seedy Los Angeles with the sax punctuating the straightforward instrumentation. Nice of him to pop in an instrumental. Even if it is a bit aimless it might have been nicer later on on the record for a bit of respite. Saving All My Love passes me by a bit, they jazzy balladry doesn’t really generate much excitement.

Downtown is great though, the organ and descending momentum is nice. And Jersey Girl is of course great, a solid bit of bluesy pop yearning.

Til The Money Runs Out carries a hint of Shakin’ All Over but is a decent track. On The Nickel is the best ballad, it does have more than a smidge of Randy Newman taken to extremes, but the melody and tenderness is rather sweet. Mr Siegel is a pretty forgettable track, in the same vein as but, not as good as Downtown or Heartattack and Vine. And Ruby’s Arms has some nice moments, the horn intro is good and it has a bit of Fairytale of New York, but it is also a bit forgettable.

I like Tom Waits and I like his voice, but the songs on this are a bit of a mixed bag. The good tracks are very good (Heartattack and Vine, Downtown, Jersey Girl and On the Nickel), but the rest are inferior versions of those tracks and not particularly interesting, making it a 3.
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Playlist submission: Jersey Girl is great, but I’ll Heartattack and Vine

L’Eau Rouge
Swiss Industrial-Cabaret Synth-Rock. I suppose if Switzerland has no real culture of producing 20th century popular music it’s natural you’d end up with something as idiosyncratic as this.

On one hand, this is bad. And on another hand it is also bad. But at the same time it’s interesting-bad, and there is somehow some degree of charm amongst the cabaret parts, the guitar samples and the pissed old French bloke in a tabac drinking red wine at 7am shouting axis. Like a Francophone Tom Waits, Tom Attend, if you will.

It’s not my thing really, but I do get the sense that they are trying to make something different, or interesting, or at the least coming at this sort of thing from a different angle, rather than the performative ‘difficulty’ of a lot of metal, grunge and alternative music. Accordion and vocal style apart, I like the Bernard Hermann/Hitchcock string or brass arrangements, as on La Fille De La Mort, L’Eau Rouge and Les Enfants, which give it a slightly sinister melodrama, and some of the sampled and looped guitars serve their purpose well - more like they are designed to support the son’s intent, rather than designed to ‘go hard’ and impress teenage boys - as on Rue des Tempetes or Longue Route. And out of interest I listened to the CD bonus tracks, more of the same but I quite liked L’Amourir.

I don’t think I’d listen again, which would put it at a 2. But to me it at least has an idea behind it and singularity that makes it a little more interesting than the majority of 2s, so I think I’ll just nudge it into a very low 3
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Ville Notre

Tusk
What do you do after Rumours? What do you do after Sgt Pepper, what do you do after London Calling? Make a rambling multi-disc record, that’s what!

It definitely has the feel of the comedown after Rumours, there’s a melancholy thread running through the whole thing, even the ‘up’ songs sound quite sad. And the sprawling, fragmented nature of the songs gives it a sense of disconnection and uncertainty, which probably reflects their drug assisted mental states after the madness of Rumours, and the different routes they wanted to go with their music.

From reading about it it makes sense that they indulged Buckingham’s desire to make something different and add some new wave influences to stop him leaving, and that is exemplified by the curious mix of the polished sound and style of Rumours with Buckinghan’s tracks that sound very much like demos and ideas rather than full songs.

That fragmented feel is obvious throughout but is exemplified in the first two songs, the sad, country twinged but lovely Over and Over, followed by what seems little more than a quirky sketch of a song with The Ledge.

Although Buckingham dominates the album and has some great songs in What Makes You Think You’re the One, That’s All For Everyone, Walk a Thin Line and the excellent title track. That’s All For Everyone has some George vibes to me, and I really like the nod to the Beach Boys with the harmonies in Walk a Thin Line.

But for me it’s Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie that provide the majority of the highlights. Sara, Storms, Sisters of the Moon, Angel and Beautiful Child are great Stevie songs, particularly Sara and Sisters of the Moon and I always love Christine’s songwriting. She is probably my favourite FM songwriter, there’s just something about her style that really resonates with me. Over & Over, Think About Me, Never Make Me Cry, Honey Hi and Never Forget are all excellent.

I can see why this has gathered more critical respect in recent years, it would have been almost impossible to follow up Rumours with Rumours II, so by not going down that route they probably wrong footed a lot of people. But over repeat listens it’s White Album-esque strange corners and sad, fragmented nature becomes very beguiling and hypnotic. There’s a slightly dreamlike haze to it so when I get to the end I can’t quite recall it properly and I want to listen over to see if I can piece it all back together again.

It’s definitely not a better album than Rumours, but it feels like there could be a really great focused single album with Stevie and Christine’s tracks plus a few of Lindsey’s, but without that scattergun, uneven charm it would probably be less interesting and would lose the weird, enticing quality it has.

After the first couple of listens it was a solid 4, but that has definitely climbed to the border of 4 and 5 as I’ve come back to after listening to the other albums and I’m really very torn between the two. As is my wont I’ll tip it over to a 5.
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Playlist submission: It’s Tusk really but I’ll say Sara

Superfuzz Bigmuff
I’ve heard plenty about Mudhoney and their influence but have never knowingly heard anything of theirs.

Their influence on Grunge and Nirvana in particular has definitely not been understated, there are clear throughlines in sound, structure and approach, but what is also clear to me is that Nirvana are a better more evolved band taking the parts of this they like and adding more pop and traditional songwriting craft.

This is still enjoyable though as it’s own thing, separate to the it’s influence, particularly as it’s just the 6 songs on the original version. Out of interest I listened to some of the other tracks on the repackaged album and while there are some good tracks, the scuzzy grungey earnestness and punky vibes of the original tracks work well and it doesn’t get the chance to drag by going on for too long.

Need, Chain that Door, No One Has and n ‘n’Out of Grace are solid enough proto-grunge but Mudride and If I Think are a bit more interesting, the changes in tempo and mood from those straight ahead songs creates a bit more of a dynamic atmosphere, particularly Mudride with the wah wah and slightly Indian guitar parts in places.

So overall it’s a fine album and interesting staging point in a genre of music that went stratospheric. I may not reach for it again, but I wouldn’t be averse to giving it another go, if the mood were to strike, which means it just edges into the 3s
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Playlist submission: Mudride

The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
Haven’t listened to this in a long time, a long time.
It’s easy to forget how popular it was when it came out and looking back how different it was to a lot of mainstream male-fronted hip hop and r’n’b.

Skits aside, the first half absolutely rips. Lost Ones, X Factor and Doo Wop are fantastic, great lyrics, delivery, samples and arrangements. Doo Wop is my standout track but the Bam Bam interpolation and bear of Lost Ones runs it close. To Zion, Superstar and Final Hour are also great tracks, the Light My Fire interpolation and sample on Superstar is brilliantly deployed. Final Hour’s aggressive rapping and flute sample are a nice counterpoint to some of the more r’n’b style singing elsewhere.

It’s of course hard to maintain that quality and it is definitely much more uneven after Final Hour. When It Hurts So Bad and I Used to Love Him descend sharply into aimless and melodically moribund territory and they both feel a bit fat dude with a 5 string bass and hackneyed r’n’b vocal runs.

Forgive Them Father is decent, and Every Ghetto, Every City is excellent, a real highlight, it’s Stevie-eque funkiness is fantastic, and along with the superb Everything is Everything they are the highlights of the back half, strewn amongst the more unremarkable and humdrum 90s r’n’b workouts.

It is a great album though, with some truly excellent music, it’s just a shame it suffers from CD bloat with a handful of actually quite tedious tracks and too many skits tacked on to the end of some of the tracks. Because of that I don’t think it can be a 5, so a solid 4 it is.
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Playlist submission: Doo Wop (That Thing)

All Directions
Strangely the version of this on Tidal is missing Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone, it just goes from track 2 to track 4. It might be a rights issue, but the song is on Tidal on other Temptations albums and compilations. It's a bit annoying to have to skip around to listen to it all in the right order, luckily though it's a fantastic track.

It seems like Funky Music Sho’ ‘Nuff Turns Me On is actually fake ‘live’, which is both strange and perplexing, as a proper studio version would be great - it’s an excellent song with superb vocals but this just sounds murky and indistinct and the stereo mix seems a trifle strange too.

Run Charlie Run is a great bit of non-singalon funk-soul, and sounds like Funky Music should. Papa is of course a classic, and completely justifies its 11 minutes.

Love Woke Me Up This Morning is a classic bit of throwaway Temptations syrupy balladry, the piano is great and as always the vocals are excellent, making a fun confection but one that ultimately doesn’t last long on the tongue/ears.

I Ain’t Got Nothing I really loved; great melody, vocals and Shoo-wop-shoo-wops as well as an excellent string arrangement, a nice counter to the rather cloying string arrangements either side.

Vocally it’s a fantastic version of First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, the piano and bass supporting very nicely, but the strings are a touch too saccharine and I feel like they pull the song under a little. Love the timpani on Mother Nature and another great lead vocal, leading nicely into the superb Do Your Thing

Alongside the uniformly fantastic vocals, harmonies and vocal arrangements the Funk Brothers playing is magnificent, but the bass playing is particularly excellent, melodic and rhythmic with a great tone and no hints of overplaying - which you would expect with Bob Babbitt and James Jamerson’s playing.

Overall it is a slight oddity in its sense of thrown together unevenness, but with the vocals and playing making up any shortfalls it’s never unlistenable, and in Papa there is one absolute classic and four excellent tracks in Run Charlie Run, I Ain’t Got Nothin’, Mother Nature and Do Your Thing. It’s just a shame they didn’t do a proper version of Funky Music to really elevate it. As it is it makes it into the low-mid 4s
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Playlist submission: Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone

Reign in Blood
_I don’t like Nazis, I'm just interested in them_

Everytime we get one of these types of albums it always seems to follow the same pattern
- Try to have an open mind before listening
- Kind of don’t mind the first song initially
- Start to lose interest towards the end of the first song
- Get increasingly bored with each song musically
- Get increasingly bemused by the tedious, adolescent lyrical bollocks
- Don’t want to listen again

For no discernible reason I didn’t mind this as much as other metal / thrash albums, it’s only 29 minutes and I can appreciate Rick Rubin’s hand in adding some clarity so it isn’t just one big wooly sludge.

And I kind of admire how they doggedly stick to their template, which philosophically is really no different from bands I love in different genres sticking to their templates and repeatedly making similar songs and albums. However the issue is I don’t like metal or thrash, and I keep trying to articulate to myself why. I think it’s because it all feels so hollow - in relying solely on such self serious performative edginess, loudness, speed and guttural noises they really are only creating a juvenile approximation of aggression and danger, there really is no substance or weight to it, no real power or hardness. It’s not difficult or challenging in any way, there’s no tangible sense of in your face combativeness and aural assault that I get from something like Public Enemy - ultimately it just all feels like very guitar heavy background music.

For no real reason I found it better than your Sepulturas, your Panteras, your Napalm Deaths, so therefore it probably sits on a par with Megadeth and Metallica, meaning a low 2. I’ll never listen again but it did perhaps help me think more about why this type of music doesn’t resonate with me.
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Playlist submission: They’re all much of a muchness, I’ll go Jesus Saves.

Tellin’ Stories
Ask me to rate this when it came out and it would have been a 5 and then some. I saw them on the Tellin’ Stories tour at Portsmouth Guildhall on the 5th of May 1997. I bought a hooky band t-shirt outside the gig which was too tight and the colours ran.

Listening now it’s still good, particularly the front half; With No Shoes, North Country Boy, Tellin’ Stories and One to Another is a great run. It’s never not diverting but it definitely loses a bit of steam after How Can You Leave Us, despite picking up again with How High. The B-side to How High, Title Fight is great and it’s a shame it’s not on the album.

I loved One to Another when it came out as a single, the piano riff and guitar riffs are excellent and its Stones meet The Chemical Brothers vibe is still great. The Stones and Dylan are the obvious touchstones throughout, their previous album was quite Exile but this feels very Beggars Banquet influenced, particularly With No Shoes, and there are lyrical and melodic nods to Bob all over it. I guess I can see the hip hop influence on something like How High, but I think the Hip Hop Soul moniker is a bit of a stretch.

The piano and organ definitely give them textural distinctiveness, and they are definitely have an earthier bluesier than other 90s bands, and their dancey origins and the involvement of the Chemical Brothers obviously inform the bass and rhythms as there is also a lot more groove and swing to them than many of their contemporaries, even if the production does sound a little wooly in places, like a lot of mid 90s indie albums.

Overall, some cracking songs, some perfectly fine if not always exciting tracks and a couple of meandering instrumentals, a bit of groove, some excellent organ and guitars and a lovely creamy dollop of nostalgia adds up to a solid 4 for me (Even though I would dispute whether anyone who doesn’t already like the Charlatans would need to hear this before they die)
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Playlist submission: Historically One to Another, but I’ll go Tellin’ Stories

Boston
More Than a Feeling is an absolute banger but I have never felt the urge to check out a full Boston album.

I wish I had as this is a lot of fun, with just the right amount of pleasurable cheesiness - I love its Ron Burgundy rock'n'roll soft rock power pop vibe, like The Cars crossed with Foreigner, Todd Rundgren and a bit of Tom Petty. You can see why it sold by the bucket load

Aside from the meticulous layers of guitar with that sweet sweet 70s tone, there is some great bass playing and some excellent harmonies and backing vocals on here. He’s quite famous for his studio jiggery pokery and making his own studio gizmos and it really does sound excellent, crisp, warm and smooth. Like a heated up Granny Smith.

The more I listened, the better it got and the more I can see why it sold by the tonne. Peace of Mind, Rock & Roll Band, Smokin, Something About You, Hitch a Ride and Let Me Take You Home Tonight are classic 70s rock banhers, with great arrangements and catchy melodies. The only thing I’m not keen on is the Foreplay section of Foreplay / Long Time, it goes way too prog and way too close to Yes for comfort and kind of distorts the flow. However the Long Time section is a great groove and an excellent track.

After 3 listens I thought this was a solid 4, but listening again today and reading back what I wrote above I think this is a 5; it's enormous fun, the songs are great, it sounds superb, the guitar is tasty, it nails exactly what it sets out to do and it’s all done and dusted in 37 minutes. Excellent
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Playlist Submission: More Than a Feeling