Reviews by jlazerus

Tried a couple times, but the style and his vocals left me cold. Poetry is fine, but I'm not feeling it. Maybe a different context for me would help but I struggle to understand this, or the critical acclaim for Leonard Cohen - I suppose he's an alternative Dylan?

At first I thought: a little too clean, low energy, some pop clichés like the smoky sax solos and drum programming. But some of these songs were really touching, clever, and they really sound good even if it's not my favorite style. Tracy Thorne's has a lush, expressive voice. Enjoyable easy listening, kinda jazzy (I guess). Just the opposite of challenging. Pretty good.

Shades of the Mamas and Papas, which makes sense. D.C.B.A. 25, Embryonic Journey and White Rabbit elevate what could have been run of the mill late 60s psych-pop.

The depth and breadth of Neil Young's work is encapsulated here. The acoustic side is pure beauty, philosophical and edgy. The playing is so smooth, really sincere, it's amazing to me how perfect yet heartfelt. The electric side turns the tables without being any less beautiful and soulful. Spontaneous, deep, it's great. Not disturbing or upsetting, just more pure awesomeness!

My Mac just blew up in the middle of writing this and I lost another incredibly pithy review! :(
Mostly, Bryan Ferry sounds like he's struggling. I love Eno and his oddness, and I love Manzanarek bringing some heaviness. Quite the now-familiar "Glam" sound, with the sax and rocking piano. But Ferry is trying to hard and it shows. It's a struggle, I sort of feel bad for him.

Least bad Lou Reed thing (that I have heard), although he did make a pretty cool ambient album in the 2010's I think. Avant-garde pop, more listenable than the VU stuff. Walk On the Wild Side and Perfect Day are great. THe rest is very interesting thematically, lyrically, musically sort of cheesy.

More tabla!
Virtuosity knows many forms. I'm not a scholar of Indian Classical music, but this seems like it's an exemplar. Very "listenable" and (this might seem weird) but it reminds me of the best jazz guitarists, like Django Reinhardt or Charlie Christian, the personality of the player really comes through.

For every person writing reviews on this site who just doesn't like Reggae, doesn't get it, or whatever negative reaction they have to the genre is a person like me who simply can't get enough. I like it all - the first wave ska, the sound system era, dub: it's all good to me. I love the hypnotic repetition, the deceptively complicated polyrythms, the vocals, the patois, the anti-authority line that runs through it all.

The almighty generator has blessed me with the second Bob Marley album in as many weeks, and both for over the weekend, which is when Reggae is properly appreciated. Here especially with the heavy biblical overtones both straightforward and subtle. "Movement of Jah people" is uttered in a way to be all encompassing. Jah people is all the people, all mankind. If you are not actively being oppressed Jah wants you to stand up to those who are.

The run of songs up to the end is beyond criticism (with the possible exception of "Turn Your Lights Down Low," but it's hard to fault the man for flexing his soul muscle, it wouldn't be reggae without that). Exodus. Jamming. Waiting in Vain. Lights Down Low. Three Little Birds (the best of ths bunch?🤔). One Love/People Get Ready.

They're not trying to do anything avant garde, they're not trying to keep the record company happy or win a rap battle or be more metal, or any other off-topic motivation. They're just adding beauty to the world and they're so good at it they get to tag a message to it here and there.
This is why I listen to music.

The Dead play this musical trick where they jam for what seems like an eternity on some atonal, arhytmic introspective self-indulgence, and it rewires your brain into an uncomfortable musical space, when suddenly they randomly land on a tune of some sort: simplistic, even immature, as if a child were in charge. And then the tension of the previous ten to fifteen minutes is released and you get a big dopamine hit. Boom. Very clever.

Some of the stuff can be hypnotic, for sure. Some of Garcia's guitar is interesting, and you can spot that unique tone from miles away, very iconic.
And I'm just going to leave it there because I'm trying to keep it positive. I don't love it, but it deserves a place on this list.

Every one of the musicians on this album belong on their own instrument’s Mount Rushmore.

1 - Just a bad Prince impression.
2 - Bad Beatles impression.
3 - wat? I’m on a bitter train? A bottle train?
4 - Bad James Brown.
5 - A second helping of Beatles but way too long, and too much Lenny trademark screeching™.
6 - Metal Stevie Wonder! (shoutout Burning Spear).
7 - Ballad of unknown provenance.
8 - NOW WE’RE TALKING! Mr. Cabdriver some throwback rockabilly spice with a little “fuck you” for the punk credibility! Extra star, best Lenny Kravitz song. Every song should be this one.
9 - aaaaaand we ruin it with the acoustic… oh no! A harmonica! What the hell. Sad child song. What is this? Bon Jovi?
10 - Prince full circle.

Alright. Generally "listenable." Definitely doesn't need a whole album, and for those whose taste aligns with Lenny, you'll enjoy this a lot, so much trademark vocal sound. Interspersed with the contrived are some good moments, sometimes his little soulfunk/rock mashups work. It's a decent effort, Let Love Rule is nice, Mr. Cabdriver is great - really the only song on here that seems heartfelt at all.

Good to be born at the right time in the right place I suppose.

Bursting with creativity. More mature, a bit on the depressed side. Nothing seems to make Jack a happy boy this time around. Still shockingly spontaneous, off-putting, heavy, and inscrutable (for the most part) as anything they've done.

Jack White seems to be seeking something. Or coming to terms that he won't ever find what he's looking for. That what this sounds like to me.

If you have one reggae album in your collection it should probably be this, or Bob Marley's greatest hits.

Goes hard, and here we are again, Jamaica 1975, America 2025. 3 O'clock Roadblock: "Hey, Mr. Cop, Ain't got no birth certificate on me now."

See you in another 50 years.

Alright, I'll keep going with my rhetorical device of writing a long stream of consciousness exposition with no real point and then pointing out something about this album that is THE BEST EVER. Here we go.

Rock and roll probably ought to have an undercurrent of disaffection if it's going to be called that. The Kinks disaffection here is in fine form, and their eclectic urge is WAY out front on this album. The mixed feelings you get from the opener David Watts (which The Jam turned into one of my all time favorite songs, this version is more pointed, can't tell if mad, jealous, or ...) up to the resigned, possibly defeated protagonist on Waterloo Sunset are a ride and a half. Very entertaining, but there's a bitterness about being middle-class.

Waterloo Sunset might be the most beautiful song ever written in the English language. I'd probably put it in the top 5 at least.

Has a bit of a Stranglers feel, but more aggressive and subversive. Seems like the English punks like The Damned and Buzzcocks are a bigger influence on the pop-punk we know and love than the USA scene. USA started going more hardcore, refusing to cow to the mainstream (up until the aforemantioned pop-punk) sonically or thematically. Minor threat, Bad Brains, Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Adolescents, etc etc etc leading to the alternative rock of Pixies, Dinosaur Jr, or thrash metal. Whereas the English second wave was more of a post-punk vanguard and then their progeny - the Cure, Smiths, etc. This album is a good example of the difference between the brutal depressed hardcore of the American scene and the British sensibility - I can hear what they're singing, there's melody and harmony, etc. They mostly stay with rock conventions, which is why lot of this stuff and post-punk (I'm thinking about Elvis Costello, not PiL) has some resemblance to earlier rock-n-roll. It feels like they're trying to get away from the hippie psychedelic/folk/progressive stream and return to the roots: where staying up all night Friday, drinking and driving fast cars was how you let off steam from your shit job (or lack thereof). This is the soundtrack for something like that. I'm all for it.

And Smash it Up is one of the best songs ever written.

In my top ten. One of those albums that reveals something you never heard before every time you listen. This time, I am hearing the guitar solos in "Private Life," where in the past I haven't paid much attention to this song. Masterful. Everything about this album amazes me, from the lust to the guitar tone, from the voice(s) to the inventiveness. The Wait, Tattooed Love Boys, Precious - good lord! THe only POSSIBLE weakness is Lovers of Today, but everything else here makes up for it and - you know - it still has Chrissy Hynde, so that makes it awesome anyway.

One of the best debut albums
EV...
ER.
Gets me every time.

I love the sound of the the album, and Metallica in general. Muscular, intense, massive... I love the speed metal and the compositions that aren't afraid to extend into classical territory. A lot to love. Sometimes the dismal unrelenting nature of it all is a bit much. There's no escape, no place to rest. Toward the end we have the song "Orion," but even this is a funeral dirge. Everything is a moral proselytizing - and whether or not you agree with their point of view (which I do in fact) - the dismal intensity remains.

Technically amazing. A heavy music fan's dream. Super tight, a bludgeoning of everything that's wrong in the world. All anger. In fact this is one of the most musically accurate representations of that emotion I've ever heard. Really intense.

Nothing I know of makes you feel better, as an 18 year old man, than exorcising your demons (anxiety, sexual frustration, grieving the death of your own childhood, etc.) by torturing a guitar until it gives up its secrets, as unreasonable and unexpected and unacceptable as some of those sounds can be.

And it doesn’t have to be just a guitar. Maybe it’s the drums or bass or your voice. Maybe it’s the idea of music altogether that has to be wrung out, burned in a pile of “I don’t care” and then rebuilt as a lumbering skeleton from the grave.

Might not sound beautiful. Might not supposed to.

Pretty good. Eclectic styles, interesting indie production. Two dudes at home. Fairly impressive. Another post-1999 album that feels like they put it in newer editions of the book just to have albums from this era.

I get what he's trying to do but it isn't working. Bludgeoning the listener with the little radio snippets to raise consciousness is pretty heavy-handed. And clichè, like much of this album. For example, the seemingly endless optimistic pep talk on "Pilgrim" or the over-done trip-hop sweet soul of the title track.

On the other hand, I wish he had doubled down on the Indian classical stuff, really pushed that to an extreme, instead of burying the most interesting thing about this underneath stupid western pop music tropes. Too long at nearly an hour, I cringed too much at the song "Immigrant" and had to excuse myself from the table.