Reviews by jlazerus

Lovely, singer-songwriter late 60's pop/soul, punctuated with orchestral flourishes that aren't used much anymore. Good art and understandably influential. Some of the songs remind me of Burt Bacharach a bit with small bridge sections that move time signatures around. Laura Nyro's vocals are dramatic but not histrionic, nicely balanced between bluesy, soul, and pop. Good fun!

Promising start then Jarvis Cocker comes in literally to gross everyone out. Wtf is this.

Sexy and heavy. One of the best alternative rock albums of the last 25 years, if not one of the best selling. Incredible rhythm section. Whatever happened to these guys?

Every time I hear something by Morrisey that I like, I feel like I'm doing something wrong. I feel weirdly embarrassed for liking this as much as I do. I'm not sure why.

Heavier than the Smiths' in a lot of places, thematically and guitaristically (I had to invent a word, not sorry). Morrisey's voice is as smooth as ever, but he goes to a few different places with this one, stylistically (lots of -ically words today, lots of parentheses as well!) I think he's being less bombastically campy and untouchable, bitter. More... down to earth? Still lyrically clever, playing with poetic structure in pleasant and surprising ways.

I was very pleasantly surprised by the energy and great guitar work on here.

An absolute riot from the James Brown of Afrobeat. Do not sit down while listening to this. Brilliant.

Nice! I hsven't heard anything by this band except "There She Goes" from the "So I Married an Axe Murderer" soundtrack, which is a sweet jangle pop ditty that isn't trying too hard). On this album, The Boo Radleys do try very hard, and are somewhat successful. Muscular riffs contrast with the quaint vocals (which are over-processed on occasion for psychedelic effect), giving this a little enthusiasm that a lot of stuff from the era just needs more of. Good dynamics, excellent musicianship, great sense of pop melody along the lines of XTC or (dare I say) The Jam, a little pretentious, a little long maybe. The standout songs (Lazarus, Wish I Was Skinny, Butterfly McQueen...) sound great. Semi-psychedelic. I especially enjoyed their infusions of dub and noise into the lite-pop. Cool stuff.

Season of the Witch is a great song. It aged well, which is more than you can say for a lot of the psychedelic pop from this era. Donovan is obsessed with royaltyqueens especially. Which is fine for me, I like this sideways take on British folk. And of course there is the requisite Bob Dylan-type tune. Interesting document of the era. About The Trip: I think their LSD was mild compared to what came around later (so I'm told :) )

Had a REALLY HARD TIME teasing out the whole "punk" thing. Arty poetry based rock, sure. Critics are always falling over themselves when the next generation does something novel.

The album is merely okay. I never really "got" Patti Smith. I guess there's an interesting twist on songwriting here that definitely breaks from the mainstream. Stylistically crude (maybe that's why some see "punk" here), definitely part of the Art Scene more than the music scene. Like the Velvet Underground, who I also struggle with.

Influential though, I can see a path to Bjork ,The Pretenders, Nina Hagen possibly... just leaves mewondering why this is so "important?" There were and always will be a thousand poetry writers who can almost sing, why this?

All the songs flow to create a spooky melancholic atmosphere. The Forest is the tent pole, though. The driving repetitive drones are like spidery skeletons of a post-punk Krautrock. Heavy without distortion or screaming, mysterious, slightly otherworldly. I thought the guitar parts were especially interesting and innovative (not knowing it was Robert Smith himself playing them. Cool album and one of my favorites. Definitely my favorite by The Cure.

B.O.B. is great, some of the other stuff is thought provoking, and there's some funky experimentation on here, some weird beats you don't usually hear. Andre 300 does his signature sing-song stuff, which has appeal. But it's mostly immature rap tropes and a bit too long. Surprised that Robert Christgau gave this an 'A', I usually agree with him.

MIA's vocal quality is a little grating for me, a little twee. Not all the time, but more than I was hoping. Nonetheless, I liked this album quite a bit (with the exception of "Jimmy"). There are some unusual rhythmic bits, some new and interesting lyrics and an odd vocal style not quite rap but won't fit anywhere else. Something sinister is going on under the surface and she acknowledges other parts of the world the the mainstream usually ignores. Worth the time.

Starts with the party anthem "Enjoy Yourself..." which may be the cause of the much derided third-wave of Ska. Then it kind of devolves into a loungey studio experiment where every member the band has a different idea about what to do - as long as IT'S NOT THE THING THAT EVERYONE LOVES YOU FOR!!!

How Rude

"Stereotype" and the dub contrast is a great example of what this album could have been. It's mostly merely ok, and because The Specials' first was one of my favorite albums, this is very disappointing. Fun Boy Three was a better version of this style, although Terry Hall does a great job on here (as usual).

I liked the spacey instrumental songs Area 51 and Rob’s Theme. Otherwise pretty boring britpop. Lacks any edginess and the vocalist has a somewhat nasally voice with limited range and poor dynamics. Decent musicianship but nothing exceptional. Another “why is this on the list?” album.

Zappa’s long meandering jams were never my thing really. Respect to to musicianship though. This grew on me toward the end when I paid less attention and had it on in the background doing chores. I don’t thank Zappa respects his audience.

Spooky supernatural and swampy with lots Afro Cuban and Caribbean influences. Felt like something you shouldn’t be listening to, like a secret voodoo incantation or something🧟‍♂️🧟‍♀️

Either I’m becoming inoculated to gangster rap or this is different and better. I would not dis Ice T.

I really enjoyed the album. I found it to be far-reaching, ambitious, organic, a bit untethered, intellectually challenging. But that isn't all. It was unusual, and groundbreaking in its context of the late 60's/early 70's. Like Tago Mago by Can, this album exists in its own space, seemingly without contemporary Rock influences. At the same time, it floats in and out of various influences like free jazz, avant-garde classical, psychedelic rock, and (contradicting myself) rock as well.

Like this review, the album is long. It consists of four pieces, one on each side of a two album set. Each piece has its own cycle. These compositions remind me of classical, which is why I referenced that form earlier as an influence. The structure of the music is more classical than the actual instrumentation, which is the familiar drum/bass/guitar/keyboard of any other rock band of the time. Whitin each piece are parts, and often a reprise, like an Opus consisting of several parts. Most classical music that I've heard does this.

And Soft Machine explore uncommon time signatures you don't find in popular rock music, or really classical. Jazz? perhaps Take Five by Dave Brubeck. But Soft Machine go hard in the paint on the 5/4 and 7/8 stuff. They also juxtapose patterns in the rhythm section that I'm still trying to figure out/. Is it 9/8 and 4/4 back to back? Or is that 10/8? Again, intellectually challenging.

So these things - the relationship to classical music and playing fast and loose with the time signatures are the defining elements of Prog hereafter. King Crimson was attempting things like this at the time, and "Robert Wyatt's "Moon in June" could be a Genesis song. Nonetheless, Prog rock as we know it now starts here. It's not particularly well mixed. The drums are really flattened and pushed to the right channel for a lot of it, the keyboard can become shrill and overwhelming. Even with those faults, this is still an intriguing piece of work with some depth and artistic risk-taking that helps define the genre.

May everyone who listens to music experience the sheer bliss that this album has provided me over the years.

A power trio like no other, moving from their controlled pop-punk youth anthems into songs about relationships with more emotional depth than any 23 year old should have.

I've always found All Mod Cons to be an incredible piece of work that moved me in many ways. It is often considered the Jam's best work, and it probably is. It maintains their early roughness and moves the band into a more mature place, which had to happen if they were to survive. The stripped down format - guitar/bass/drums - is simple and effective. This is Peak Weller, both vocally and guitar-wise. Bruce Foxton always gives a chilling performance, the bass lines on this album are unique, powerful, and thunderous, without undermining the song's essence. And Rick Buckler shreds. His playing has an organic Moon-like lack of control that helps define the Jam's sound.

Existential anxiety plays out on this album in subtle ways. "…Wardour Street" asks you to confront a surprisingly violent adult world by way of a semi-autobiographical tale of nastiness. "Billy Hunt" and "Mr. Clean" also blurt out a kind of bitterness about where those fascist thugs doing the beatings come from. No explanations needed, just the feelings. "The Place I Love" is a million miles away. Weller must return to his "English Rose." He isn't there, he's just longing to get back to her, where he imagines some comfortable existence. And the Jam absolutely OWN "David Watts." We start with the disappointment of "All Mod Cons" and finish with the nerve-wracking "…Tube Station" to slam shut the door of innocent youth. All delivered with a musical framework that is both familiar and novel, muscular and (I hate to use this word, but it fits) tender.

Without question one of my top five favorite albums of all time, it never gets old for me. As a American suburban pseudo-intellectual teenager who took himself way too seriously, this was my go to. And my fandom of The Jam only provided a small sense of identity as I pretended to be a mod, without soothing any feelings of alienation.

I saw Hüsker Dü do a show in a gymnasium in ( i want to say) 1981 or 1982. It was amazing. So much different than any of the other punk stuff coming through town around that time, like TSOL or Black Flag. More musical in general, more professional. Punk in tempo and volume, but the songs flowed differently. They weren't merely an angry one-two punch to whatever random thing or person was close by. There was a craftsmanship more like the big time bands we pretended not to like - Beatles, The Who, Led Zeppelin. And they had a hippie aesthetic which was interesting. Grant Hart played the drums barefoot, which I was truly astonished at. I've never seen that before or since.

Warehouse: Songs and Stories is unfortunately their last album. So much bitterness, I don't know who lied to Bob Mould or why, but now they're done. A lot of spiteful songs on here. Still true to their pop-punk origins though, mixed with a punk-psychedelic wash which made them one of my all-time favorite bands. "Too Much Spice," "Charity, Chastity, Prudence and Hope," "Could You be the One?," "Friend, You've Got to Fall" are all super-catchy bangers. Every song on this album is appealing. And the contrast between Mould and Hart is played up well here, even if they would do better to combine forces. Maybe that would be too many cooks, though. A band who imploded too soon. RIP Grant Hart, sorry things didn't go your way.

It's not the best Hüsker Dü album, but it's probably a good one for this list, it's their biggest seller (I think) and an attempt at mainstream acceptance, meaning they literally sold out. A gutsy move for a punk band. Hüsker Dü's influence is huge, of course, and I give this an additional star just for getting something by them on this list.

There are a few U2 songs that make me weep, "One" among them. Don't know what it's "really about" nor do I care all that much.

As a U2 fan, I can't say this is my favorite album of theirs. They basically frosted over the things that made them great: the rhythm section sounds flattened and is mixed into a shoebox, the muscular guitar lines are buried under effects so thick you can only barely ascertain the guitar at all, and say what you will about Bono - you gotta respect his passion and commitment to the job - but on this he is (of course) devolving into the crooner all rock singers think they should be.

What U2 are good at is building an emotional vignette from the constraints of the four-piece rock convention. When they deviate like they do on Achtung Baby, it's a little disconcerting. They're clearly out of their comfort zone. But a band like this (hugely successful), at this point in their career (past their prime and entrenched in the mainstream), is in a damned if you do, damned if you don't position. Experiment and try something different, and your fanbase is repelled. Keep doing the same thing you always have and you're seen as lazy, tired, behind the times. The former is the natural thing musicians want to do, but riskier. The latter is a paycheck but a high-speed train to irrelevance. And U2 wants to be relevant more than anything else.

Although U2 don't seem to tire of playing I Will Follow or New Year's Day a million times, they did decide to go the riskier route on this album, with mixed results.