Reviews by ikejiri

Parallel Lines
The best of Blondie was one of the official minidisc albums I got when I got my minidisc player for Christmas in 1998. Nothing to do with Parallel Lines but whenever I hear Blondie I think about that Minidisc player.

Sweet memories aside this album is just a terrific rush of pop perfection, right in the sweet spot of new wave, disco, reggae, pop, power pop, little bits of country and rock, with a slightly crazy number of classic bangers: Hanging on the Telephone, One Way or Another, Picture This, Fade Away & Radiate, Pretty Baby, Sunday Girl, Heart of Glass, I’m Gonna Love You To.

Some of the less famous songs are great as well, I Know but I Don’t Know has a great seedy pop snark to it, 11.59’s slight doo wop wedded to power pop is super, Will Anything Happen is an excellent bit of new wave vaguely rockabilly synth pop and Just Go Away is a lovely bit of attitude.

All bangers, all the time
🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍
Playlist submission: Heart of Glass the obvious one, but I love Fade Away & Radiate.

Daydream Nation
No 3 of the 5 Sonic Youth albums on the list.

I can’t really recall much about Dirty and EVOL, but looking back at my reviews I seemed to have enjoyed them without really loving them, and I think I feel the same about this one.

I definitely think they are one of the most interesting US alt rock bands, their looseness and surf pop sensibilities marry well with the interestingly distorted and scuzzy guitar noise, particularly on Teen Age Riot, the standout track.

It may be that I can’t really remember the previous albums well enough but I thought you could particularly hear how influential this, for good and for ill, was on lots of the bands that followed. And despite it definitely being overlong it seemed to be more melodically interesting than the other two albums - the guitar noise framework meshing well with more conventional songwriting, and the bass and drums creating lots of good grooves, like The Sprawl and Total Trash (which the Manics must have liked). I also liked Candle and Eliminator.

I think I preferred this to EVOL and Dirty, although truthfully I’d have to listen to them again to be sure. I don’t quite think though it reaches a 4, so it’s a high 3 for now and I’d like to revisit when I don’t have 11 albums to catch up on.
🕯️🕯️🕯️
Playlist submission: Teen Age Riot

A Christmas Gift for You From Phil Spector
Just getting this in before going back to work tomorrow, when the Christmas dream truly dies.

One little thing I wanted to mention that I really love is how you can hear the New York accent on Frosty the Snowman, ‘Frorsty the snowman…’, so great.

Amyway all the songs are familiar from so many Christmases and playlists, but it’s a great album, 35 minutes of brilliant sounding do-wop rock’n’roll Christmas pop. I don’t think you can give it anything but 5, it’s obviously not a Revolver or Rumours but it’s unfair to judge it by the criteria of classic albums, as it’s in a specific genre outside of normal pop
🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄
Playlist submission: Christmas Baby, Please Come Home

Hotel California
One of those albums where everything on it sounds just right, both sonically and thematically. Each track works individually but they all contribute to the coked out, unsettling, sunshine drenched, harmony ridden, end of the hippy era vibe.

The first side in particular is excellent, the title track of course is fantastic, New Kid in Town’s and Wasted Time’s harmonies are so so good, and the song reveals itself as an absolutely superb ballad on repeat listens. And Life in the Fast line is their most convincing riff driven rocker, benefitting from the lack of Bernie Leadon’s country influence and Joe Walsh’s more rock approach.

The second side does perhaps dip a little with Victim of Love and Pretty Maids All in a Row, but only in comparison to that first side and the superb final two tracks, particularly the Last Resort. I do also like the Martin-esque Wasted Time string reprise, it gives a nice sense of sad grandeur.

A classic for a reason, the songs are great, the harmonies are superb, it sounds fantastic and it nails it’s thematic concept of ‘loss of innocence, the cost of naiveté, the perils of fame, of excess; exploration of the dark underbelly of the American dream, idealism realized and idealism thwarted, illusion versus reality, the difficulties of balancing loving relationships and work’ - it sounds sunny and hopeful on the surface but is undercut with despair and seediness. Easy 5.
🏨🏨🏨🏨🏨
Playlist submission: Obvious, but Hotel California

Elvis Presely
It’s surprising how good this sounds and how coherent it feels for something right at the birth of Rock’n’Roll, before the album and before the pop star as we came to know them. I suppose it being recorded in relatively few sessions, relatively close together helps it all feel connected, and while Tutti Frutti and Blue Suede Shoes are more or less Rock’n’Roll songs the majority of it is the rockabilly, country and r’n’b that birthed Rock’n’Roll. That gives it both a nice sense of history and also a sense of continuity.

Ultimately it’s a very listenable and enjoyable collection, and even knowing everything we know now about Elvis, you can still feel the charisma and excitement coming through on the songs, helped of course by his excellent band, their exuberance and attack giving the songs a real edge.

Musically a 4, historically a 5, I’ll split the difference and round up
🎙️🎙️🎙️🎙️🎙️
Playlist submission: Blue Moon

Utter dreck.

The Blueprint
I bought this around the time it came out after hearing, or more likely seeing Takeover on MTV. That still sounds great, the sample is of course excellent, but is used brilliantly too, not exactly subtle, but it creates the groove and the tension in the song.

The Ruler’s Back, Izzo, Girls, Girls, Girls, U Don’t Know, Heart of the City continue the excellent use of samples, using similar funk, jazz and soul influences as G-funk, but with less of the weeded out paranoia atmosphere, making it sound pretty warm and very accessible. The pop sensibility to the music is really evident, and while the lyrics aren’t as hardcore as Biggie or Nas or Tupac, they still touch on those same subjects, but his delivery is so laid back and non-aggressive it feels way less confrontational, combining with the music to make a very enjoyable listen.

Was thinking 4 but on the final listen it might be crossing into the 5s, it’s a great album, lyrically dense but humorous and musically open armed it’s a great listen. It’s much better than some rap albums I’ve given 4 to, ergo I’ll slip into the 5s

🗺️🗺️🗺️🗺️🗺️
Playlist submission: Takeover

The Genius of Ray Charles
Not massively au fait with Ray Charles, but I know he has a bit of a peripatetic back catalogue, and even though he was right at the vanguard of soulifying jazz I wasn’t expecting the very pop big band swing of the first side, but there’s something really interesting about the very Sinatra-esque arrangements with his raspy soul voice and phrasing, particularly on It Had to be You.

The ballady second side is also full of charm, and feels like a dfifferent album, but is equally successful and an equally great listen.

He might be the epitome of ‘he could sing the phone book and it would sound great, there’s just something ineffably fantastic about the timbre of his voice, that elevates eveything on here, just slipping it into a 4.
🕶️🕶️🕶️🕶️
Playlist submission: Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Cryin’

The Last of the True Believers
I thought this was great, a sweet spot of country and folk and pop, where you can almost hear how the fiddle from traditional folk became the fiddle in country, and all tied together with her great voice and her smart takes on classic country stories and themes.

It manages to skirt the edges of saccharine, MOR country, deftly hitting some of those touchpoints before skipping away, making it feel familiar but fresh at the same time.

It really is a lovely 35 and I loved the first 6 songs in particular; the great, skittering opener, the melancholy Love at the Five and Dime, the almost Pogue-ian St Olav’s Gate, the very lovely More Than a Whisper, the picaresque Banks of the Pontchartrain and the how down of Lookin’ For the Time. The Wing and the Wheel is also excellent.

An easy 4, something I’ll definitely return to.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Playlist submission: More Than a Whisper

Everything Must Go
I remember I was quite late to this, for some reason it was only when Australia was released that I bought it. In fact I think I bought it in HMV in Oxford Street in December ‘96, and subsequently I do associate it with Christmas, probably playing it a lot on my Sony midi hi-fi system I got for Christmas that year.

I haven’t listened in a while but it’s so familiar from so many listens; the windswept loneliness of Elvis Impersonator, the imperious A Design for Life, the new-wave-ish scratchiness of Kevin Carter, the anthemic rockness of Enola/Alone and Interiors, the emotionally triumphant title track, the bleakness of Small Black Flowers, the almost disco funk of I Am the Girl, the expansive escapism of Australia, and the slight callback sound of No Surface. Those are all great, great songs. Removables and Further Away are decent album tracks but not at the level of those tracks.

It is interesting how classic rock and Britpop adjacent this sounds with its grand symphonic arrangements and generally slower tempos than The Holy Bible. You can almost sense the relief of going with such a large, monumental sound after the claustrophobia of that record and everything with Richie, a real sense of freeing themselves from the legacy of all that.

It’s a great album, I should listen more often, but its an easy 5.
🌏🌏🌏🌏🌏
Playlist submission: Australia

Nick of Time
I actually listened to this not that long ago, along with quite a few of her earlier albums, after accidentally watching one of her gigs on BBC2, having only really previously known a few of her songs via an uncle of mine who was a huge fan. She really does have a fantastic voice, I love her tone and phrasing, she can lean into a bluesy rasp or go more tender and delicate.

This album is a funny one though, she sings brilliantly and many of the songs are at the very least decent, but the Don Was production is so, so dated. It’s got that precise, professionally smooth, middle of the road, edgeless sound, augmented by some stylistically horrible synths and electric pianos. Love Letter is probably the worst culprit, but it’s almost so cheesy it comes back out the other side and I almost think it sounds good. Ultimately it doesn’t escape the feel of a band you’d hear playing in a dive bar in an 80s movie, like Jeff Healy in Road House.

Sometimes though the songs do push the production though, Nick of Time is excellent, probably the stand out track, Thing Called Love is a catchy if pretty rote bit of 80s blues rock, Cry on My Shoulder has a superb vocal and nice melody. Nobody’s Girl (not that one unfortunately) benefits from the acoustic only backing, showcasing her voice. Have a Heart is decently cheesy, like the end credits song of another 80s movie. After that it kind of drifts off, neither terrible nor too remarkable, to the end, apart from picking up with the nicely forlorn I Ain’t Going to Let You Break My Heart.

If you are after a cheese adjacent late 80s adult MOR blues rock album then this is a supreme example. In the context of her first few albums and how good her voice is though it is hard to escape the feeling that it's all rather insubstantial. However the flip side of that is that it is also decently inoffensive, and in the right mood I’d stick it on again, which lands it as a 3 in my book.
🕰️🕰️🕰️
Playlist submission: Nick of Time

Fragile
The Yes albums we’ve had are mixed up with the ELP album in my memory, so it’s hard to place this one in that context. Looking back at the reviews I didn’t seem to care much for Close to the Edge but I didn’t mind The Yes Album. But I actually can’t really remember much about either of them.

I know Roundabout, apart from Owner of Lonely Heart, it must be their most famous song, and it is brilliant; a catchy melody, an excellent bass line, some great spacey synth noises, a superb keyboard solo, nice acoustic and electric guitars and a suitably melodramatic sense of pomposity. Reading about how it was constructed is pretty interesting, but my favourite thing I read is the genesis of it: ‘The song originated when the band were on tour and travelled from Aberdeen to Glasgow, and went through many roundabouts on the way.’ Inspirationally Craig David-esque.

Thereafter, despite it having the usual, undeniably amusing tang of prog rock self importance, it never veers into overbearing and I found myself enjoying it, it feels like what I’d imagined Prog Rock to sound like before I actually listened to any of it.

Cans and Brahms is probably the one of the few sour notes for me, feeling a little pretentiously forgettable, but We Have Heaven is enjoyably daft with its folky playground feel and South Side of the Sky is really good, giddily powered by the kind of portentous Prog riffing that is genuinely enjoyable.

Five Per Cent For Nothing is thankfully brief, but the keyboards and piano are great on Long Distance Runaround, it’s a relatively straightforwardly accessible bit of Prog pop, with a Supertramp feel, segueing nicely into the The Fish, with its nicely haughty latin in parentheses, and an insistent groove - another good track. As are the rather earnest folk stylings of Mood for A Day. And the Heart of the Sunrise is an enjoyably serious Prog workout, never staying in one place for too long and playing on the margins of disappearing up it’s own fundament, just about staying out of the brown zone.

Sonically this is great too, the bass tone (and playing) is excellent and I love the drum sound, it has that really dampened but resonant quality to it, and the keyboards have a great imperiously bombastic feel to them.

I don’t know whether because it’s my last working day before Christmas so I’m in a good mood and I therefore imagined a sense of humour and sense of self awareness amongst the self importance and magniloquence, but I didn’t find this annoying in the way I did their other albums. I really got into it, growing into it on repeat listens, so much so I’m going 4, as it feels like the only Prog Rock album I want to listen to again
🫡🫡🫡🫡
Playlist submission: Roundabout

Music Has The Right to Children
I’m not as familiar with this as I am with Geogaddi for some reason, even though I know this is generally considered their high water mark, and I haven’t listened to either of them for quite a while.
It’s interesting listening now, how many childhood references and moods there are on this, something that I think must have previously passed me by, even though there are numerous Sesame Street samples and that the title is a big clue. Those samples combined with the vintage synth sounds, lines and burbles give a slightly strange and dislocated haze to it, not quite a dream and not quite a memory but seemingly an evocation of something from childhood. At the same time the intricate, hip hop inflected and meticulously layered rhythms, beats and percussion balance that abstracted mood with a cooler, sharper edge, giving it an overall affecting, ruminative character.

I also thought it might feel a little dated or very firmly recognisably late 90s, but it really doesn’t at all. I suppose the mix of contemporary and vintage synths are kind of timeless, but the drums, beats and percussion still sound great, echoing back to 80s hip hop, but with fullness and depth, and they aren’t overly influenced by the house and big beat of the late 90s, or other contemporary electronica.

While each song is relatively distinct and the track listing follows the pattern of longer songs with shorter vignettes it flows together brilliantly as one piece of music, shifting and moving between textures and moods often in the same song, giving me a similar feeling to listening to some of Brian Eno’s ambient albums or Endtroducing. In fact this feels like a brilliant synthesis of those two artists.

It’s a superb electronic/ambient album but it’s also just a superb album in its own right. Easy 5.
🍁🍁🍁🍁🍁
Playlist submission: Hard to pick one out, but I particularly love the synth of Roygbiv.

Bug
Looking back I seem to have quite enjoyed You’re Living All Over Me, and I feel similarly about this.

J Mascis is not the strongest vocalist, but he has a laid back, slackery charm to his vocals that suit the songs and overall vibe. He also does interesting stuff on the guitar, and despite the noise there are plenty of nuanced variations and touches which pull this out of the morass of US noise/alt rock, like the wah on Yeah We Know, the spacey slide guitar on Let it Ride and the acoustic on Pond Song

There are some good songs, Freak Scene is great, you can see why it’s their most famous song, No Bones has a nice bit of swing to it, They Always Come is nicely plaintive, Budge has a nice chorus and Let it Ride. The less said about Don’t the better though.

Overall it’s a decent noisy guitar album, with some good songs, good drums and some great guitar moments. I’d happily give it a listen again if in the right mood, a solid 3.
🪲🪲🪲
Playlist submission: Freak Scene

Doolittle
One of those bands whose songs I know well through osmosis, but have never given a proper listen to - and another one of those albums I wish I’d listened to earlier as it is pretty great!

Debaser, Here Comes Your Man and Monkey Gone to Heaven are obviously the famous ones, and they are brilliant bits of immediate, catchy alt rock. Debaser has that slight new wave feel with the drums and then the surfy backing vocals, Here Comes Your Man is a superb bit of power pop and Monkey Gone to Heaven is just great.

There’s some great stuff on here, Wave of Mutilation is brilliantly catchy for a song about driving your car into the sea, I Bleed has some great guitar, Mr Grieves has a kind of country-ish twinge and a great sense of frenetic swing.

La La Love You is great, another catchy bit of jangly surf inflected pop with a slight off kilter sense. No 13 Baby is a superior bit of pre-grunge alt rock with, as throughout, some great bass playing. There Goes My Gun is great too, the superb backing vocals and Duane Eddy style guitar solo really make it shine. I loved Silver too, kind of western-ish with a definite English folk atmosphere.

I expected it to be far more abrasive and far less melodic, but it does a great job at combining those two things, you can hear their alt rock/punk-ish attitudes and origins, but they are combined with a great sense of pop craft, with new wave, surf, classic rock influences and inflections. And of course the lyrics and themes have enough outsider unconventionality to them to keep them interesting and pull them away from their rock/alt rock peers.

A high 4 with potential, looking forward to listening some more.
🧚🧚🧚🧚
Playlist submission: Here Comes Your Man

Merriweather Post Pavilion
I don’t think I’ve ever consciously listened to Animal Collective. I’ve heard My Girls on the radio or on TV before and I like it, but I haven't ever really felt the urge to explore their music.

It’s strange because I feel like this is the kind of music I normally get into; semi-experimental, lots of droning soundscapes and textures and layered synths, but I did find it difficult to connect with. Sometimes this kind of music washes over you in an engaging way, and as you listen more it starts to unfurl itself and get under your skin. And sometimes it just washes over you leaving little memory or trace. Unfortunately the majority of this seems to fall in the latter category, feeling like it’s neither experimentally odd enough nor atmospherically immersive enough to be genuinely interesting.

My Girls and Bluish are really good though, the vocal melodies on both tracks deviate from what seems to be ACs standard pattern and they pull the music along with them, making a great blend of droning indie folky arty pop. No More Runnin’ I like too, and I like the ravey noises on Brother Sport, bringing a bit of vitality and vigor.

Overall I can’t quite shake a slight sense of falseness to much of it, that they are deliberately making music to appeal to Pitchfork, music that seems complex, dense and psychedelically experimental and original, but is in truth is only superficially those things, underneath it all is a rather pedestrian and safely weird collection of music dressed in calculatedly elaborate robes. Obviously I can’t know AC’s intentions, and there’s plenty of music I like you could make the same accusations against, but this did leave me slightly bored.

I don’t think it’s terrible though, even if it does have some insincerity to it there is of course skill to it as well as some good songs and it passes an hour easily enough. It's on the cusp of 2 and 3. On balance I’m unlikely to listen again, as there are other places I’d go for this type of thing, which rather unfortunately puts it at 2 on my scale.
🐒🦍
Playlist: Bluish

Movies
‘Hello!’ ‘Hello Darling!’

No idea who or what this is, but before I listened I saw the album cover had a sticker on it saying Holger Czukay from Can, so I thought it might be some atmospheric motorik driven krautrock. But although you can see the through line from Can, it feels experimental in a slightly more fun way, kind of signposting stuff that would come in the 80s, like Tom Tom Club, Malcolm McClaren et al, although with less obvious concessions to accessibility. Although my sense is that he's the type of person who thought he was making something very poppy and accessible, it just came out funny.

Cool in the Pool is a part Bowie synthy disco, part Can, part Afrobeat, but with added teutonic avant garde noises and oddness, it’s great. Oh Lord, Give Us More Money is maybe the most Can sounding track, but the samples take it somewhere else, occasionally feeling like the theme from a 70s cop show, occasionally feeling like an ominous dream, but always with the insistent drumming and bass. Great track.

Persian Love has a great groove and more pleasing oddness, seemingly built from the middle eastern vocal sample, but ending up as a sort of calypso-folk-funk hybrid, and it sounds a lot better than that combination would suggest.

I absolutely loved Hollywood Symphony, excellent noises, synths and vocal samples, kind of unfolding itself over an unhurried 15 minutes, seeming to settle on a groove and atmosphere before squelching off into some bit of spacey weirdness. I’ve seen in a few places people say that the album laid the groundwork for My Life in the Bush of Ghosts and it’s really evident on this one, it sounds quite a lot like America is Waiting.

Although each track has its own sensibility they are all underpinned by truly excellent percussion, rhythms and drumming and absolutely superb bass playing, slightly reminiscent of Jah Wobble’s playing with PiL. It's alternately groovy, melodic and propulsive, working perfectly with the drums, while all the mad shit happens around it.

This was right up my straße, I loved it. It's great when the list throws up something like this that I’ve never heard of making up for all the woeful metal we get. On first listen this was an immediate 4, and it got better and better, I just kept wanting to go round again and have listened to it pretty much non stop for about 5 hours. 5 hours = 5 stars then.
🎥🎥🎥🎥🎥
Playlist submission: Hollywood Symphony

Rum, Sodomy & the Lash
Never ventured into the Pogues, only really knowing Fairytale of New York, Fiesta and, due to The Wire, The Body of an American.

Wish I’d tried earlier though, as I loved this. On the surface I didn’t think I’d be that keen on slurry sea shanty adjacent jigs, and the idea of folk-punk in general, but I totally bought into the world they built with all the amusing, strange, doleful, exuberant stories of rent boys, Irish history, warriors and politicians, immigrant life in the UK, longing for home, war, pub dwellers, booze, navvies and outlaws, all full of unkempt charm, joy, wistfulness and a ramshackle unsentimental romanticism.

I love the covers/re-arrangements of I’m A Man You Don’t Meet Everyday, Dirty Old Town and Waltzing Matilda. Cait O’Riordan’s vocal on I’m A Man is superb, and the mournful horns on Waltzing Matilda are excellent, a brilliant to way to end the album.

And the original songs a great too, The Sick Bed of Cúchulainn, The Old Main Drag, A Pair of Brown Eyes, Sally Mclennane all veer from tender and heartfelt to ebullient and dishevelled.

The bonus tracks are fun too, including The Body of an American, but the original 12 tracks are such a great, concise and exciting listen you don’t really need them.

There is something about the combination of Irish instruments, punk and traditional folk with the brilliantly constructed narratives that works so well, it’s such an immersive universe they create, making a pint or two of Guinness feel very appealing. I’m struggling to think of a reason not to give it a 5 as I enjoyed it so much.
🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻
Playlist submission: I’m A Man You Don’t Meet Everyday

Pearl
Apart from Me and Bobby McGee I wasn’t really that keen on this on first listen, although the playing is much tighter and more professional than the band on Cheap Thrills it feels pretty soulless as it cycles through rather generic overly slick AOR blues rock tropes.

I started to like it a bit more on repeat listens though, when the band turn up the organ and turn down the guitar and it can be pretty good; Trust Me reveals itself as a great little tune, Get it While You Can has a nice smoulder to it. Even Move Over, which I disliked on the first listen, improves on repeat, eventually settling into a nice groove. And of course Me and Bobby McGee is just an excellent song, by far the best thing on here, a great bit of bluesy country soul. Mercedes Benz is kind of fun and Cry Baby’s ubiquity has dampened it’s overwrought charm a little, but it's still a good track

Looking back at our reviews of Cheap Thrills I think I’m a bit more partial to her voice than you both and I think it does sound really good here, particularly as the more conventional production showcases it better then the fake-live sound of Cheap Thrills.

Overall it’s a decent listen, one I might try again, but I wasn’t into it enough for it to trouble the 4s. Solid 3.
🦪🦪🦪
Playlist submission: Me and Bobby McGee

Armed Forces
I love the bass and drum sound on this album, particularly on Accidents Will Happen, the tom, snare and bass combine brilliantly. Production wise it definitely sounds like a bigger, shinier, cleaner more polished version of the sound on This Year’s Model.

It definitely feels a little more poppy than the previous two albums, with that production polish and some catchier, less abrasive melodies and arrangements. The lyrics are no less acerbic and angry though, although the focus seems broader, talking politics rather than purely romantic bitterness.

Oliver’s Army and What’s So Funny stand out as the most immediate and familiar songs and they are both excellent of course. It’s obvious today but the piano on OA really is superb, and it’s interesting to read that Steve Nieve was influenced by Dancing Queen, which makes a lot of sense. And What’s So Funny is just an excellent song. I’m not really familiar with Nick Lowe’s original version, but listening to it now it feels quite lightweight in comparison to the EC version.

You can hear The Beatles in many of the harmonies, particularly on Senior Service and the outro to Busy Bodies. Harmonies in general seem to be much more prominent than on the previous two albums, all helping to give it that poppier edge.

The organ and keyboards throughout are excellent, as they were on This Year’s Model, really augmenting Senior Service, Goon Squad, the Parklife-esque Sunday’s Best and the Booker T-esque Moods for Moderns.

In comparison to the first two albums it perhaps feels a little diminished in some respects by the lack of frenetic edginess of MAIT and TYM, but it’s shift to a bigger, poppier sound and a broader lyrical outlook make it feel like a progression into slightly different waters. I gave both the first two albums a 5 and I can’t really think of a reason not to give this 5 too. Some excellent songs in Accidents Will Happen, Senior Service, Oliver’s Army, Green Shirt, Goon Squad, Busy Bodies, Sunday’s Best and What’s So Funny, no real filler and some still relevant and caustic lyrics and themes make this a great album.
🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘
Playlist submission: Green Shirt