Reviews by jlazerus

The always amazing Janis Joplin goes down some new roads here with funk, gospel, country, straight up blues. Fantastic album, and a bit sad in retrospect.

The Beatles do stuff like "Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon" and get called geniuses; Queen do it and they get called other names.

Is this some kind of joke? If so, someone needs to explain it to me.

Once again: The Velvet Underground (and now that I've heard this, Nico) are BAD. As in NOT GOOD. You are being pranked. Hit a note. Tune your guitar. Take a poetry class.

WHO SAID YOU COULD DO THIS!

Insultingly bad.

This is from the Wikipedia article: "Ed Ward in a 1976 review in Rolling Stone felt that the music was rootsy and compelling, but that it wouldn't be understood by American audiences, and that the lead song about Marcus Garvey wouldn't make sense to anyone who didn't know Jamaican culture."

TRY TO FUCKING LEARN about it then.

This is a nearly perfect Reggae album. The grooves, the themes, Burning Spear's voice - perfect in their imperfection. A textbook, go learn about why Marcus Garvey is important, go learn about Jamaica, go learn about Rastafarianism. Reggae is like Gospel. The passion of roots reggae lies in the combination of spirituality and social consciousness. It's pretty inspiring to think that after centuries of victimization and exploitation, which continues in Jamaica to this day, Rastas want to rise above.

I would love to hear the original mix, but it appears to only be legendary or lost?

Never heard of it. Kind of like the Dadaist derived cover art. Don't like the name "Hookworms." Actually, I might have heard of this...
NOT GOING TO READ ABOUT IT
NOT GOING TO READ ABOUT IT
NOT GOING TO READ ABOUT IT
NOT GOING TO READ ABOUT IT
Every time I read. about the album it taints my judgement, especially when it's stuff I haven't heard of.

Starts off very kraut-rocky. Love it. Seems pretty positive. SInger is singing, has a Gary Numan or OMD vibe. Starts belting out a bit like so many other alt-rock, over emotional singers though, like LCD Soundsystem, Modest Mouse, Snow Patrol, etc. (Where did that sound start? hmm...)

Some interesting post-punk stuff here and there, but nothing that says “must hear before you die.” A little derivative, even. The book sometimes seems to include stuff like this just to remain contemporary and sell more editions, possibly.

…. AAAAANNND then I read about it. ☹️

I wrote one of my GENIUS reviews about how Black Sabbath is weird and iconoclastic, etc. But the machine ate it somehow.

One of the main points was how unusual it was that at the nadir of the soft rock era, these blokes went to Southern California and came back with Supernaut. Brilliant. Not even going to take off a star for "Changes" as much as I want to. God I hate that song.

SHA-LA-LA
JAILBREAK
HUEY LEWIS
Good stuff. Heavier than I remember. Well produced - the energy builds across the entire album and crescendos at the right time. Not too long, works well as a "unit of art."

PJ Harvey has a dark side that literally scares me. Because I’m afraid of the unknown.

This album brings together all of her very best aspects - the over- the- bar line cleverness, the plaintive and urgent vocals, direct, distinctive; songwriting that somehow manages to be simple but dives deeply.

She always bares her soul with a confidence you don’t get from anyone else. The duet with Thom Yorke emphasizes this: feels like Thom is always falling apart falling off a cliff. Until PJ comes along to pull him out of his quicksand. The woman is strong. I love this contrast. They pull it off.

Great art. Some touching pieces. But not off putting or difficult (Kendrick I’m talking to you). I haven’t heard something in a long time that I had the sincere urge to hear again like “Good Fortune” or “Kamikaze.” Genius.

Neil Finn: great voice. Theorem: all rock singers ultimately want to be Mel Tormé or Frank Sinatra. Neil Finn can almost prove this, most noticeably on the ballads. Great drumming by Paul Hester, tragically died of suicide at age 46 in 2005.

Great production, great songwriting, impeccable execution. All of this does not make for a perfect album though. It’s too precise, too chill, too easy. It’s not annoying, it just has zero edge musically or otherwise.

So it comes down to a matter of taste. Crowded House do a PERFECT job of not doing anything new or even all that interesting. Which sucks because I really liked listening to it. Also very much like the band. Loved Split Enz. I wanted to like this more. “Not bad != great” is another possible theorem.

Mostly fun up until "Good to Be On the Road Back Home." Had to blow past that one. Brim Full of Asha is a killer pop tune, and I LOVE the heaping scoops of Indian classical. I'll definitely be playing this again, really innovative. Danceable, brings in some Dub style production. Has some really good heaviness to it, a good sense of humor (sorry: "humour"), surprising sound design, and moves at a nice tempo. Lots of variety.

This made me sad. Respect for the conceptual thrust. Very intense, and (for my middle-class white ass) pretty rough. I see why people are praising Kendrick Lamar. Interesting.

Stevie Wonder's hits overshadow the deep cuts SO MUCH that people like me, unfamiliar with the albums themselves, never got to enjoy the more subtle lesser known stuff. What an amazing songwriter Stevie Wonder is. Every cut on Talking Book is excellent. I don't have the good taste to embrace his soulful ballad side, but the quality is there. "Big Brother" is an AMAZING song, all of the funk stuff on here is awesome. There's even a little "country" (?) tunewhich was great! More guitar than I remember... a really satisfying listen with lots of variety, and of course, Superstition is on here. You can't go wrong!

The best of the Fripp/Wetton/Bruford era. A pure smorgasbord of sound, I just can't get enough. Exiles being the only real downside, but the guitar/bass interplay is intricate, beautiful.

Crimson, and Fripp especially, had a way of giving soul and feeling (whatever that is) to their odd-time, meanderings. And this doesn't work at ALL without the musical confidence each of the members brings to the party. Very communal. Nothing else like it. Obviously not for everyone but gods among prog fans such as myself.

Imagine if Gorillaz was a mid-2000s alt rock band (think Arcade Fire, Modest Mouse) but take the dancing out of it. It's working overly hard at profundity, I think. It's okay... I mean, what do you do when you've reached that level of success? It's cool to take musical risks like this as the alternative is either more of the same or quitting altogether. At some points this album feels like it's going too hard for a contemporary sound, for example, shades of Radiohead on The Bunting Song. Hearing Simonon is the highlight for me, though, but it's altogether too laid bake and a little monotonous.

First song had promise with the horns. Well, that went away as quickly as it came. Christgau was less enamored, saying "...if those horns are somebody's idea of a joke I am not amused."

Kind of a mishmash, the band doesn't seem to land on anything. It's okay, has good energy, not really punk though? DNF moving on

A great album! Catchy, heavy, ornery, a bit weird and personal. The frustrations of youth. Green Day defines the "pop-punk" genre with this album, respects its influences. Also, thank you for making something heavy that wasn't grunge in the 90s.

Never realized James Brown had such a huge vocal range. This would be better - not that it's bad - if I could SEE what was happening. The music gets interrupted A LOT by the audience interaction. So it sounds like a wildly entertaining live show that doesn't translate too well to a recording. Sound quality kind of suffered as well.

That said there are some great moments on here, the medley at the end leading into Night Train are excellent. And you can definitely feel the energy. Proto-funk. Interesting transitional stuff, takes us from R & B/Jazz/Jump Blues into a heavier place.

You forget how much you like some albums. This one has a lot of nostalgia factor. Everyone's older brother was playing this constantly. It's great, though. Just don't look for a lot of profundity. 4 stars for the guitar tone alone, and the solo in "Do You Feel.." is one of the GOATs. Peace and love, very sincere, lots of mistakes - it's live after all. A great listen.

WHAT A CLASSIC! 14 songs in 16 minutes, including the greatest songs ever recorded: Wasted, I Just Want Some Skank, Live Fast Die Young, and Beverly Hills.

This album rules. Saw the Circle Jerks in San Francisco in 1982 and it was the scariest show I've ever seen. Life changing. Punk as go intended.

Enjoyable mid-tempo EDM with bits of dub, funk, a little jazz at times - shades of Soul Coughing, but JUST shades... nothing really memorable or catchy but they successfully bring you from one track to the next without a lot of effort. Vocal tracks were a little week but overall pretty fun. Has a good beat you can dance to it. Always cool to get something I've never heard before, will be checking the rest of Red Snapper's catalog. Interesting drum/bass/guitar core.