Reviews by jlazerus

Best ska album ever, sorry Desmond, sorry Skatalites. Not sorry.

Tunes!

A bit dismal, some of the early 2000s “stomp - clap” alt sound in here. Thought provoking though. Great talent but nothing to write home about, there’s no Eddie Van Halen or Stewart Copeland here.

Really excellent trip hop. Groovy mid-tempo loops with some nice stylistic diversity thrown in - dub, funk, rock, this has a lot of little surprises. Frequently background music at work.

Complex and profound. A BIG four stars. Grounded a little bit by the production which is a good thing. Pixies can be a lot to take but they do a nice job here of overcoming their more out of control tendencies to make a very listenable album. Takes a few times through to really get it. Well worth the effort.

I Zimbra is such a fantastic groove, veering into a joyous Crimsonesque jam that always ALWAYS makes me happier than when I put it on.

Mind - clever, astute, amusing, paradoxically minimal and complex. Building on the annoyance of confusion, the guitar breakdown at the end solves nothing but is somehow incredibly helpful.

Paper is the epitome of Talking Heads funkiness. The verse part, with the little spoken stream of consciousness double meaning anxiety invoking lyrics - "hold on to that paper, there just might be a chance that it MIGHT work out!"

Cities is embedded in my skull (almost typed 'school' just now). What does it say that I often wake up in the middle of the night with this running in my head. Look aver there, dry ice factory, good place to get some thinking done. A guitar solo like no other. This song speaks to me so hard for reasons I just can't explain. "Forgot to mention Memphis, home of Elvis and the Ancient Greeks. Do I smell, do I smell home cooking? It's only the river, it's only the river."

We start seeing the source of the anxiety, which the scratchy funk is an expression of. Find myself a city to live in. I got three passports, a couple of visas, don't even know my real name.

Being in the Talking Heads is alienating. Life During Wartime is a metaphor for touring, which Cities is a kind of preface. You can almost take it literally. Also SO DANCEABLE I'M LOSING MY MIND.

Flip it over to side two. Don't get too far into your own head.

Ahh, too late, Memories Can't Wait. Listen to the Living Colour version of this, it will change your life. Whatever this party is, I just want to go home. "Other people can go home. Other people can split. I can never quit." So heavy, dude. But it's a solid idea that I'm not hearing from anyone else, I wish I could love this end part more but that wouldn't be possible.

The chorus of Air haunts me daily as well. "Some people never had experience with (Air)" sung with the airiest of vocals... so perfect. It's perfect. I don't know how but it is. And another ripping solo at the end, heavy Talking Heads is just so satisfying. A little anger, feels good to get it off your chest possibly.

Heaven is not my favorite thing, but still so clever and the band hits it so perfectly. Nothing ever happens, this feels like a little joke, and it's pretty funny. In heaven, everyone leaves your party at exactly the same time. This is something David Byrne fantasizes about, a place where something isn't happening, where he is in the moment, kissing someone again. Contrast! Nothing is exciting. It's hard to imagine that nothing at all could be so exciting, could be this much fun.

Animals. My favorite song.
Animals think
They understand
Trusting them
a big mistake
Animals want
to change my life
I will ignore
Animals advice...
absolute genius, the best of the earlier Talking Heads. Don't even know what a JOKE is.

I see what they were going for, and it truly is an amazing execution of Brian Wilson's ideas. Groundbreaking sonically and I like Apple Music's quip about it: "Of all "Pet Sounds'" legacies, the most profound is the idea that pop music -- something accessible and extroverted -- could be used to express deep, internal worlds.

Definitely a must hear, especially this cluster of songs from the end of side one to side 2 - Sloop John B., God Only Knows, I Know There's an Answer.

Very highbrow.

Way less pure disco than their later stuff, really well done EDM that possibly caused this music to infiltrate every TV show and ad that happened after. It's good though, so I get it. Not something you put on to have a serious listen. It's a non-stop party. First half is better, and the complaints about this being repetitive are not off-base. Liked it way more than I thought I would.

It's LGBTQ week (apparently)!
I think I've heard of this band before. Not familiar, though. I kind of don't have time for this and it's not really "my jam," but I'll try.

Cringier than expected, actually. How long is this? I'm going to move on now that I know what this is. It's fine, I understand why critics would praise it. Probably could have been 9 love songs? DNF.

Every song is fantastic, and the hits are hits for a reason. Maybe "Indian Sunset" is a well written metaphor. Thinking of it that way helps me listen to it, otherwise it kind of fails. And that would make it the single sour thing on the album. Because this is so... beautiful. I just don't have another word that fits. For me Elton's early stuff is brilliant in every way, touches me, pulls my attention and keeps me in it beginning to end.

The background vox on this are worth 5 stars alone. I love the sincerity, reaching for Americana in the way all those British blues guys did. THis is successful, unlike so much - even the Stones are treating the country and bluegrass styles like it's a posh joke. Elton makes it his own. It's good music, well recorded, executed perfectly, with far-reaching lyrics sung by one of the greatest.

These songs have emotional power as deep as Joan Armatrading's voice, really bringing you into her world. Engrossing, like Joni Mitchell or Neil Young at times. Very listenable, sweet and lovely. Her voice is unique and you should hear it at some point in your life. Cool to see on the list.

Trying to figure out why people don't like Fishbone as much as they SHOULD. Maybe black guys doing heavy rock makes people uncomfortable. (Maybe not, just wondering aloud). Stay in your rap, your R&B, but that's it.

But man these guys can do some cool cool shit. Maybe a little unfocused for some, but not for me. Appeals in the same sort of way as the Beastie Boys, music for the short attention span generation!

Fishbone is a "taste" issue for most people I think. It's hard to put my finger on why I like it. I generally go for high-energy stuff that's well executed and has something to say. For that reason I gravitate toward the more energetic genres like punk, hard rock, funk, and metal. (wanted to use a different word here, but gravitate is correct by this definition: 'To be attracted by or as if by an irresistible force.') Fishbone comfortably made their home in all of these.

And I'm the one guy who also likes ska, not gonna apologize. (Why does ska take so much shit? Maybe the genre was irreparably tainted by the 27,863 (give or take) bad 90's SoCal SkaPunk bands that thought music is mainly a comedy routine they could do to pass the time in college before going on to work in their Father's Law Firm? The mostly stupid hats? Motherfuckers made it so we can't wear a fedora seriously anymore. The cultural (in)appropriation? Now that I break it down there is KIND OF A LOT of problems aren't there? Of course very few of them involve the music directly, but whatever. I love all the Reggae branches - ska, dub, dancehall... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggae_genres).

Fishbone lives in exactly that high energy place where the genre matters less than the content. But some people get inappropriately angry when a band starts with a soul song then does a punk song, then a funk song. And I understand, you want don't want to make trouble with your brain. I have a friend who refuse to listen to anything except "hard rock," his idea of variety is mixing in some U2 (FIRST 3 ALBUMS ONLY) with his Chevelle. I'm not criticizing his taste, I'm thinking of this as an example of the Fishbone hater who just can't break out of their own self-inflicted handcuffing to explore something (dare I say it?) different. Same person that HATES country music - I used to be that person, so I know from where I speak.

On the other hand, who cares? I love it, my wife doesn't have to, and we can all still hang out together.

Letting Johnny Marr off of his leash, while tightening Morrisey's (the title track 🐄 excepted) proves to be the most enjoyable way to make a The Smiths record. "That Joke's Not Funny Anymore" is a really great song, and "Barbarism Begins at Home" is a better Gang of Four song than anything GoF was doing at the time. Good songwriting makes a difference, and letting the band run is, as I said, the best version of The Smiths.

Minus one star for not putting "How Soon is Now" on here. WHO'S THE REAL MURDERER?!

Creepy and purposely incomprehensible, gauzy, difficult. Kate Bush has a fine voice, but listening to lyric-based music always makes me search for the meaning and in this case I kind of don't want to know. Feels a bit (a lot?) self-centered but isn't appealing enough to make me want to explore further. Hearing this was a good idea, I get why people like her, but it just has a grating effect on me.

Another masterpiece. Trying to think of other artists who did anything like this - MAYBE Run DMC? - just can't think of any. Killer rhymes, sweet-ass grooves, so much funk, always tongue-in-cheek, pure entertainment. A huge step from their first album, which was a blast in its own right. Loved it.

In my personal top 10. Especially love their punk shit like Heart Attack Man. The thing about the Beastie Boys is they always go all in. They sound like they sincerely love what they're doing anfd they put some ENERGY into it. Combine that with the cleverness and the unique sound of their voices, the schtick, it all works somehow. More representative of gen-x than anything else, grunge be damned.

I should listen to Bodhisattva Vow every morning immediately on awakening and make myself a better person. RIP Adam Yauch. Music lets you live forever.

Like I said about the velvet underground: this is not good. Pretentious art-fools (sorry Kim, I think you're great) being SO VERY EDGY! MY DAD DIDN'T LOVE ME. Fuck off with this. Stop calling it punk, I know punk, this is some bullshit.

The Mars Volta have created their own world thematically and musically that can rightly summon King Crimson, CAN, and Mahavishnu in the same 4-bar phrase. Extending that over the length of this album is an astonishing technical achievement that does not put the lie to the most prescient criticism of Prog Rock/Metal which is the lack of soul. That said, it does reflect genuine emotion in a dark pool of surrealism that does meander into the nightmarish.

Truly a feast for the kind of listener (like myself no doubt) hungry for novelty, complexity, heaviness, and just pure instrumental debauchery. I tried to play thisa in the background on a small mono bluetooth speaker and I regretted that decision very much. You have to pay attention to this and you probably should use headphones if possible. One of the best albums I've heard in a while would give it a "high 4 stars" if that were possible.

Decent sort of "lounge country." Lacks edge, but well executed. Willie-heads hate this version of Nightlife.

I have to avoid reading about what Thom Yorke thinks about his own work because it seems like I always disagree. For instance, he thought the song Backdrifts could have been left off the album when I thought it was a standout. Nonetheless, "Hail to the Thief" is like all Radiohead albums - never not interesting. Sonically shocking us this time, not with sounds like they lit a synthesizer on fire, but with acoustic guitar and a drum kit.

WELL PLAYED, Radiohead. Well played.