Reviews by ikejiri

Franz Ferdinand
‘Michael you're dancing like a beautiful dance whore’
I was interested to listen to this again after not having listened to it since the heady days of 04-06. I did listen to it a lot back then but aside from the big singles I can’t remember much of it.

I do like the template of chugging rhythm guitar and driving bass with catchy riffs, but it isn’t always successful, ranging from great (Take Me Out) to very good (Matinee, Darts of Pleasure, Michael) to the most of the rest, which is fine but ultimately a bit repetitive and somewhat forgettable.

There are some little additions of texture, the piano/organ on Auf Achse and the melodica on 40’. I wish there was a little more of that throughout, just to add a little more interest and colour.

Jacqueline - establishes the template, but on repeat listens one of the weaker tracks.
Tell Her Tonight - Again one of the weaker tracks, I didn’t like this one much actually
Take Me Out - This still stands up as a great great indie rock pop song and does tower above the rest of the album.
The Dark of the Matinee - This has stood up well too, a good indie pop song.
Aug Achse - I like the piano/organ here, it adds a slightly different texture which is nice, although I’m not as keen on the song in general
Cheating on you - this is pretty forgettable and another of the weaker tracks.
This Fire - Strays a bit close to Take Me Out for me
Darts of Pleasure - Another strong track, despite the overly affected German at the end.
Michael - I’ve always liked this one, it’s barely controlled frenzy works well with the lyric and in comparison to some of the studied weaker songs on the rest of the album.
Come on Home & 40’ - some nice moments but they both passed me by, I struggled to distinguish them despite listening to the album 3 times in a row.

Overall it’s fine indie pop music, there’s no stinkers, but aside from one great song and a few other good ones it does feel a bit samey and limited.
⭐️⭐️⭐️

Imagine
Imagine is again one of those overfamiliar songs, but I haven’t reached acceptance with it just yet in the way I have with some others. As a teenager I loved it but I’m just not sure I like it all that much. Nothing to do with the lyric which I think is good, and all the criticism and accusations of hypocrisy miss the point I feel, but something about the melody and piano I’m not sure about.

I’ve always enjoyed Crippled Inside’s honky tonk tick tack country style, even though it probably leans a bit too far into pastiche at times and diffuses the directness of the lyrics a bit.

Jealous Guy really is great, always been a favourite. Arrangement wise its similar to Imagine but works as a kind of antidote.

It’s so Hard - I’ve never quite been sure about the sax on this, kind of feels a bit out of place, even though I do like the bluesy groove and that string part is excellent. Definitely a grower of a song over time.

I Don’t Want to be a Soldier - Love George’s slide on this. Great groove and nice bass sound on the descending bits between verses, but George’s guitar really elevates this. Can hear quite a bit of the Stones version of Sister Morphine, which was recorded before this but not released until this was being recorded. It must have been an influence in some way.

Gimme Some Truth - superb, superb superb, great song. Again George’s slide is fantastic. Probably the song that suffers most from Spector’s ‘muddy’ production.

Oh My Love - a very nice song and another grower over time.

How Do You Sleep - I really do love this, up there with Lennon’s best solo songs. The groove, riff and the historical interest of the lyrics.

How? - Never noticed until today the echoes and similarities to The Long and Winding Road. In general I think this one has always passed me by a bit, but I really really liked it listening to it today. Superb vocal and some great little melodic hooks and moments.

Oh Yoko! - another one of my fav Lennon songs. Immediately infectious and joyous but with a slightly melancholy undertow. There’s an simultaneous directness and indirectness, closeness distance to it that I love, like he’s singing to her but she’s not there, as though he can’t find her.

This is a great album with some great songs, but it just sits that one rung below POB for me, somewhere between a 4 and a 5. It’s maybe more of a 4 than a 5 in reality, but as there is limited amounts of Lennon music and some the tracks on here are among his very best its very tricky, but the fact that it’s Lennon means a casting vote to take it to 5
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

So Much for the City
First thing that struck me was his singing accent, the weirdly exaggerated rotic sounds. Actually quite off putting.

Santa Cruz is a pretty nice bit of west coast countrified pop with nice harmonies. Big Sur is a superior version of the same thing. One Horse Town is very good, a nice melody with some great little hooks and moments. The highlight for me. I liked Say it ain’t So too.

However the 3 or so good songs, and the harmonies and country touches can’t quite cover up that this is a bit boring. Plenty of MOR is great, well written and well structured pop music and some MOR is dull, where you feel the only ambition was to write something inoffensive and nice. This definitely feels too much in the latter camp to me. Songs like Big Sur and One Horse Town are clearly superior, but the rest never quite lifts off or gets out of the ‘nice’ zone, mainly as the melodies aren’t that strong, and I get a sense of them cosplaying being west coast country pop band, which is probably why the playing lacks a bit of swing and dynamism for me.

It’s somewhere between a 2 and 3 but the more I listened the more shallow and ersatz this started to feel. Perhaps it’s the earnestness in recreating a type of music so faithfully that it becomes a bit insipid. I don’t have any issue with anyone from anywhere playing any type of music from anywhere, but there just seems something a bit unreal about a lot of this, almost like it’s AI. All the elements have been inputted but the output is slightly off in an undefinable way.
⭐️⭐️

Tarkus
I liked the pomposity of the Tarkus suite, even if musically I wasn’t as keen on it. The organ jumping around constantly is a bit irritating after a while. I did like the last part, Aquatrakus for its children’s tv show silliness, more so as it clearly was all meant in earnest.

The thing that keeps repeating with a lot of these prog rock concepts is that the stories and concepts really aren’t good at all, often incredibly naive and simplistic but dressed up with some pseudo fantastical nonsense to try and impart a sense of artistic heft. In this case an armadillo/tank called Tarkus.

Jeremy Bender is quite fun in a baroque pop kind of way. Bitches Crystal is a good title but quite a boring song. Too much church organ vibes. I like the harpsichord like piano on The Only Way, but not so much the melody or lyrics. Are You Ready Eddie is a bit of an unconvincing rock n roll song marred even more by the silly piano flourishes.

Strangely I found although most of the songs on the 2nd side are around 3 minutes they felt longer than the Tarkus Suite.

I think how I feel about a lot of these prog albums depends on my mood on the day, sometimes they’re fun and silly and then sometimes they’re a drag. This fell into the latter camp for me, despite liking some parts and the ridiculousness of the Tarkus suite.

The organ/keys/piano also got on my tits by side two. Way too much like improvised parping jazz trumpet for my taste. I get the skill but when demonstrating the skill seems to be the entire point it gets dull pretty quickly.

I definitely preferred Yes and Jethro Tull. I’ll stick to I believe in Father Christmas.
⭐️⭐️

The Clash
I haven’t listened to this for a long time. I had it on CD, but I think I had the US version with the different track listing. Some of those additions were great, like White Man in Hammersmith Palais and I Fought the Law, but it doesn’t necessarily feel like an album the way he original UK version does.

The first 6 songs are fantastic, Janie Jones, I’m So Bored with the USA, White Riot and What’s My Name in particular.

Deny isn’t great, there’s not much interesting happening musically or lyrically. It picks back up with Career Opportunities, dipping again with Cheat and Protex Blue before Police & Thieves, 48 Hours and Garageland end things back on a high.

It’s similar to I Should Coco in its exciting dynamic exuberance, everything going past at a breakneck speed. And similar to Supergrass they had an audible set of influences that pushed them beyond the majority of their peers, those rockabilly and reggae elements in particular.

Having a songwriting duo as talented as Strummer and Jones and having an arranger and musician as interesting as Jones was also a big point of difference as well. Although Simonon’s bass playing was relatively rudimentary on this he really drives the songs forward, and you can hear echoes of what his playing would evolve into when Topper Headon joined.

Listening to this really reminded me why I loved the Clash and has sent me down a Clash wormhole for the first time in ages.

It is a great album, and a great punk album, even if many of the songs aren’t actually what you might think of as punk from 45 years remove. There probably aren’t many of the first round of punk albums that can match this, along with Never Mind the Bollocks.

Perhaps musically and song-wise it’s closer to a 4 but culturally and historically it’s certainly a 5, so it pretty much is dead on between a 4 and a 5. London Calling will definitely be a 5, so should this be a 4, or should I just round up because The Clash are great - Should I 4 or Should I 5? Sod it, a snotty two fingered 5
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐️

I Should Coco
It’s interesting looking back at Britpop bands and albums from a 25-30 year distance. While I still like bands like Cast, who were solidly in the middle of the pack, there are a few bands who were part of it all but were in hindsight a bit different and more interesting than the rest of those bands. Supergrass are definitely one of them. That may in part be because we know where their career went after this, as they escaped the clutches of the Britpop bucket and went into various different directions.

But listening to this I think you can clearly hear they had something that set them apart, whether that be a more diverse set of influences outside of the run of the mill 60s sounds people were trying to emulate, a heightened melodic sensibility or a slightly different perspective on lyrical subject matter.

The playing is also a real point of difference: Exuberant, energetic, playful, fun and with a swing and suppleness that is in contrast to a lot of their contempories. The keyboard and piano also are excellent, again setting them slightly apart. Aside from the pure exiting pop of Alright, Caught by the Fuzz and Strange Ones, songs like Time and Sofa of My Lethargy show a maturity way beyond their years.

And overall, the songs are consistently great, I can’t really think of any duffers apart from possibly We’re not Supposed to, and even that whizzes past in such a flurry it doesn’t really matter.

I think it has to be a 5. It may not be a Sgt Pepper a Rumours or a K but it’s a fantastically thrilling album of rocky punky poppy music. Maybe it’s nostalgia and familiarity but for this type of album I don’t think you can get much better.
It's mad that they were 18 when they recorded this.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐️

Songs the Lord Taught Us
The Cramps, a band I’m aware of as being very influential and much loved, but I’m not sure I could name one of their songs. I must have heard at least one of them but not that I can recall. Pretty interested to hear this though.

I thought it might be a bit thrashy in a Germs kind of way, but actually it’s a great garage rock n roll rockabilly Carl Perkins surf punk thing. I really liked its immediacy, where the enthusiasm and attitude are more important than the musical proficiency.

The Alex Chilton production is great - exactly what the songs and band need. I really love the buzzy tone of the lead guitars and the whole echoey sound, all with the drums bashing away at the back.

The cover of Fever is excellent, the riff picked out in the guitar with loads of echo and the sharp lead parts.

You can hear how influential it was on that 2000s kind of garage revival. I bet the Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Hives, Raveonettes, Black Keys, White Stripes, Kills etc would all name it as an influence. I can also hear a bit of Nick Cave, particularly on Fever.

Maybe not the best from a pure musical/technical point of view, but that’s not really the point. I thought this was great - rough, loose, direct, dynamic. Just what you want from this kind of album from this kind of band.
⭐⭐⭐⭐️

Music from Big Pink
One of my favourite albums, although I think I may slightly prefer The Band as a slightly tighter album.

I remember being a bit underwhelmed when I first heard it but it gradually got its hooks into me and I now I love it.

There’s a lot of density and weight to the music with a simultaneous feeling of lightness and airiness, I think due to how great each part of the band is. Levon and Danko are a great rhythm section while I always love Hudson and Manuel’s piano and organ, with the organ work a particular standout on this record, and Robertson’s superb subtle and sympathetic guitar playing. And then vocally they are such a great blend, there’s something about Levon and Richard Manuel’s voices together I love, complemented nicely by Rick Danko’s slightly jittery voice.

It’s hard to pick the stand outs but aside from The Weight I love In A Station, Caledonia Mission, Long Black Veil and Chest Fever.

It is and always was going to be a 5
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐️

Surrealistic Pillow
Hmmm.
Somebody to Love and White Rabbit are, rightfully, enduringly great 60s songs. Maybe a bit overfamiliar but undoubtedly great.

The rest I’m not so sure about. I liked Today and I liked a lot of the folky elements and I like Grace Slick’s lead and harmony vocals a lot, however the rest of the songs were very forgettable in a kind of generic mid late 60s style way. Perhaps it’s the lyrics and perhaps it’s the production but nothing really grabbed my attention or seemed that interesting.

I wanted to like it more on the basis of the two big songs, and I do like a lot of that mi late 70s San Francisco music, but the more I hear these types of albums the more I realise a good compilation of all these bands is the best thing to listen to
⭐️⭐️

Strange Cargo III
I liked this, although I think there are possibly better versions of this type of album. The echoey drums and synth squelches and noises do sound very 90s. And you can see what he bought to the Ray of Light album, although less so of what he bought to 13.

I liked the first track, had a nice sense of propulsion and I liked the piano holding the hook. Didn’t realise it was Beth Orton, didn’t sound like her. It made me want to listen to Trailer Park and Central Reservation again, as those are fantastic.

Listening to it, I did wonder if he’s a better producer and arranger for other peoples songs rather than his own? Nothing stood out massively and there was a similarity in sounds and noises across each track.

I can imagine putting this in to work to, but not really listening to it it properly. Not bad, but also not in the top tier of layered electronic instrumental music. Might try some of his other albums but more likely to forget to.
⭐️⭐️⭐️

Moving Pictures
Things I know about Rush:
- They’re Canadian
- The song Tom Sawyer as it features so much in I Love You man
- People cream themselves about Neil Peart’s drumming

Things I know after listening to Moving Pictures
- they’re Canadian
- Tom Sawyer is an enjoyably fun prog rock pop song
- Neil Peart clearly is a very good drummer, but he is very very busy

I did like lots of bits if this but not sure I’m totally convinced by a whole album if it. Some of the guitar lines and synth parts were good. Limelight and Tom Sawyer are very good songs and stand out, while overall the rest does get up it’s own musical virtuosity bumhole a bit too much and his voice is quite annoying, which also makes the vocal melodies a bit tough to hang on to.

It’s kind of fun though if you don’t take it too seriously. I think that’s why I don’t mind a lot of these prog records - I find the musicians seriousness quite amusing and subsequently I enjoy the music more. However I’m not sure that’s a basis for actually liking it.

Not sure where to rate, I think I enjoyed more than Yes, but not sure if I would investigate much further. Maybe as I didn’t listen to it as much as I would have liked I’ll plump for a 3?
⭐️⭐️⭐️

A Girl Called Dusty
I didn’t think this was particularly good. Obviously Dusty has a superb voice and I guess it must have been pretty unusual for a British female singer to sing in such a clearly soul influenced way in 1964.

Clearly this was first step away from the Springfields to the more R’n’B style of later albums. And despite her voice never being less than great she feels a bit tentative and unsure throughout, and it lacks the control and subtlety and maturity of the Dusty in Memphis stuff a few years later.

There are some good song choices on here, Mama Said, You Don’t Own Me, Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa, Anyone Who Had a Heart, Will You Love Me Tomorrow and Within’ & Hopin’ and some really not very good song choices at all, like Do Re Mi, My Colouring Book, Mockingbird and Nothing. Despite doing a good job on those good songs none of them approach anything like a definitive version, of which you feel she should be capable.

However the big problem with all of it is the band, the arrangements and the production & sound all being uniformly bad. It sounds awful, thin and dull with that particularly distracting tom-tom sound. You realise how lucky the Beatles were to have George Martin and the engineers at Abbey Raod, and how good their early records sound compared to stuff like this (as well as the early Stones, Kinks etc records, which have some great songs but don’t sound anywhere as near as good as say A Hard Day’s Night or Beatles for Sale).

I couldn’t find out much about the band but it’s the worst kind of early 60s BBC Light Jazz Lounge Pops band sound and playing, and it really doesn’t serve her or the songs well in any way. The saccharine string arrangements and insipid parping horns really are poor.

I’m not that familiar with Definitely Dusty or Dusty in Memphis, apart from the well known songs, but I had a brief listen to a couple of tracks and it’s night and day in terms of playing, sound and also maturity in Dusty’s approach.

Feel bad giving it 2 bearing in mind Dusty’s voice, but this is not a great record and she can’t rescue it from it’s musical mediocrity.
⭐⭐️

Ladies & Gentlemen we are floating in Space
I remember Souter having this at uni and I remember borrowing and trying to like it. The only track I liked was Come Together and the rest I wasn’t sure about.

I haven’t revisited in the intervening 25 years and I was actually quite looking forward to giving it a go today, now that I’m a bit older with, hopefully, a broader musical appreciation.

I really did enjoy it a lot. The opening track’s interpolation of I Can’t Help Falling in Love I really liked, and Come Together was still as good as I remembered it, a great droning, crescendoing track.

There’s a certain blues-iness and country-ness to some of it, maybe because of the harmonica that appears regularly, as well as some of the string arrangements.

I Think I’m In Love is great, love the feel and particularly the horn arrangement and the slide guitar(?) motif. And I loved Stay With Me and Cool Waves. A lot of the horn arrangements are great, very McCartney/George Martin-esque. Cop Shoot Cop is long, but doesn’t actually feel like 17 minutes. Loved the strings on Broken Heart.

In a way it’s not about picking out each song, as they are all a kind of groove and mood layered with, noise, sounds and instrumentation, rather than distinct melodic exercises. Obviously he doesn’t have a conventionally good voice, but it does suit the whole atmosphere as the music ebbs and drifts and the different layers and instruments move in and move out.

It improved with each listen as elements of different tracks started to emerge. It is long at 1hr 10, mainly I suppose as the last song is 17 minutes, and I think there was a dip around Home of the Brave and the Individual before it picked back up again. Maybe it could have been a bit shorter but actually it felt like a long suite of songs with similar moods, textures and movements that all worked together.

Looking forward to listening to it more and uncovering little moments I’ve missed up to now.
⭐⭐⭐⭐️

Black Holes & Revelations
Had to listen with an open mind as I’ve never really liked anything of their’s that I’ve heard and I struggle to escape the feeling that their music is very much a 14 year old boy’s idea of what is cool. You know what’s really cool? Going to school and listening to your teachers.

Take a Bow - Liked the build up, a bit of Baba O’Riley and quite a lot of Queen.
Starlight - This one really grew on me, kind of had a kids Sci-Fi Tv show vibe to it.
Supermassive Black Hole - I like the falsetto and it’s a good pop song, but I think this tips just a bit too much into musical theatre
Map of the Problematique - great title, Depeche mode vibes. Pretty fun.

Soldier’s Poem had a bit too much Queen for my taste. Invincible, Assassin & Exo-Politics I wasn’t that into, melodically, lyrically or musically. The Sky-yyy backing vocal bugged me for ages until it clicked it was from Sweet Child O’Mine.

City of Delusion - I really liked the silly OTT fun of this one, particularly the ‘eastern’ style strings
Hoodoo - quite liked the Spanish guitar intro but it didn’t seem to go anywhere that interesting.

Knights of Cydonia - this is a great, daft pop rock song. Very enjoyable.

Great drumming and drum sound. I get the singing is deliberately histrionic and there is obviously more than a touch of Thom Yorke in the vocals, but without the emotional resonance or subtlety.

Overall I liked the silliness of it all, a kind of a knowing over the topness, even if it did get a bit too stage musical at points and I did struggle with some of the songs. When it all comes together like on Starlight, Supermassive Black Hole and Knights of Cydonia it’s enjoyable, but if it misses the mark it sometimes verges on being a bit of an overwrought mulch.


A couple of songs I really liked and lots of enjoyable pomposity. I didn’t dislike it at all but I’m not sure I’ll actually listen again or look into more Muse. So, hmm, I’ll go 3 for vibes.
⭐⭐⭐️
Now back to If I Could Only Remember My Name

If I Could Only Remember my Name
Don’t think I’ve ever listened to anything by David Crosby outside of the Byrds, CS&N and CSN&Y. Which I guess is the majority of his stuff.

I loved this though, from the opening track onwards. Dreamy, languorous, slow, loose, melodic, atmospheric, warm, moving, just great. I put it on repeat and must have been through it about 5 times already.



I can’t really think of any duff moments apart from possibly the last track, but Music is Love, Laughing and What are their Names stood out everytime.

After having to work hard to find the positives in some of the recent albums it was nice to listen to something immediately enjoyable. With more time I think this could get up to 5, but for now I’ll go 4.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Master of Puppets
Aside from Enter Sandman and Master of Puppets (the song) I’ve never really understood Metallica. Obviously they are in a genre I don’t particularly care for, so I’m not who they make music for, but of all the heavy metal/thrash metal I have ever heard they’ve always seemed the most boring. And Lars Ulrich always seems like a massive dildo.

There’s not a great deal here to change my opinion. I do really enjoy the pomposity and unintended daftness of the title song, and there are moments where some of the guitars are good in a stupid way, but the relentless pounding of it all gets pretty tiresome. Two listens through really is enough. The lyrics are also really very bad. Thematically I get it but it’s such bad teenage drivel.

I find rating these types of album really tricky and I’m pretty inconsistent with my scores as a result. On the one hand I don’t like the idea of dismissing a type of music just because I’m not into it - there are plenty of people who hate the types of music I’m into - so I try and look for the positives or merits within it’s genre and music in general. And on the other I then do wonder what that appeal and merits actually are, if you didn’t get into this music when you were 14. I get it’s a significant landmark in heavy metal and that its very popular so whether I like it or not isn’t really the point, but despite listening in good faith it’s a pretty tiring listen, particularly the 2nd time around.
So within the albums we’ve had in this style, I preferred it to Pantera, but probably found Iron Maiden more fun. So it’s somewhere between a 2 and a 3 - I’ll plump for a 2
⭐⭐️

The Yes Album
Silly Human Race

Never listened to Yes apart from Roundabout (and Owner of a Lonely Heart). Feel like I might get into prog, but I have tried some of the Genesis albums and I didn’t get on with them much.

I found this enjoyable and pretty fun though, even if I think I’m supposed to take it a bit more seriously.

Yours is no Disgrace - exactly what I would imagine a prog song would be, daft lyrics, musical cul de sacs, unendingness.

The Clap, surprised by the folkiness of this, quite a pretty little tune.

Starship trooper. See Yours is No Disgrace.

I’ve Seen All Good People - really liked a few of the parts of this, and didn’t mind the others

A Venture - not keen on this, I really didn’t like the barroom piano. More organ please

Perpetual Change. See Yours is No Disgrace and I’ve Seen All Good People.

So overall I enjoyed it, i liked a lot of the playing, some good guitar parts and a lot of great bass and organ. I think I’d listen again and I might even try more Yes.
⭐️⭐️⭐️

Foo Fighters
Like everyone I love Dave Grohl, and while I do like FF, they always seem to be a band with some great songs and then a lot of middling stuff. I’ve had greatest hits and I’ve seen them live a couple of times but I don’t know if I’ve ever listened to this album.

This is a Call, really catchy, always liked this song.
I’ll Stick Around - like the verses a lot on this, the chorus I’m not as keen on. Great drumming.
Big Me, very sweet little tune, like this one.
Alone + Easy Target - enjoyed this a bit more the second and third time, pretty catchy chorus.
Good Grief, Floaty, Weenie Beenie, Oh, George - These are all a bit samey, a bit fillery and forgettable for me.
For All the Cows - I like this one a lot. A little bit of litheness and groove
X-Static - Enjoyed the tom-tom on this but apart from that not particularly memorable.
Wattershed - Fine thrashy tune, if a bit forgettable
Exhausted - I like this one, the lyrics and music complement the mood and feel. The little guitar melody underneath the heavily distorted rhythm guitar in the verses is very nice.

It’s of course not fair to compare it to Nirvana, but aside from the loud guitars and some of the drumming I can’t actually see that much commonality.

I love that he did the whole thing himself, evidently not to McCartney-esque levels of virtuosity or songwriting skill, but it is very cool. However there’s no disguising that essentially these are demos and that many of the songs are very 90s-ish rock by numbers, and without his drumming things would feel very pedestrian pretty quickly. It’s not terrible by any means, there are a handful of very good tunes but I don’t think there’s enough to pique enough long term interest to come back to and listen through again.

I like Grohl a lot and appreciate he played everything himself and he did it at a very difficult time after Kurt died, but ultimately it lacks a bit of variety and excitement, especially in the last half where it does get pretty samey. I appreciate it wasn’t supposed to be a grand artistic statement and it sounds like it was very important mentally for him to do it but it does end up feeling quite middling.
⭐⭐⭐️

Freak Out!
Suzie? Cream Cheese?
I’ve always avoided Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. I’ve given Captain Beefheart a go and, if I’m in the right mood, I’ve kind of enjoyed the bits I’ve listened to. However it’s not always what I actually want to listen to so I have just put the Mothers in the same bucket and left well alone.


It wasn’t entirely what I expected on the first listen. I thought there would be constant shifts in tempo, sounds and arrangement within each song, but I wasn’t expecting it to be so heavily rooted in garage blues rock. I kind of got into the swing of it by the 2nd half, I started to enjoy the grooves and was happy to expect any old shit to happen at any time.
Second time around I liked it a bit more, I suppose I dropped all my expectations and a bit of familiarity with the twists and turns helped.
I genuinely started to enjoy this and maybe even started to ‘get’ it after the 3rd listen. Whether you do or not I guess would depend on your expectations and appetite or tolerance for the deliberately surrealistic and avant garden elements tacked onto the slightly generic mid 60s blues rock foundations. It definitely got better and a lot more interesting with repeated listens, so much so that some of the more ‘straight’ rock songs became less appealing and the more experimental art rock aspects of it were what I wanted to hear more of.
I do think you have to listen to it in the spirit in which it was made and intended. It’s deliberately non conformist and unconventional, which I ended up really liking for some reason. It’s great that someone imagined this and then made it and built a career out of it, there’s a lot to be said for people with a singular vision that are able to realise that vision. Clearly it’s not for everyone and if you want to hear actual songs then this isn’t the place to go, but it’s given me a real interest in listening to more Zappa. I don’t think I totally get it but I’m into it - I’m glad this came up in the list, I may never have listened to it otherwise. Tempted to go 4 but will go for a high 3
⭐⭐⭐️

Justified
Don’t really need to listen too many times to come to a conclusion on this.

Señorita - I like the organ and drums and the chorus is fine but ultimately all a bit forgettable. Justin’s intro is cringe.

Like I Love You - Great pop song, Neptunes to the fore here.
(Oh No) What You Got - Percussion is good, rest is a bit dull.
Take it From Here - Very poor. Musically, lyrically and melodically insipid.

Cry Me a River - Great, great pop song.

Rock Your Body - another good pop song, a nice disco pastiche.

Nothin’ Else - a Bad-era Jacko rip off and not a particularly good one. Could definitely hear Paint it Black in the outro too.

Last Night - just about elevates itself above the rest of the non singles.
Still on my Brain - just feels a bit pointless.

(And She Said) Take me Now - better, has a bit of drive and dynamism to it. (whisper it but Timbaland produced this one)

Right for Me - the melody is ordinary although I like the little flute. Justin talking sexy isn’t that convincing to me.

Let’s Take a Ride - Forgettable.

Never Again - Ditto. Really dislike the classical guitar.



Like I Love You, Rock Your Body, Cry me a River are great pop songs and stand out a mile, the rest is all a bit characterless, and there is no justification in it being over an hour long. I don’t think Justin’s voice is that great or particularly interesting and if you took the Neptunes/Timbaland production and sonic nouse away there really wouldn’t be much left. Thinking of it as a pop album if 3 or 4 tracks were trimmed off it it might make a solid 3, but there is a lot of insipid R&B in between the singles and the odd ok album track, so it’s a
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