Reviews by jlazerus

The only problem with this album is I can’t get it loud enough.
War Pigs, Paranoid, Planet Caravan, Iron Man, Electric Funeral, Hand of Doom, Rat Salad, and finishing with Fairies Wear Boots. Come on man. The flawless Sabbath album. Absolute peak.

I tried to get a sense of purpose from this. Who is it for? What's the motivation? Massively overblown. My opinion is that you really need to earn a symphony on your album, you can't just toss off... whatever, and create drama with the string section.

This album checks a box on some record company's list in the late 90's:

Post-grunge 4 piece heavy rock act (like Bush)? CHECK

Spicy girl group? CHECK

Whiny angst-addled indie rock act that forgot to tune up and the singer sounds drunk? CHECK

R&B group, R&B female singer, R&B male singer, dance music, rap, and or all of the above at the same time: CHECK, CHECK, CHECK

Female pop vocalist...
" Hey, Bill, we don't have a female pop vocalist anywhere do we, I need to check a box on this Corporate Music Form™?"

"Yeah, Bob, lemme look... hm, best I can do is that sort of monotone trip-hop act called Beth Orton."

"I haven't heard it, have you?"

"No, Bob I sure haven't!"

"Works for me, Bill!"

Both laugh hysterically and drive off in Bill's Porsche to golf.

1 - Bizkit > NIN
2 - This isn't as bad as y'all making it out to be, and it's one of the biggest selling albums OF ALL TIME weirdly enough.
3 - Was lovable but dim-witted Jason Mendoza of The Good Place based on Fred Durst?
4 - Why does Durst look like every suburban dad walking around the home depot checking out sprinkler parts and the newest grills? Or does he look like them?
5 - Just... let it be. There's a place for the lowbrow stuff on the list. Also more entertaining than a lot of what shows up here.
6 - Finally, think for yourself. Bandwagoning is not being an open-minded free thinker. Get over yourselves.

I've listened to this a few times, trying to get a grip on what I think about it.

So, as a PJ Harvey fan, I want to like it. Has a lot of emotional depth, the vocal character that she's known for is fully present. But I think it lacks a spontaneity that most of her other stuff has. And the melodies are at the mercy of the themes, it's all pretty forced. A little too poetic to make a concrete statement, too. I struggled to understand the lyrics at some points (and this is an album that is all about the lyrics) because I'm not English.

A great effort, just disappointing for me. Of course, she has set SUCH a high bar tht if anyone else made this it would be a masterpiece. And maybe it is. Respect to the artist though for doing something completely unexpected yet again.

Please stay away from Nick Cave though.

Fascinating multi-layered experimental album. Complicated, extremely ambitious composition. Not completely serious though, just quirky and meandering. The kind of thing only a nineteen year old would do. By that I mean it doesn't care at all what you think, just all kinds of crazy ideas one after another, risk free. Nothing to prove, nothing to lose. In the prog rock pantheon I would say. Fun, but scattered. Great for the attention deficit generation.

This is such a great album. Heavy, fast and loud. More funk in their pinky fingernail than the entire Chili Pepper's catalog combined.

Mike Patton has a unique vocal quality - is he being squeezed? Is he one of the smaller Muppets? No one knows for sure.

In all seriousness, this kicks ass from beginning to end. I've heard Epic a million times, but the rest of this is even better. High energy weirdness. Aged really well. A new favorite. The more I listen the more I want to give it my highest rating.

Classic. Memorized every song. The one flaw of this album is that its just too middle of the road. Doesn't go too hard, but still goes hard. Ostentatious power ballads don't get too low or too high. Pretty much paves the way for the big arena rock bands too come like Foreigner, Journey, Night Ranger, etc etc etc. It's really good though, fun to hear again.

This didn't affect me emotionally at all - well, not exactly true. It did make me feel - uncomfortable? mildly disgusted? No, not disgusted, more like when you're stuck in a room that's a little too cold.

The sheer effort here is impressive, but the execution is a bit sloppy. The band tries for a long pass downfield and a spectacular goal every time, and we all want them to get it, but there always seems to be some foible. Sometimes it's the vocal affectation, sometimes it's the drums not quite hitting on time, sometimes it's the bass-heavy mixing. The Associates try hard, have a ton of confidence, and some of the songwriting comes right up to the edge of something great. A lot of flavor especially in the production, without much substance. Like a spicy piece of lettuce.

First song, Step In the Arena, I thought "Here we go again, more violent Rap!" but it actually was a really clever metaphor. Pretty cool. This has a range of themes, ideas, attitudes. Thought it would be too long but kept my interest the whole time. Not bad at all.

I wanted to like this but it rubbed me the wrong way. I felt like it was derivative and contrived. Pretentious without being self-effacing, a sort of "know-it-all" attitude. There's a haziness over it all, and they HAD to throw in a *stompclap* song because it's the mid-aughts and that's what all indie rock was doing. Well executed, interesting and subtle production, but not very creative or novel.

I absolutely love the post-punk bass/drums/guitar sound and austere production. Lyrically, Joy Division go to to weird and dark places. Intimate but ambiguous. Ian Curtis sometimes struggles with his voice, and that’s the only thing that brings this down a little. Still, a post punk magnum opus from a band that could have done so much more. Dark.

Didn't hurt to listen to, a bit too long though. So interesting beats and samples, but after my first listen, I am left with not much to say good or bad.

It would be interesting if someone in this genre made a song where they sample a dude having an orgasm for a change of pace. Actually, nevermind, that would be worse and I'm sorry I said anything. I guess Robert Plant covered that ground anyway.

Mostly forgettable grooves. First half was ok.

Especially enjoyed the krautrocky "Kein Trink Wasser," but it's all enjoyable. Upbeat and lighthearted, not trying to be something it's not - looking at other 90's UK dance music that pushes way too hard into soul territory like The KLF or 808 State. The synths sound like synths, in fact the artificiality of the synths are celebrated rather than downplayed. The production emphasizes that idea as well, lots of pleasant trippiness in the effects, nice big low end.

Thought it was going to be too long, but it really kept my interest the whole way through. Tons of variety rhythmically and sonically. Little surprises pop up, like the song "Quality Seconds." Some confidently executed interesting experimental work.

Has a good beat, you can dance to it.

Gross. Well executed, but disturbing. I get it - Lou Reed telling a story that didn't fit as a single song. Great musicians play on this, the Bob Erin production is very dramatic, everybody here bought in. So it succeeds in taking the listener into the dismal world of the people being depicted.

No disrespect intended, but the sincerity of the delivery is chilling, the craftsmanship painstaking, and it reveals something about the artist. Like horror movies that are hyper-realistic. How do you conceive of and execute these disturbing images? What is in your head that makes you pass it off as entertainment, rather than a kind of off-label therapy? And everyone around you is saying "Yes! You should absolutely record and sell this to the public!" instead of: "Hey, Lou, are you okay?"

Edgy, though. So if that's your thing, have fun with this.

The more Public Enemy I hear, the more I like them. This is a great one. Tons of energy directed in a way that speaks to me, across cultures.

Last of the great Arena Rock™ bands. More Muse please. They pull from everywhere: Queen, Joe Meek, krautrock, even The Beach Boys (listen to "Soldier's Poem"). Muse masterfully navigate through a magnificent variety of tempo, sound, dynamic range. Also not the typical themes - I love the apocalyptic dystopian outlook, outside of themselves rather than the self-centered whininess of their contemporaries. Heavy, well constructed compositions. LOVE!

VERY interesting. I'm listening to it thinking "This song is almost exactly like "Red Money" on Bowie's Lodger album!" And it in fact is. Down to the Carlos Alomar guitar drone. This is a lost Bowie album with pal Iggy Pop on vocals. It's also excruciatingly weird in places, making it all the more excellent.

Iggy Pop has a Lou Reed style in places, and often sounds like he just woke up or is about to go to sleep. Glad to hear he finally got his shit together (?). Methinks the list rates him as a little more important than he really is, much like they do with Sonic Youth. But this album was an undiscovered gem of Bowie esoterica that I never knew about!

I was reading about Progressive hip hop the other day. A journalist was saying that M.I.A. was the best example in the UK still putting out relevant work in the genre... I should find this quote... found it in the Wikipedia article on "Progressive Rap":

"While arguing that American hip hop was in a creative and commercial decline, Marcus Dowling wrote contemporaneously that the English rapper M.I.A. remained a progressive-rap innovator for conceiving a globalized gaze of class- and gender inequality in a musical style that melds trap, contemporary dance, and deconstructed forms of rapping. "In the 21st century, it's entirely arguable that white is black, black is white, and things are obviously a bit difficult to understand", Dowling contended in regards to modern hip hop. "It's up to a wild, diverse, hyper-intellectualized and new-age brown woman to lead us."" (Dowling, Marcus (November 22, 2013). "M.I.A. and the Challenge of Marketable Diasporic Trap Music". HipHopDX. https://hiphopdx.com/editorials/id.2226/title.m-i-a-and-the-challenge-of-marketable-diasporic-trap-music Retrieved July 15, 2021.

The low-budget minimal production is appealing, and all these tracks are danceable. A refreshing lack of rap cliches, though she does veer a bit much to sex themes. But even those are from a subversive state-of-mind. "Bingo" is a new favorite. And while her girly sing-song voice may not work for everyone, she mixes it in to good effect. Not a lot of respect for her politics and worldview though. Kind of surprised about that.

When I get albums like this I feel sort of like my mom telling me to eat my vegetables because it's good for me, I don't have to like it but I do have to eat it.

And eat it I did... it didn't make me sick, at least. Well, the <stomp/clap> stuff kind of did, as did the couple of silly sexual innuendos - okay BREAKING NEWS - THIS JUST IN all lyrics are written by Woodie Guthrie. Bragg and Wilco put these to music. A brave move but it takes this down another notch. Just like there's a reason you don't watch the Director's cut of a movie, or listen to the ultra-mega-super-digital remaster extended version of an album (unless you're a HUGE fan, and even then it's iffy). There's a reason Guthrie didn't release this during his life, and that reason is because they're not great! Well, ok, Jesus for President is pretty good.

Leave well enough alone, let sleeping dogs lie, there are plenty of old sayings that directly address doing this as a bad idea.