Reviews by jlazerus

Not a genre I’m particularly fond of, but it didn’t make me cringe AS MUCH as some modern pop (still wondering how Lana del Ray escaped containment). Interesting artist story. But if you remove his story from the music itself, not great. Nothing novel or that much different from a lot of other post-Michael Jackson pop music. Interesting androgynous voice.

Electronic music is a lot more enjoyable when it's not trying to be a proxy for any other kind of traditional sound making - i.e., guitar, bass, drums, horns, strings, etc. Aphex Twin isn't trying to mask the electronic nature of what he's doing, rather, he celebrates it. He toys with it, playing.

Aphex plays with the music as a cat would: batting around and pouncing, only to casually retreat and relax, but returning again and again from different angles, different postures, different positions. Partly for fun, partly to exercise its essential nature. Paradoxically unpredictable yet patterned, regular, rhythmic.

When music becomes too perfected by the technology and tools used to make it, all the humanity, art, and soul is squeezed out. Electronic music is especially susceptible to this problem. The sense of play is gone. Rather, it become a prescribed idea of what music "should" be, what you'll buy, a way to eliminate all risk artistically and economically. (Essentially everything that sucks about the world today.)

SO, it's incredibly rare when someone avoids the trap of electronica - its tendency to be a soulless proxy for human-centered art - and creates something unique and interesting, that takes risks, and stays true to its nature.

This album has everything you could possibly want from a 70's hard rock band: drum solos, guitar solos, vocal gymnastics by the one and only Ian Gillan, organ from outer space, noisy ending, amusing patter, Ian Paice... what more do you want. Best live album ever?

And people complain that there's too many Elvis Costello albums. Might go on Reddit and have somebody help me understand the appeal. Please for the love of all that’s good, stop calling Sonic Youth punk.

The same as all their other stuff except slightly younger. Edgelords.

The most accessible Sonic Youth album, still pretentious and disrespectful of the audience.

Like in the punk days you'd go visit friends, they'd have a band (16 - 18 year olds) in the basement and they would be messing around with instruments they were just learning to play, just making obnoxious noise for its own sake. Nothing wrong with that. But no one is taking it seriously.

THe first half of the album is ok. The second is unlistenable garbage that sounds like all of the rest of Sonic Youth's unlistenable garbage.

Avant Garde jazz shows up to the party. Uninvited.

JUST KIDDING
I love jazz, and even I find this progressive opus difficult. It's confrontational and intellectual. It doesn't seem like there is a big audience for Mingus' oddball vision, even in the post-bop era, a time when Jazz was pretty popular, with a lot of mainstream acceptance. Mingus puishes the limits. I always thought his stuff was pretty academic.

Like, if the The Dead could tune their instruments and carry a tune. Pretentious in its SERIOUS commitment to lack of pretentiousness. I could do without it, and we already heard The Weight, right?

Bad Brains most accessible outing. Because of that, it lacks the hardcore punk and reggae style that I know them for. Overproduced and they seem to be reaching for inroads to the mainstream. Fans of Living Colour will like this. And that would be me. Still: amazing talent, intelligent lyrics, briliant musicians. Satisfying heavy rock especially when they go fast. Unique.. but you REALLY should listen to the first one by these guys.

I was really hoping I could get through my life without having to hear this, or any other New Order stuff for that matter. But here we are.

It's truly shocking to me that this was so popular and that critics were so enamored. Simply incomprehensible.

I have a lot of complaints about New Order, from their lack of focus (am I The Cure? Am I Depeche Mode?) to the infantile lyrics to their inability to simply tune their instruments.

Worst of all, the sound that gives me nightmares in the daytime, is Bernard Sumner's appalling vocals. Just awful.

But I tried. I listened to the whole thing. I even tried to like Sunrise, Love Vigilantes... but that dude's voice is terrible.

And to think people criticize Robert Plant and Freddie Mercury.

Stop yelling at me please. I didn’t do anything.

“Love Has Found away” is like an XTC song. And we all remember “Nature’s Way “ because of FM radio. The whole thing works nicely as an album. Part middle of the road rock, part jazz, part psychedelic, part hard rock, but all put together well. Arty and kind of epic. Pretty good.

DAMN! Who does this sound like? This singer is SUPER familiar!!!

It's Julian Cope. The singer is Julian Cope.

This is good. Exceptional? No, but pretty good. Very exemplary of this sort of British post-punk/new wave in the early eighties, with more pop leanings, and what Simon Reynolds termed an "aspirational" attitude in contrast to the darker nihilistic vibe of these bands' precursors like Souixsie and the Banshees or PiL

. Ticks all the boxes:
- Occasional jaunty horns? Check.
- Angsty, aimless protagonist? Check.
- Synth wash over everything? Check.
- Bass in your face? Check.
- Drums for miles? Check.

Se also: Echo and the Bunnymen, Simple Minds, Duran Duran

Need more information! Fiery Afro-Cuban grooves unlike anything I've heard from this genre. Must hear again!

If it wasn’t Johnny Cash y’all would think this was garbage

I appreciate any band that takes silliness this seriously. Kind of a psychedelic infused Britpop. High quality playing, great guitar work, lots of energy and it sounds like they're having fun. Bonus points for being Welsh.

Liked the more rocking uptempo stuff, but their resemblance to the Smiths and opaque metaphors left me annoyed more than anything. Like Dog Man Star, overwrought and trying to be something it’s not.

Stop bitching about Zeppelin "stealing" other people's music and focus on that sinister-ass guitar wail in Dazed and Confused. Focus on the pure genius of Communication Breakdown. Bow down to the greatest rhythm section in rock music. Then go back to your own job and tell me how every thing you do doesn't rely entirely on the giants who came before. Another stupid trope like "there's too many albums by __________ on this list! Waa waa waaa

Any album featuring both Queen Latifah and Mark E. Smith is ok by me.

A stew of disparate samples, seamlessly blended into funky danceable grooves. Slicin' and dicin'. Very cool. One more for the low attention span generation.

Ahh, Tusk, we knew you well. There's a reason I don't remember this record even though I own it. That reason is that it's just not very good.

Occasional highlights don't make up for the disjointed and uninspired songs. Trying to NOT be Rumours is also a bad idea because Rumours is great. Fleetwood Mac is till really great in this incarnation, but they sadly failed on this one.

Real musicians playing real music! A NOVEL CONCEPT!
The "field recordings" inside Apple's home that punctuate this album create an intimacy missing from a lot of modern music production, which leans more and more toward recursive electronic content creation.

MANY publications called this the BEST album of 2020. Because 2020 was a pretty bad year for albums, and a "bad" year in general really, historic though it was. The banal artificiality and marketing-first nature of music at this point in history makes this Fiona Apple album a standout with its basis in the real world. The home recording anchors it in the real world. The acoustic instrumentation solidifies that reality.

It's every personal, like Joni Mitchell's work. Also has a "fuck you if you don't like it" attitude that gives a great energy. Sad, funny, brutal. An interesting set of songs with some great musicians (Sebastian Steinberg on bass was a fantastic surprise, as a huge Soul Coughing fan).