Reviews by ikejiri

Tres Hombres
I have listened to this a few times in the past, as one of my colleagues loves this album and always recommends it, and also because La Grange is a great track, but I think I found it a little underwhelming.

Listening through a few times today it’s better than I remember, but I don’t think it fully catches fire, being divided by good southern/boogie/blues rock tracks and less good but fine southern/boogie/blues rock tracks.

Waitin’ for the bus is one of the good tracks, I like the riff, but the segue into Jesus Just Left Chicago improves it, as Jesus Just Left Chicago is probably the standout track alongside La Grange, a kind of moody, atmospheric, r&b slow march, and the two songs work well side by side.

Master of Sparks is the next of the good tracks, the rhythm/drum pattern is great, kind of jumping around a bit making it feel slightly off kilter and uneasy. Move Me on Down the Line is a nice bit of propulsive blues, a good driving song on a sunny day. And La Grange of course is excellent, an irresistible bit of 70s boogie. Sheik also stands with as a slightly different feel, the same bluesiness but with a slight psychedelic edge, it almost sounds like a 80s new wave track.

I do like this type of music, but I do think it’s probably more of a various artists genre than an individual artist’s album genre. Jesus Just Left Chicago and La Grange are perfect boogie/southern/blues/driving playlist tracks, and there are other tracks that would work well in that context, but as an entire album I do feel the lack of variety dragged a little. Still its a solid, unpretentious listen, which makes it a solid 3.
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Playlist submission: Jesus Just Left Chicago

Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite
Lynn, these are sex people

I vaguely remember Maxwell, and this is the sort of thing I would have really hated in the 90s. I’m more open to this sort of thing now, and there are parts to this I really enjoyed, but it suffers from being the type of music that, due to how seriously it takes itself, has been so extensively parodied that it’s hard to remember to take it completely seriously. Eg Til the Cops Come Knockin’ is utterly Lonely Island.

I also don’t know enough 90s R’n’B or Neo Soul to know where this sits in the oeuvre. I do like his voice, it's obviously very Michael Jackson influenced, but it does have a lovely smooth tone and feel. The percussion and bass are also nice, again a very smooth, clearly very 70s soul influenced sound, and they do have a great pocket and groove on most of the tracks, and the organs and keyboards also maintain that retro feel. The guitars however aren’t good at all, (which is quite mad when you see who played on this) they don’t sound 70s or retro at all, they sound incredibly cheesy, and a lot like Garageband loops from 2004. Which is quit

It’s obviously a very different album from Good Old Boys, but I have a similar feeling that individually or in small doses many of the songs here are enjoyably listenable, but in its entirety it doesn’t quite work and the sex message gets rather laboured.

Despite the guitars I liked Welcome and Ascension is really good, a nice overbite bit of 90s funk-soul. Dancewitme is probably the stand out track for me, a great groove with a nice bit of energy. Suitelady, despite some of the unintentionally funny lyrics and guitar, is also a nice bit of slowed down groove, and I didn’t mind the closing Suite Theme at, despite it teetering on the edge of complete cheese with the sax and whispered vocals.

I didn’t hate this, and quite enjoyed it in parts. It’s not something I would ever have chosen to listen to, but I’m ultimately glad I did. I may not revisit it that often, but it feels like a solid sex album in the 90s R’n’B genre, so I’ll go for a smooth and buttery but goes on too long 3.
(Also, is Maxwell’s Hang Suite just Maxwell’s House? If so he’s missed out on a potentially lucrative marketing opportunity with Maxwell House coffee)
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Playlist submission: Dancewitme

Good Old Boys
I’ve listened to this a lot today, and I’m still not totally sure where it lands. A couple of listens passed me by and then a couple of times I found it really engaging

Conceptually and thematically it’s great and there are some excellent songs, but I think what’;s confusing me is that there can be a bit of saminess to his song writing, and sometimes it feels like the focus of the album becomes a bit diffuse and it meanders into too much wryness and whimsy.

When it’s good it’s pretty great I think, Rednecks taking aim at both Southerners and Northerners smugness and attitudes to race, Birmingham rolls along nicely and Marie is a super, downbeat ballad. Mr President is great too and sounds like an early version of I Love LA, but I think a lot of his songs sound like I Love LA, and in these 4 songs you kind of have the 4 Randy Newman song archetypes.

I really like the string motif on Louisiana 1927 and it’s another good song, kind of downcast and bluesy before unfurling with a nice orchestral arrangement. I like the use of Every Man a King followed by Kingfish, about the person who wrote the former, it works really well with the album’s themes. Naked Man owes a bit of a debt to Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da and A Wedding in Cherokee County is pretty good, I really like the Moog and Arp noises and overall feel of the track

Back on My Feet Again and Rollin’ are good songs, but I think by the end I got the feeling that his songs seem to work better in smaller doses of 2 or 3 songs at a time, there’s something about 12 tracks sequentially that dragged a bit.

I think maybe this is one of those albums where the idea of the album is better than the whole album itself, and maybe listening to 5 or 6 of the songs gets the idea across better than the entirety of it. I’d definitely listen again, but it probably won’t go into rotation, making it a solid 3.
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Playlist submission: Rednecks

Beggar’s Banquet
I love all 4/5 albums from their imperial phase, but the patchwork, rootsy, folky, country-blues of this has always stood out to me, feeling more fractious and less country-fied then LIB and Sticky Fingers and less louche and decadent than Exile, maybe because Street Fighting Man and Sympathy for the Devil are more contemporarily socio-political than much of what was on the albums that followed.

It’s also remarkable how much the acoustic (and slide) dominates, forming the backbone of the album, with only SFTD, Street Fighting Man and Stray Cat Blues not being built around acoustic guitars.

Despite the fact I’ve played it to death, Sympathy for the Devil is ageless, and still sounds fantastic everytime I hear it. Street Fighting Man is the same. No Expectations I think is one of their best slow blues/country blues, the slide is great and the whole atmosphere is excellent. Dear Doctor is a great little country ditty, but Parachute Woman is a definite favourite, the bass is superb and the whole murky blues groove is great.

Prodigal son is another great little country blues and I love Charlie’s drum pattern on Stray Cat Blues, I always think it sounds like it could be used for a hip hop or DJ Shadow track, and the guitar is superb. Filthy words but a banging track. Factory Girl’s folk flavour with eastern percussion is another one of my favourites, it may be rather throwaway but I love the tune and simplicity of it. And salt of the Earth is a great gospel inflected track, similar to You Can’t Always Get What You Want in vibe, despite the slightly laughable verses coming from Jagger, although the middle 8 does undercut the verses somewhat

Great, great album. Obviously a 5.
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Playlist submission: Could be a few, but I’ll go obvious and Sympathy for the Devil

Band On the Run
If I listen to Mrs Vandebilt I get the ‘Ho, Hey-Ho’ bit stuck in my head and sing it for days, annoying Clair no end.

Even the less heralded songs on here, like Mamunia or No Words, which may be considered slight in comparison to the other tracks, are brilliantly catchy and melodic bits of superbly crafted music, the vague African feel on Mamunia and the excellent orchestral soft rock of No Words, the kind of thing ELO wish they could write. And then of course the more heralded songs on here are some of his best solo tracks; Band on the Run, Jet, Ms Vandebilt, Let Me Roll It and Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five.

The bass is superb throughout, both in tone and playing, as would be expected, but I particularly love its rollicking tone and feel on Mrs Vandebilt, a bit like on Old Brown Shoe, and its resonance on Let Me Roll It.

We all know Macca loves a song suite, and the title track is one of his best, but also the call backs and references in Picasso’s Last Words work brilliantly with the patchwork feel of the song itself (love the broken drums at ‘3 o’clock in the morning’ and the clarienet) and before it fades into the fantastic Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five, which in turn fades out with the Band on the Run intro.

Bluebird has grown on me a lot over the years too. I wasn’t always sure about it, but now I really like its yearning feel and it works really well breaking up the exuberance of Band on the Run, Jet and Mrs Vandebilt.

I can see how it might get dismissed as slight, as his facility for melody and songwriting seems so effortless, but there is so much craft, inventiveness and clearly a lot of thought running through all of it, and it is just a consistently fantastic album of great songs. Straightforward 5.
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Playlist submission: Let Me Roll It or Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five? Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five.

Dookie
Not necessarily my favourite genre, but I have a bit of a soft spot for this sort of pop punk, post grunge and pre emo, and this is surely the best example of this type of music. It’s not their fault they birthed Sum 41, Blink 182, Cupboard 37, Hook 92 and Toast 13, and that Busted and McFly teenified them.

Their melodic sensibilities are clear, and while some songs are stronger than others when it’s good it’s really good; Longview (one of the better songs about wanking) Welcome to Paradise and Basket Case are excellent, catchy bits of power-pop-punk.

Lyrically they stand apart from their peers too, there’s none of the puerile lyrics of Blink 182 and they eschew the self pitying, cringeworthy, teenage, my parents hate me whininess of many other bands. Their focus on the frustration, boredom, anxiety and the limited horizon of teenage and young adult life feels true to life and authentic in a way many punk, metal and alt bands from the same time do not.

It’s a really enjoyable listen, with some great highs and generally solid tracks. As it’s the best example of this sort of thing It just crosses into the 4s
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Playlist submission: Basket Case is obviously great, but I’ll go with Longview

Songs for Swingin’ Lovers
"You know what the title of that book should be? Yes I Can if Frank Sinatra Says it's OK, because he calls all the shots for those guys"

From the moment his voice kicks in on You Make Me Feel So Young to the final note of How About You this just sounds so great and so right; the songs, the arrangements, the production and the vocals all combine perfectly.

Many of the same thoughts apply to this as they did to In The Wee Small Hours; the horns and strings, while substantial and weighty don’t pierce or overpower, and Frank’s control of tone, phrasing and enunciation is sublime, that clarity and precision combined with the elegant and sympathetic approach to the songs is just fantastic.

Despite the more upbeat nature of the songs, it doesn’t go bombastic or over the top. It doesn’t have the same melancholy tone as In The Wee Small Hours, but it does share the same appreciation of nuance and subtlety, I think due to Nelson Riddle’s arrangements and Frank’s skill as a song interpreter. Also a lot of the playing, particularly the bass is superb, you can really hear the skill the musicians have

I don’t know if these are the definitive versions of these songs, but the do feel like it, not only the big songs - You Make Me Feel So Young, Pennies From Heaven, I’ve Got You Under My Skin, Anything Goes - but the ones I know less well, It Happened In Monterey, You’re Getting to Be a Habit With Me, Old Devil Moon, I Thought About You, Swingin’ Down the Lane.

It really is a great listen, an easy, swingin’ 5
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Playlist submission: I’ve Got You Under My Skin

Two Dancers
I definitely have a bit of a blind spot with post-Strokes late 00s indie. A lot of the bands either passed me by or I struggled to sustain much interest as time passed. Wild Beasts are definitely one that passed me by, I know the name but I don’t think I know any of their music. Whether it was because the name is in the same ballpark as Animal Collective I had thought it may be in a similar vein and therefore not that great.

In actuality, and while it does seem to have some commonality with AC, it’s a better album and a more enjoyable listen than Merriweather Post Pavilion, and sounds perhaps a bit closer to The National, with a sprinkling of Future Islands.

There is definitely a similar percussion feel as The National, but it feels more dynamic and intricately constructed, and, I assume, his falsetto might be a bit marmite, but I liked it, it has a kind of detached weariness to it, and it actually reminded me a bit of the Orange Juice album in places.

The Fun Powder Plot is a really nice opener, some of the almost far eastern sounding guitar is great, as are some of the lines on Howling and Hooting. All The King’s Men is great, nice toms and a nice melody, and it’s probably the best track.

Two Dancers (i) and (ii) are great as well, with their respective propulsive and dreamy atmospheres. This Is Our Lot is good as well, the prominent bass providing the hook is really nice, and it ends well with Empty Nest (Through the Iron Gate being an iTunes bonus track). The rest of the tracks are fine, if slightly less good variations on the stronger tracks.

I don’t think it quite gets into the 4s, although I enjoyed it and I’m intrigued to see if it grows on me in time. Mid to high 3.
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Playlist submission: All The King’s Men

Rip It Up
I’m pretty sure I’ve given this a go in the past, probably after watching a BBC4 documentary about Postcard Records, and aside from the obviously well known title track and I Can’t Help Myself I can’t recall much about it.

Listening now though I find it strange that I don’t remember much of it as it’s a pretty great little album. I can understand how the clear notes of feyness and tweeness might be off putting, but I really enjoyed their slightly quirky vibe, a kind of pale Scottish guitar band who clearly listen to a lot of Talking Heads, Disco and Afrobeat, but aren’t quite able to nail the funk element, resulting and something that is neither quite jangly guitar pop nor disco-funk, sitting attractively somewhere between the two.

Rip it Up is a great example of that, I love how they wanted to do a Chic/Disco influenced track, and while you can hear that, it comes out as a far less muscular and more delightful bit of Scottish indie, with some great bits of squelchy synth whimsy and it really is a superb song, a brilliant bit of pop music.

A Million Pleading Faces is excellent too, toe tappingly good with some great little guitar runs and a great Afro-groove. Mud in Your Eye's first two drum beats sound a lot like Tusk, before it goes into a very nice New Wave Soul hybrid, kind of like Elvis Costello but with less wired abrasion. Turn Away has more of the New Wave, Talking Heads vibe, and Breakfast Time has a nice amount of reggae edge to it, kind of Specials-y but less sure footed, in a good way.

I Can’t Help Myself is another great bit of disco-jangle pop, again the feeling Chic gets fed in one end and something pleasingly odd and catchy comes out the other end.

There is a bit of a sense of drift towards the conclusion after the excellent first 6 tracks, but I do like the horn embellishments of Flesh of My Flesh, and Louise Louise has some great harmonies and Hokoyo is another great Afrobeat bop.

This is a solid 4, a great little album, not perfect, but a very enjoyable listen with plenty of charm and idiosyncrasy and enough going on musically to make me want to come back to it.
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Playlist submission: Rip it Up

Wish You Were Here
Pink Floyd are on the list of ‘Bands I really must get into someday’. Today (and yesterday) is that day.

Obviously I’ve heard a lot of Pink Floyd songs in the ether and I know many of their songs by cultural osmosis, but listening to this on repeat I can see why people love them, and how people might think that listening to it stoned out of their minds at 3am might give them ‘the answer’.

I don’t know what that question is that might lead to a drug fuelled psychic awakening, but this does answer my question of ‘What’s a Pink Floyd album like?’. Listening to this it’s a meticulously built 44 minutes of brilliantly layered, slow tempo sonic atmosphere, movingly structured around a loose concept.

Although there are distinct songs it’s really about experiencing the whole thing, the feel and movement of the full run time, with synths, solos, melodies all unfolding at a languid pace, all with an occasional disquieting undertow. The solo on Have a Cigar is particularly good.

I don’t know if this is prog rock, I suppose in a way it is, but it’s far richer and far better than the Yes and ELP albums we’ve had. It may share the same seriousness, but it never crosses into unintentional pompousness or silliness, it feels self contained and self possessed in a way those other albums don’t.

Having never listened to a Pink Floyd album before, but having been keen to give them a listen I’m glad this lived up to expectations - perhaps today (and yesterday) were supposed to be the day I liked it, the psychedelic mystery of Pink Floyd was fated to reveal itself on this very day (and yesterday).
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Playlist submission: Shine on You Crazy Diamond (all IX parts)

Grace
Hmmm. Like everyone else I had this, and I think I tried to convince myself I liked it, but there’s something about it that never quite landed with me. On the surface it should be something I like, and in parts I do appreciate it, but I think I always got a sense of self indulgence from it. And despite him obviously having a good voice there’s some quality to it that I struggle with, to the point I find it a little bit annoying. The songs themselves I also feel tend to wooliness, not quite reaching the elegiac, transcendental heights he’s obviously striving for, and maybe that disconnect is what gives me the sense of self indulgence

Having said that I do like The Last Goodbye, and despite it being played to death Hallelujah is an undeniably good version.

Maybe the circumstances around his death and the reputation this album subsequently developed has created unrealistic expectations, but ultimately it feels like an average album with some good moments. I wouldn’t rule out listening again but it doesn’t really grab me. It feels a bit wilfully obtuse to give it 2 so it just scrapes a 3.
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Playlist submission: The Last Goodbye

Heartbreaker
I listened to this A LOT back in the day when I was really into Ryan Adams. I absolutely loved Gold and then worked back to this and Whiskeytown but by the time of Love is Hell I started to drift away and haven’t listened to him much at all. I think his douchiness put me off him before all the sexy predator stuff.

Aside from the douchiness and the nostalgic rush this is a good little album. It’s definitely a bit patchy and can feel longer than it actually is, and there is more than a hint of self mythologising sad eyed I’m a poet fuckboy about it, but there are some great songs and the relatively spare production is excellent, perfectly in keeping with the deliberately loose and slightly ragged feel.

I always liked To Be Young a great Dylan-esque rocker, he’s good at these sorts of things, but the more plaintive acoustic tracks are probably the tracks that work best on here, the run of Winding Wheel (the organ is great on this), Amy, Oh My Sweet Carolina, Bartering Lines is superb, and Emmylou’s appearance on Oh My Sweet Carolina is great.

I like the chorus of Call Me on Your Way Back Home, but the overall mauldin nature of the track is a bit trying. The lyrics on Damn, Sam have always annoyed me, a kind of teenager’s idea of romanticism, but are ultimately hollow.

That mawkishness does bubble to the surface on occasion down the back half. Come Pick Me Up I’m not that keen on,To Be The One is great in it’s almost Nebraska-esque sparseness, but Why Do They Leave, from the title to the melody, and despite Gillian Welch’s backing vocals it’s all a bit too overwrought. Shakedown, despite being a rather prosaic rocker is welcome burst of energy. In My Time of Need is another great, spare ballad, and the piano on Sweet Lil Gal is a nice variation on the banjo/guitar and has a nice ghostly ambience.

He is clearly a great songwriter, there are great melodies and hooks throughout, but revisiting this now I do cringe at some of the lyrics I was into as a 22 year old. Overall though it is a very good album, a bit patchy in the middle but up to Bartering Lines it is truly excellent and it finishes strongly as well. Combine that with the nostalgia and it pushes it into the 4s.
💔💔💔💔
Playlist submission: Oh My Sweet Carolina

Marquee Moon
Diddle-liddle-liddle-liddle-luh

That hook on Marquee Moon is so memorably catchy.

I haven’t heard this album in ages but I was really into around 2002/03, I think I might still have it on vinyl in the attic somewhere.

Listening now has reminded me how massively influential it has been and what a superb album it is, amalgamating punk, garage, new wave, rock and jazz into a classic guitar album that sounds contemporary and timeless at the same time. The guitars interweave beautifully over the skittish post punk drums and bass, the jagged, edgy vocals have a great punky underground New York attitude but it still has a distinct melodic pop sensibility.

I love the whole album but that first side from See No Evil to Marquee Moon is sublime, the title-track’s 10 minutes fly by and I love the feeling of ending at around 9.17 before the bass and hook come back.

Elevation - Surely Californication was heavily influenced by this. I adore Guiding Light, it’s sparser arrangement with piano has an ascending and dreamlike quality sitting really nicely against the rest of the guitar tracks

Every track is great, the guitar interplay is fantastic, the lyrics are superb. An undoubted classic. 5 tvs, moons or marquees, whichever you prefer.

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Playlist submission: Marquee Moon

xx
This passed me by a bit when it came out, although I do know some of it as I remember it being played a lot in my old office.

They do have one trick, but it’s a superbly enjoyable trick, the atmosphere they create with relatively minimal instrumentation is very appealing. Elements of indie, new wave and electronica all tied up with a reverb bow and sung over with almost sheepish, melancholic vocals, kind of directed at each other but also seemingly not quite communicating very well.

It never veers too far from that template, but I don’t think it needs to when the overall feel is so immersive, it’s a great headphone listen, a great work listen and, I imagine, a great darkened room listen or a great motorway at 3am as headlights flash by listen. I’m guessing Intro or Stars are ones for Paul’s trains at dusk playlist?

Not sure it quite gets to 5 but its easily a high 4
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Playlist submission: VCR

Fear of a Black Planet
I’ve never listened to this. I had It Takes a Nation of Millions on CD and used to really like it, but I’ve never ventured much into PE, despite liking them.

After listening all afternoon yesterday and this morning I feel like I’ve been punched in the head a lot, but in a good way. Lyrically and sonically this has to be one of the densest albums we’ve had. Nearly all the metal albums we’ve had, with their harsh guitars and kick drumming, aren’t even close to the power and attitude on here. I’m a big fan of the Bomb Squad’s excessively jam packed production, it has a brilliant relentlessness and edge, while also being catchy and groove laden. Looking at Whosampled there are so many samples on each song and they are used brilliantly, either as hooks or are intricately woven into the soundscape of each song - I love when you briefly hear something you recognise and then don’t hear it again.

The well known songs; 911 is Joke, Welcome to the Terrordome, Burn Hollywood Burn, Fight the Power are all excellent and still relevant in 2025. I love the high pace of Burn Hollywood Burn, and Flavor Flav's drawling delivery on 911 is a Joke is great in contrast to the chaotic, noisy production.

But there are also great songs, samples and moments throughout, Brothers Gonna Work it Out is excellent, the bass giving a great relentless groove, I love the use of the guitar stabs of Getting Better on Who Stole the Soul? Revolutionary Generation and Fear of a Black Planet are both great and well ahead of their time, Leave this Off Your Fuckin’ Charts use of soul samples and heavy guitar is great, kind of like a radio stuck between two stations with someone scratching over the top. Final Count is rare bit of minimalism before the onrush of Fight the Power

My only quibble would be that an hour does feel quite long for the amount of musical and lyrical content. But that’s only minor really and doesn’t at all diminish what an incredible album this is, full of righteous intensity and anger, noise, hooks and power. It feels quite apart from many Hip Hop albums, neither revelling in stereotypes nor compromising its anger, combining the articulacy of De La Soul, the byzantine sample based construction of something like Paul’s Boutique, the societal critique of 70s soul and the power of it’s own righteousness - it really is fantastic.

5 is no joke
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Playlist submission: Who Stole the Soul?

Arc of Diver
Big ‘Today on Pebble Mill we’ll be interviewing Birmingham’s busiest Postman!’ with While You See a Chance.

Steve Winwood has a genuinely interesting career and I like a lot of his stuff, and I am very partial to a bit of easily palatable soul inflected AOR/pop, but I wasn’t entirely convinced by this one, at least on first listen. The songs themselves are fine, if a little unmemorable, but the synths are pretty intrusive, on occasion sounding unintentionally amusing, and the whole thing sounds quite strangely mixed - a lot of the keyboards and guitars as well as the synths are way too prominent in the mix and can feel quite jarring.

It did grow on me on repeat listens though, I actually liked some of the songs, and the sound beneath the unbalanced mixing. While You See a Chance is a nice song, I really liked Second Hand Woman, a great bit of uptempo disco influenced pop-soul, Slowdown Sundown has nice Traffic like energy and feel, and Spanish Dancer is actually an excellent bit of slow burning bit of soulful rock-pop.

It does definitely tail off after Spanish Dancer, but overall I found this pretty enjoyable if a bit patchy. If you want a nice bit of plasticy sounding adult pop there are probably some more consistent places to look, but this is a solid album. I would definitely listen again, but I not actively seek it out. Square in the 3s then.
🥽🥽🥽
Playlist submission: Spanish Dancer

Hybrid Theory
For the first 2 seconds of Papercut I thought this might not be as poor as I expected, but then that annoying little guitar figure appears, then the ‘heavy’ riffing starts and then the terrible sing/rapping kicks in and it is truly awful.

Obviously I’m not at all predisposed to metal or nu-metal, and despite having a soft spot for a couple of not very good Limp Bizkit songs, I was always going to struggle with this. But it is truly awful. It’s very, very dated, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it sounds so bad, the guitars, despite their ‘metalness’ are insipid and limp, his vocals, whether singing or rapping, have a really irritating tinniness and thinness, the lyrics are the worst kind of moody adolescent crap, total I’m 14 And This Is Deep vibes. Forgotten’s ‘in the middle of my thoughts’ is pure Lonely Island

There aren’t even any sort of enjoyably silly moments, it’s all run through with hollow, pompous self seriousness, completely lacking in any sense of light or shade, self awareness or any glimpse of humour. And all combined with such a safe amount of metal edge - despite not being keen on the metal we’ve had at least with most of it there was a kind of sense of them meaning it, whereas this sounds so self importantly calculated and cynical.

One listen is enough. Woeful.
🛝
Playlist submission: Honestly who gives a shit?

Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs
I really enjoyed this, putting me in mind of The Big Lebowski or a very watchable western on TV on a Sunday afternoon.

It’s an interesting genre, Western music, I do like it, mainly as I like a lot of the 50s and 60s western movies. It has probably been subsumed by Country and Country & Western, but I really like its Spanish influenced non-fiddle folk feel, and that it’s immediately evocative of a specific time and place, however mythical that world may be.
He has a very 50s voice, almost like a crooner, and he has a great sense of small scale drama that really suits the relatively simple backing and the themes and well constructed stories of the songs. I particularly liked Big Iron, Cool Water, They’re Hanging Me Tonight, The Strawberry Roan, Running Gun and Utah Carol

I could happily listen to this all day, it’s on the cusp of 3 and 4, I’ll tip over to 4 as I’m sure I’ll revisit this more.
🤠🤠🤠🤠
Playlist submission: Big Iron

Innervisions
It's pretty astonishing that this was released only 10 months after Talking Book. The two albums definitely have a kinship in my mind, almost like part 1 and part 2, Talking Book tending more personal and this one looking more externally. Either way they are both fantastic albums.

I’ve always loved Too High, with it’s bubbling synth, simultaneously upbeat and subdued, emphasising the druggy subject. I never took to Visions much when I first got the album, but it’s grown a lot on me over the years, and now I think it’s great, a lovely latin inflected soul ballad.
Living for the City, of course, is superb, maybe one of his best songs, with a superb groove and melody and subject matter.

Golden Lady really feels like you are on a boat in the Caribbean, coasting along on the laidback breeze. It also sounds a bit like he sings Gordon Liddy, which would make sense with the Misstra Know It All being about Nixon, even if the song seems to be a love song.

Higher Ground is equal to Superstition for Stevie-funk for me, absolute banger. Jesus Children is the sort of song that only Stevie can do, propulsive synth, a soulful and catchy melody with a dark edge. Brilliant. All in Love is Fair is probably my least favourite track on the album - it’s a good ballad but it doesn’t quite reach the standards of the rest of the album.

Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing is superb, like You Are the Sunshine of My Life, one of those songs whose melody feels like it might be a latin jazz classic from the 50s, with a sense of instant familiarity. And He’s Misstra Know it all is a fantastic closer, with the lovely piano line, jazzy drums and flute and brilliantly memorable lyrics and melody.

Easy 5.
😎😎😎😎😎
Playlist submission: Could be any track, but I’ll go Too High

Junkyard
The only thing I know about The Birthday Party is that it’s Nick Cave’s first band, but I assumed it would be some kind of spiky post punk album, perhaps a bit like The Fall. It’s not far off that, although with a bit more funk and a bit more melody poking through the gothic gloom and scuzziness, but without the miserablist humour and sensibilities of Mark E Smith.

You can also hear a few signposts to the music he’d go on to make, a more melodic take on the same themes and structures, with the confrontational and challenging aspects hidden below are slightly shinier veneer.

Although I enjoyed this I don’t think it quite stands up to some of the other post punk we have, like Public Image, or quite reaches the level of other tricky and abrasive music. A solid 3.
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Playlist submission: Several Sins