Reviews by jf01

Meh. I appreciate this for paving the way for future alt-country albums, but that’s about the extent of it.

Another all-timer. I got pretty into REM as a kid and ended up owning Eponymous, Out of Time, Monster, and this. A few years ago a podcast I like listened to their whole discography and I listened along. And while I recognize the impact Murmur had, for my money this is their best album.

Everybody knows “man on the moon” and “everybody hurts” but “sweetness follows” and “night swimming” are my personal favorites. There’s something about night swimming, especially. I’ve never been skinny dipping, and I’ve only been swimming in the dark a few times, but a song that’s about nostalgia and water and *feels* like a warm summer night is going to get me every time.

Also, might as well add this, even though it’s a bummer, because it is so indelible in my mind. A classmate died at school during sophomore year. His name was Andy. After school that day, the administration let students commandeer the PA system and I have such a distinct memory of other classmates playing “man on the moon” as we all left school in tears. It’s totally the wrong tone for that moment, but it does use the name Andy. So I can never hear that song without thinking of that moment.

I’ve listened to this before. As always, it’s fine.

Pre listen: alright, Cuban Linx, here we go again. Another try at getting this album to click.

After listening: it’s about where it always is for me, around a 3.5. I’m rounding up to 4 today, other days I’d round down to 3. Verbal Intercourse is the standout track every time, which is probably just me preferring Nas.

Pre listen: Don’t know these guys, but if they’re like Tinariwen, I suspect I will like them.

After listening: it’s definitely the same genre, but I don’t get the same excitement from it. Gonna be a 3.

Meh

One of my favorite albums ever. If I remember the 33 1/3 correctly, the dust brothers recorded all the samples on the album (104 of them, according to Wikipedia) directly to tape, meaning they’d have to rewind the tape and line up the timing exactly right to layer another sample or vocals on top of it. The care that went into this production is incredible. And they almost got sued by the Beatles, so they’ve got that going for them.

Favorite couplets:
There’s more to me than you’ll ever know / And I got more hits than Sadaharu Oh

Washing windows on the Bowery at a quarter to four / ‘cause he ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s Farm no more

I’m doing 120, plowing over mailboxes / radar detector, to tell me where the cops is

Cash flow getting low, so I had to pull a job / found a nice place to visit, but a better place to rob

Because it’s all high spirit, you know you got to hear it / Don’t touch the mic, baby, don’t come near it

Because I got more stories than JD’s got Salinger / I hold the title and you are the challenger

I’m sure I listened to this when it came out and may have revisited it once since then, but mostly I stick to earlier Bjork. In relisten, I still thought it was just okay.

Maps is a classic. The rest I thought was just okay.

Between a 3 and a 4, I’m leaning 4. If I ranked the songs:

5 stars: tangled up in blue
4 stars: shelter from the storm
3 stars: everything else, with idiot wind my favorite of these

I’m never coming around on mbv, I’m afraid.

I must have listened to this before because “Lexicon Devil” is marked as liked on Spotify—three times, actually, from different releases. Still love that one. The rest are ok.

I think the only song I know going into this is Astral Weeks, and of the three Van Morrison songs I know it’s my favorite. Brown Eyed Girl is too cloying and Moondance is too (bad) jazzy. So, that’s promising, but his hit rate is not high.

Alright, upon listening, I fear I have to give this anti-vax conspiracy theorist his props. This is a beautiful album. It seems the awfulness of brown eyed girl and my mistaken belief that this album would sound like that have denied me some pleasure all these years. Gave it a second listen to see if it was a 5, but I think it’s merely a strong 4.

Listened to Hurt a bunch of times. Listened to the rest of the album just the once, thank you.

It’s wild to me that “under the bridge” and “give it away” are basically perfect songs and everything else here is mediocre.

First disc nearly made me quit. Second disc brought it back.

“No leaf clover” was new for this album, and it’s a highlight for me. And I appreciate the challenge of this. But it’s not a good result.

wtf is this shit

Basically any Fela album is going to get four stars from me.

Here’s a question: do I like this album, or have its songs so ingrained themselves in pop culture that they’re inescapable and therefore familiar?

Is sampling field recordings exploitative, innovative, reverential, all of the above?

Are the folk songs enhanced by Moby’s reimagining or are they stripped of something essential and turned into something soulless?

Is the second half of the album a peaceful meditation, a metaphor for a breakdown, or Muzak?

Is licensing literally every song on this album a genius marketing move, savvy business, or evidence that perhaps it isn’t about exposing more people to folk music or anything so “artistic” at all?

Is Moby intending these questions or is he just a hack who stumbled into a profitable gimmick? I think if I thought he were intending them, I could forgive a lot more, but nothing about Moby suggests to me that he is that dude. I don’t think he cares if we think deeply about this. I think he just wants us to dance. Not to diminish that goal, which is fine, but then I’m going to evaluate things differently than if I thought this were a social commentary.

I see on previous listens I have liked five songs here (honey, find my baby, bodyrock, natural blues, and run on). Today natural blues, find my baby, and why does my heart feel so bad are the only three that hit for me. (Also, flower, always, but that’s a b-side.) Bodyrock especially feels … let’s say, of its time. Seeing that “like” is physically painful. It feels very much like a “I was 16 when this came out, this song made everyone dance, I have some nostalgic feelings tied up with it” like and not a “this song is actually good on its own terms” like. I also didn’t hate “my weakness” but I had to force myself to listen to it because I was ready to quit a couple songs from the end.

I think I come down on the side of liking the folk/electronic mashups while having conflicted feelings about them. I found an article from 2000 saying Moby hadn’t paid the Lomax estate (who recorded the originals) or the estates of the performers themselves: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2000/08/09/for-blues-artists-a-sad-refrain/5c0fdb33-682e-4feb-b03d-93edc7c81491/

And more googling didn’t uncover a satisfactory resolution to that story.

So let’s try to add that all up.

+1: introduced a lot of people to the Alan Lomax recordings
+1: incalculable cultural impact
+1: some bangers, for sure
+1: you have to have the idea to mix genres like this and then execute it
-1: exploitative refusal to share credit or profit
-1: the songs that don’t build off others’ work kinda suck, including one of the most lyrically boring rap(?) songs in existence and a generally bland second half
-1: I suspect I’ve thought more about the politics of this album this morning than Moby did while making it

I think we’re landing around a 2 or 3, and I have all weekend to consider whether I should separate the art from the artist/background, be less of a killjoy, just lay back and submit to the inevitability of Moby, and round up to a 3. I’ve already given plenty of terrible people high scores and when we get to Led Zeppelin (for example) that’ll continue, with more exploitation of black artists to boot.