Reviews by jlazerus

Sucks that this stuff is still relevant 60 years later.
Kind of pre-proto-punk disguised as "folk." Or just hardcore folk, I'm no expert. The Bob Dylan early stuff is highly respected and highly influential, after hearing this, I can see why. A little self-centered(?). More entertaining than I thought it would be.

Great album, never knew this existed. Elvis brings the country soul that was so popular at the time. And as always, that guy could sing like no other. His appeal, needless to say. This is all about Entertainment, and it does entertain. Doesn't try to get too profound, while at the same time, does give you stuff to think about, but only if you want. Consistently good. A great variety of songwriters here but cohesive nonetheless. Looks like this is where Elvis gets off the rockin' train and takes a stop at country town, with a soul twist. Well executed, very fun. Not quite 4 stars for being a little over-produced and loungey and not as heartfelt as some of his earlier stuff. "Ghetto" and (on the re-release) "Suspicious Minds" are standards now and for good reason.

Very forgettable Euro-disco. Not innovative or interesting in any way that I can think of. Surprised to find out that MJ Cole went to university on a music scholarship, graduated and then did this? Maybe if you LOVE House music this works for you. Ironically titled "Sincere."

Zep-heads who put III at the bottom of their stack might reconsider. They push you off a cliff with the seminal viking invective opener, planting their flag at the very summit of heavy metal (evermore). Allowing a moment of recovery with a strangely appropriate middle-eastern groove that not only presages the mighty Kashmir but pulls the persian rug out from under you with its hippy-dippy lyric, which, in the hands of anyone but Robert Plant, would alienate any previous fans and drive away any future ones. You have now been soothed into acceptance for the rest of this utter masterpiece as you glide into one of the absolute gems of their back catalog, Celebration Day. Peace and love, my friends, peace and love. But don't get too comfortable, cause here comes the fiercest blues the band has ever done (or will ever do, fight me). I listened to Since I've been Lovin' You yesterday and I'm still trying to recovery. OH THE PAIN as if Bonham was hammering nails into your head.

And it just gets better. Gallows Pole, Out on the TIles, Bron-Y-Aur, what a ride. The eclecticism here is pretty astounding, always with that incomparable rhythm section. Never again will we see (hear) such a thing. Frosting that cake with the weird Hat's Off to (Roy) Harper... this still leaves me wondering. It's one of those albums you can listen to a thousand times and still hear something new every time. Starting to think Zeppelin never made a bad record. I just lied, I've always thought that.

Never fails.

Always found Ziggy to be strange and a little frightening. Really "trippy" without a TRACE of psychedelia. I wonder what it would have been like to hear this for the first time as a 17 year old, when it first came out. Imaginative and a little overwhelming. I don't think I ever really understood what was happening. It seems a little like a three act play, a musical (maybe? just brainstorming here).

Act one, Ziggy and "his" crew are not here yet, they're on their way. It's a Five Year mission, and someone is screaming at the end: maybe this is where they enter our world, where they discover love. Different kinds, different ways. This is our weakness, our strength, that we all share.I am also busting up my brains for the words. Moonage Daydream, arguably the best song on tis album. The protagonist is singing to the alien, he wants them (?) to love him. Desperately. We've all been there.

Notice how Starman starts. Like it's not in it's groove yet. I see this as the start of the next part, when the aliens figure out how to get here, how they're going to infiltrate us. See, a long time ago, aliens were not always evil, more like benefactors. Like the mythological Jesus. Is Ziggy the 2nd coming of Jesus, but now he shows up like this? At the END of Starman, "let the children boogie" and now there's a groove, right. They figured out how to play. Every song has some strange apparition at the beginning.

Through part two, we get sermons from, it would appear. We see the first worshiping by Lady Stardust. Star - has that early rock/doo wop vibe cut in with some heavy power chords. "I could play the wild mutation as a rock and star." WHO'S point ogf view is this? Ziggy? Wants to be a rock star so he can fall in love? THinks it will be easy? hmm

So, part three, the post-transformation, now Ziggy exists as a thing, too perfect, falls victim to the excesses of stardom (Suffragette City), then Rock 'n Roll Suicide, it's over man.

But your NOT alone. Just put this on, Ziggy is here to save us with his message of love.

A list of complaints about this album:

Pretentious and lacking punch. And by that I mean that I fail to find any real energy or enthusiasm. Perhaps purposely droll, so cool we can't be bothered?

Tom Verlaine is not a good singer. Not even in the Neil Young/Bob Dylan/Tom Petty way where the lack of vocal chops is secondary to the soul and lyricism. Just plain unpleasant.

Proving once again that you can't just call something "punk" if it sounds weird and amateurish.

I'm (again and not for the last time, I'm sure) missing something as this album is in the pantheon of American post-punk, Critically Acclaimed™, but I didn't like it. It has moments, but those moments require SO MUCH EFFORT on the listener's part. Maybe you had to be there? I get what they're trying to do, which is set themselves above the rest of the downtown art-rock scene in 1977.

Who rejects an invitation to be produced by Eno? Tom Verlaine thought he could do better himself. Incredible.

Hard to listen to some of these albums in an intellectual clean room due to their reputation. Part of an insular scene that was too cool for anyone except those in it. I don't think they were trying to be popular or appeal to an audience outside the scene. Certainly they wouldn't care what I thought.

Once again, slightly pissed that I haven't heard this before but really pleased though to have finally heard it.

Ahead of its time.

The massive, nearly overwhelming wash of guitar wouldn't work nearly as well without the bombast of the rhythm section, which 'swings' a little, for lack of a better term. The slightly out of tune singing is MY only complaint, but it has a unique charm. And it's not just a constant barrage. There are some subtle moments, a wide range of emotion.

I can see Radiohead using this as a bit of a template for sure. But Ride is blast of dark energy that has a spontaneity that Radiohead never approached, a dreamy unpolished rawness.

Life Thru a Lens is starting strong, surprisingly entertaining. I can see why this was popular. I can do without the power ballad "Angels." "Old Before I Die" definitely trying to sound like Oasis, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Still, pop sentiment, it's all pretty shallow. It didn't hurt me to listen to this and now I am familiar with Robbie Williams.

Just okay. Like a lot of forgettable late 80's alternative with too much reverb and not enough edge. Too much acoustic guitar. Too much studio. Too much of the single octave where the vocals are. Songs are not memorable - not catchy, not hooky, no dynamic range, no temporal interest, everything sounds dated... there is a lot of stuff from this era that is so much better and meaningful. I don't want to say this is bad, but it is walking on that fence trying not to fall off. It's worse than bad in a way, it's boring.

Neat high-energy rhythms from start to finish. A little "rickety," like a jalopy driving fast through the crowded streets of Rio in a 1970's spy movie trying to evade the villain. A new genre for me, glad to hear it. Jorge never takes his foot off the gas on this.

Was I just complaining about bad graphic design? Feeling much better now. Nothing on the cover of this album indicates who it is, what it's called, nothing. Just two suits. Wild but the PERFECT image for the music. Peak Hipgnosis and peak Pink Floyd. Peak album era. The imagery enhances the music and provides an entry into whatever world this is. The music has you doing a double-take back to the cover. Many levels of genius here.

The album's pretty good, too.

Possibly a worse cover than Casanova by The Divine Comedy. 2004. Another one where I say "Why is this on the list?" Also, more hip hop? I suppose it's popular. Pharrel Williams is in this band, and that guy has become more successful than all but 3 other people IN THE HISTORY OF THE PLANET.

At a previous job, we would have an all-hands meeting with some teams under a director, whose meeting this was. After the song "Happy" came out, this director (a 60 year old woman) would play that song at the beginning of every all hands, while everyone came in to the meeting room. Every meeting. What a nightmare. A real Office Space moment. So, between that and this album cover, today's listening is already tainted. But, we press on, don't we. A lot of people don't like Yes or Pere Ubu, either.

Uh, this guy (Pharrell) is a good singer. Like really good. Songs are legitimately clever for the most part, interesting and have a bit of variety. And they rock, I am loathe to admit. Or maybe it's low key parody? Why not both? Pleasantly surprised.

Couple mainstream reviews calling it prog-pop? Not bad.

Alright, what the hell is this? RESISTING THE URGE TO READ ABOUT IT BEFORE LISTENING... here we go... imagining myself seeing this at a record store, not gonna buy it based on the cover alone... plus who calls themselves "Casanova?" Later, after buying an Oasis album or something, I go to a friend's house and they HAPPEN TO HAVE CASANOVA's "The Divine Comedy" (and you thought Jethro Tull was pretentious) and I'm like, "Well, I guess we should listen to this." My fictional friend only has this album because he's a DJ at the local non-profit alternative radio station and everyone at the station has to review a few LPs before they play them. Record companies give these away to radio stations in hopes that the station will put it on their playlist. Alternative radio gets to be independent and play stuff that they judge to be worthy, unlike commercial radio, whole other story. ANYWAY my bud throws this on.

Poptones. Is this a throwback attempt? Seems a little professional for something that just comes out of left field. First song ("Something for the Weekend") is a little story-song with a twist ending. The next one is a cheeky little number, self-referential but, DO I KNOW YOU? Song 3 "Middle Class Heroes" is a cringefest with some weak abstraction of a moral judgement on... the middle class? People with children? Indians? "In & Out of Paris & London" is literally hurting me - trying to do a Morrisey thing? The reasonable side musicians he had on the first couple songs have now quit in protest and now Casanova (?) relies on synths. But not in a cool way. He's doing a lounge-lizard thing but the compositions are making me lose my faith in humanity. How did this get made, let alone released? I'll find out later. The next "song," called "Charge" (some war metaphor, clever, never heard that before!) contains a disturbingly childish derivative of a Brechtian march of some kind.

I keep using phrases like "of some kind" and "a ____ thing" because this is so badly executed I can't determine the musical roots to which it is trying to emulate. This person is TRYING REALLY HARD to be clever and it comes off as misplaced arrogance. Really difficult to get through, the vocal quality is awful, like a dude who just can't get enough of his own voice and no one has the courage to tell him it's medocre at best. Trying too hard.

I don't know if I can get through this, wondering why it's only the list. {EDIT: found out why it's on the list} Gah, more callbacks with the synthesizer trumpet and the dorky toy piano sound while this fool does his best Sinatra. "You don't really love me and I don't really mind, cause I don't love anybody, that stuff is just a waste of time, you don't really love me but I'd do you" WHAT IN THE LITERAL FUCK.

Argghhh second song in a row with the stupid whistling like it's 1937 or something. This is making me want to destroy my own house. Kill me now. Gonna stick it out because I'm a masochist I guess. The little jazzy breakdowns are godawful. I'm guessing this dude is like an actor or theater guy, who made this album as a side project. "Through a Long and Sleeples Night" starts and all of a sudden something extreme and sinister is happening, but the cheesy syntho-trumpet remains. No growly vocal will save this from pure amateurish contrived garbage that has made this bed... OH!!! This is that shite The Divine Comedy! The BAND is The Divine Comedy! Ah, also responsible partly for the insanely bad Ute Lemper album.

I'm leaving in the first bit where I mistake the name of the band for the name of the album because that's:
1. Bad graphic design,
2. Self-centered to think that I would know your band well enough to make the distinction correctly,
and 3. The name "The Divine Comedy" is one of the worst band names I've ever come across, while it is plausible that the guy on the cover might have the stage name Casanova - as many others do.

In all seriousness, this is so bad to be offensive. Hire a fucking trumpet. This is making me want to jam a sharpened pencil into my ears. Shocking to me what becomes popular.

Fascinating, dark, introspective, unbalanced, and difficult. Art, without question, but not for everyone. Managing our emotional pain is one reason music exists. Portisehead is really good at framing that world in a visceral way. Nothing is tactile, everything is just out of reach in a way. By that I mean the sound - almost drums, almost guitar, then it fades away or explodes off in the distance. THe sound of lonliness is really palpable in the vocals. Often it feels like you're the only person in a very large, very empty, very dark room. A little frightening.

A perfect gem. Have to give it 5 stars on the strength of Aretha Franklin's voice alone. So much excellence compacted into 30 minutes. This is the music every Soul/R & B artist forever after was trying to be (with a couple exceptions obviously, Stevie Wonder among them). Such a classic, unbelievably well executed, deserving of its accolades.

Tull is like your favorite familiar local restaurant. Often you go elsewhere, sometimes close by for a change of pace, sometimes venturing far afield to explore new culture, different surroundings, feel the thrill of novelty. But here you are now. Back again for the millionth time and no less disappointed for it, on the contrary, like coming home to loved ones or a familiar place that has etched a deep groove in your heart.

Familiarity overwhelms objectivity. What's good about the album, what's not, none of that matters. Music you fell in love with early on is forevermore untouchable, and this is such an album. I would posit that this is objectively good, whatever that means: well executed, well recorded, solid compositionally, surprises here and there, emotionally charged performances, intelligent, interesting, and unusual subject matter presented in a pleasantly poetic fashion. It even rocks, and there are those of us out there who, and this might be hard for some to believe, actually like the flute!

To add, the 2016 Steven Wilson remaster is a great addition to the canon. The drums are a bit more percussive, and the orchestral sections move forward in the mix to great effect, especially in My God and Wond'ring Aloud.

Beck creates enjoyable and (for me) thought provoking tunes. Stealing Stephen Wilson's term "magpie" for Beck, he gathers bits from a broad range of sources, reordering and reconstructing them in intriguing ways, but not with out soul and whole lot of catchiness. Surrealistic, other-worldly, mystical, and wack. Yeah I said wack 'cause I too am a linguistic magpie!

I really do not Love.
I dunno man, I was just trying to be clever.

I mean, it's o... k... Owes a lot to the production, which is maybe trying a little too hard to be the Beatles or something? Songwriting is stilted more than organic, forced.

Just watched a live version of Arthur Lee doing \"Maybe the People Would Be the Times or Between Clark and Hilldale\" and the band he was with gave it the juice it needs, which it DOES NOT have on this album, none of the songs really do. With the possible exception of \"Live and Let Live.\" The lyrics on this leave me cold but I appreciate the effort. I've never heard this before, is a bit cynical inm the middle of the whole Flower Power movement. Baroque Pop and psych, leans into a folky space that collides with the songwriting a bit. By that I mean the lyrics have a more "pop" style, repetitive words or phrases, a verse/chorus/verse structure. Simon and Garfunkel use the pop formula to great effect by integrating folky sounds and vocal harmonies. These guys need to rock, I think. Interesting album and a unique band for sure. Sounds pretty dated. I'm sure I would have more affinity toward this if I was there at the time or understood the context better.

I really really like this kind of jazz influenced hip-hop. Smarter, more positive, more diverse themes, still has a lot of toughness and rage. Standouts: Thin Line, DDT, One Of Them, Acetate Prophets - especially Acetate Prophets.

Neil Young always has done whatever he wants, and he is a bit of a complainer, isn't he? His complaining is usually relatable and soulful, right-minded, pointed. Here he acquires a bitterness and edge that follows him for the rest of his days. Neil's a sensitive dude.

He does the Dylan thing on "Revolution Blues," still doing the Neil Young thing, with the David Crosby guitar thing. Brilliant song.

This is kind of a masterpiece, now I'm listening to it again. All the "... Blues" are phenomenal, the country instrumentation is spot on, the metaphors are sharpened like vampire teeth ( 😘 ), and Neil's unmistakable voice is still youthful and pointed. On the whole, it's just... so... ornery? Jaded?

I strongly recommend going for a nice walk on a late summer afternoon while listening to this and getting caught in a massive downpour as the album build to its crescendo with "Ambulance Blues." Just walk on home, try to get through it, maybe.

"Though my problems are meaningless, that doesn't make them go away."
It's 'cause you have the curse of genius, Neil. Thanks for sharing.