Reviews by jf01

Not too many people can make an anti-war album so good the military retaliates against you. Fewer still can do that with an album that sounds this good musically.

Nothing unpleasant about this, but nothing that wowed me either. I thought it wore out its welcome just a touch, although as I write that I’m enjoying the final song. Maybe cut 2-3 just before this final one.

The math on this one is tough. Three of my favorite classic rock songs (Free Bird, Tuesday’s Gone, Simple Man), one of my least favorite (Gimme Three Steps), and a bunch of other songs that, yep, are adequate southern rock album tracks.

Maggie told me this was awful. I thought it was fine, at times enjoyable. I didn’t hate it. Maybe a 2.5.

I knew this would be a struggle and it was. “Seconds” was surprising in a good way, though.

This was fine. “I’ve seen all good people” is great.

I’ve noticed a trend in my reviews where I explain why a very good album doesn’t quite deserve five stars. It is tedious even to me. Yet here we are again: this is cheating. You take one of the greatest soul singers, give him a lineup of great soul songs, and then package it as an album. This isn’t an album the way we understand it. This is a greatest hits, an all-star game, a dream karaoke situation. I’m not giving this five stars.

Solid, dependable, workmanlike

10 songs, 51 minutes on its face isn’t super long. But when every song is the same idea—let’s marinate in an unchanging, unceasing rhythm for 4-6 minutes—it feels so much longer than it is. I even scrolled through the last two songs (patience: exhausted) and the same beat was playing at every point I stopped. A lot of two-minute ideas extended to five minutes. I think I might even love this if every song were a minute shorter.

I didn’t love the title track, but the rest was enjoyable

Better than our other Stevie albums

I assume everyone has heard five of the first six songs? I like “ain’t talkin bout love.” And then the other songs were fine. Oh, wait, “little dreamer” I like more than the rest of side two. Two songs to the playlist.

I have heard this before. I have DLZ saved as a liked track.

After listening, I also “liked” family tree. I generally think TVOTR is a 3.5 band who are good for 1-2 songs I like per album. So it is here. I’ll round up to a 4.

Liked this more than I expected to! A solid 2!

I’m sure I’ve listened to this before, but the only songs I was confident I knew were “el segundo” and “can I kick it.”

I thought about a 5, but I think it falls short. The back half felt weaker than the front half and even the original length (setting aside the remixes on the 25th anniversary edition) is maybe a little too long.

Got this in high school. You cannot imagine how hard “killing in the name” hit in high school.

Yes, I still love this.

It’s a good Christmas album, but it’s still just a Christmas album

This is an album that’s on my playlist of my favorite albums, and I have seven songs from it “liked” on Spotify. Those are signs of a five star. But today it didn’t hit me that hard, which speaks to how subjective these things are. I’m calling it four stars today, but anyone who reads this should know at one point it was a 5 and it may be a 5 again in the right circumstances.

I made it about 45 minutes

Sometimes you feel like a real dummy. When I was in sixth grade, “dark side of the moon” was probably my favorite album. Did I explore any more of Pink Floyd’s catalog? No, I did not. I probably did not know a single other song they did—except the “teachers leave those kids alone” song that got radio play—until college. This has proven to be a mistake. (If you, dear reader, have not heard of this obscure art-rock band called “Pink Floyd,” you should change that.)

So it is here. I love Bob Mould’s solo stuff (especially the sunshine rock album). I don’t love Husker Du, exactly, but it’s fine enough. Did I ever ask, “hey did Bob Mould do anything for the, like, 20 years in between those projects?” Nope! Stupid. Dumb. [insert saved by the bell gif]. “Did Bob Mould, grunge grandfather, play music in the 90s, the grunge golden age?” What an obvious question to ask, he said, wondering why he never asked it.

Anyway, I loved this from the first minute, obviously. I was singing along to helpless the first time I heard it; that’s undeniably catchy. This is like pure nostalgia for an experience I never had in the 90s but, at the same time, kinda did listening to Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, etc.