Reviews by jlazerus

The drums are very grounding.
Videotape: sounds a little like they’ve been listening to Willam Basinski. Really nice avant-something piece.
The painterly approach to creating music remains but now it’s watercolor.
Lacks the intensity and energy of some of their earlier work. Feels like the band have become extremely comfortable with whatever it is that bothers them. Now we just float around in it.
Radiohead are great but I just can’t put my finger on what it is that bothers me about them. Maybe it’s that one time people liked the slow song, so every song is now a slow song. Maybe it’s the weird theorem that all singers want to be Frank Sinatra. It’s my theorem. All singers devolve into their favorite singers. Thom Yorke has a neat voice, but the bars-long sustain can be a bit much sometimes.

The children of rich people need something to do with their lives also, you know.

I was touched. \"Little tufts of finch-down\"
A lot to unpack here, as they say. Glad to hear this highly unusual bit of poetry and harp come down the pipeline. Has an ancient feel, and I could listen to a good harpist all day, not being facetious. The words, though, overwhelm with power. Really well done. A surprise. Who knew?

Listened to this three times already to try and figure i t out. It is a puzzle for sure.

Haunting musical illustration of a man's breakdown. These are demos, I wish Skip Spence could have held it together enough to fully realize the promise of these songs. As it is, very crude. The listener does have to do some work, meaning you have to listen hard and without distraction. Doing so yields an odd experience. It is a struggle to extract the idea from the music, sometimes Spence sounds buried in demons, drunk on a powerful metaphysics unrecognizable by mortals. He is bringing us a message from beyond, but that "beyond" is only known to him. This is a strange artifact, something that probably shouldn't exist. But here it is.

Some very cool psychedelic sounds, some rootsy baritone, some neat guitar work. Unfortunately a lot of it is on the other side of broken. I feel bad putting a star rating on this because it is SO different from a normal album, it's like a field recording almost.

Too many casualties in music. I wonder why that is, a lot.

Van Morrison's voice doesn't appeal to me. Outside of that, a bit of cultural appropriation. Overrated. Extra point for everybody here hitting the notes at the right time. Not my jam.

Lacking in emotional content, or maybe I'm just a jaded aging hipster. More Talking Heads and even shadows of Gang of Four here and there: "Sound of Silver" more like "Sound of Anthrax - but I forgot the words so I improvised something really silly." A lot of misplaced nostalgia about growing up, wondering if this is purposeful or spontaneously heartfelt? Intuitively feels like the latter at first listen. Some mid-oughts alternative rock that sounds like the Killers, Phoenix, Franz Ferdinand, etc. etc. etc. Which *I* don't love but appeals to a lot of folks.

That said, this album is kind of interesting. More so when the singer is just chatting over the bleep blorp stuff, it's painfully obvious when he's out of his league - not everyone can be David Bowie, nor should everyone make the attempt to be. "Be yourself" is always the stylistic choice that is most satisfying. Works well on songs like "Us v Them" and "North American Scum." Not convinced it is worth all the accolades, though. Maybe it's the hipster music trick of appealing to the 30-something east-coast white boy English majors who write for Bitchfork, Rolling Stone, et. al. rather than doing anything risky.

Weird, humorous, catchy, slightly antagonistic. Every Beck album feels like going to an invented magical world with its share of fun and fears alike. Unapologetic Beck fan - busted. Pack your suitcase.

I appreciate Billy Bragg's commitment to the bit. Not surprised to see it on this list. Has an amateurish feel that's slightly off-putting, what with the gigantic themes. He's like that dude who's always right and wants to bend your ear in a loud voice about how Reagan and Thatcher set us on the course to societal ruin, and you just came for the beer and the band.

Guitar sounds like this dude in my town that is busking by the train station sometimes. Not a great player, but has a very STRONG approach, a bit too shouty. This album could (should?) just be poems, but that doesn't pay as well or get as many girls nowadays, does it? And by nowadays I mean the 20th century. Maybe it was the opposite in the 1800's?

Some records take a lot more effort than others.

Otis Redding and the Stax band set an unreachable high bar here and make it sound EASY. Pretty incredible, important historically, aged to perfection.

This is unexpectedly exciting. Oasis pushes the poppy British alt-rock (Stone Roses, Blur) into a less profound but bigger-sounding, more entertaining place. It's catchy, crunchy, and a bit chippy as well. Having never heard anything by Oasis before except for the overplayed and milquetoast Wonderwall, I had no idea they had such a gigantic wall of guitar sound - and I do love a wall of guitar.

More Kinks than Beatles, but also neither of those. Deservedly on the Great British Rock Bands Continuum® "Definitely, Maybe" is surprisingly excellent. Never a dull moment, this entertaining record has some nice songwriting that finds a way to fit the singer's rather limited voice into their schema.

Of course as an American, we were denied this record, even though it sold 7082 billion in the UK, because it was too British. I say that facetiously (a word which I did spell without help just now, thank you!) but Americans in 1994 were looking for the next Kurt and this was consciously not it. THANKS A LOT music marketers in the 90s :( . Ended up missing out on this, Blur, and god knows what else! I suppose I will find out - god bless the list. May the force be with you.

The most anti-establishment thing to come out of 1968. Fun to listen to, starting with the famous "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash" line. June Carter sounds amazing. A true documentary, Cash is true to his Spiritual and chuggin' train roots. A little sloppy in places but that just adds to the charm of this album.

The album for when you're ready to stop taking everything so seriously.

Really haunting. This draws me in and it's hard to drag myself away. Incredibly powerful, and like other great jazz singers of her era, a wild dynamic range. Moving from quiet to loud in the space of a couple syllables brings that majestic, epic feel. Like an ocean wave, you float in the warm sea, get lifted up, and as more and more turbulence spins up, you get pulled away against your own power and pulled onto the beach, slightly afraid but in awe at the same time.

Her piano playing is something special. Lilac Wine is a killer, her voice and the piano combine to create something unusual, astonishing. I've never heard anything like this before.

It was interesting, the day I heard this, Donald Trump was interviewed at the National Association of Black Journalists. He was trying to talk about how Kamala Harris identified as Indian, but all of a sudden she's Black. Trying to divide us all, again. Disgusting. Then I heard the song Four Women, the song about black women's identity, possibly the struggle of this. Something I know nothing about. Sorry that Trump's shitty little ideas still exist and I'm sorry Nina Simone didn't have more impact on American culture. It's telling that this is the first time I've really heard anything by her, a 20th century middle-class white guy.

Some catchy tunes but I'm extremely indifferent to the themes here. Very self-indulgent. The song "Porcelain" is downright cringey. Keidis' is no Freddie Mercury, let's just say that. Or T.S. Eliot.

Flea and Chad Smith are a top-tier rhythm section (of course) and the harmonic interplay between Frusciante and Flea is compelling, and the thing that makes this an album not to miss before you are dead: in the ground or in an urn on your grandchild's mantlepiece, never really knowing whether you had an impact on others, never having the fulfillment of a life well lived. Perhaps your death will be a glorious one, say, fighting for the liberation of a righteous people whose only hope is to live autonomously, unburdened by interlopers, overlords, or autocrats. More likely though is that death will come to you through the inevitable and unremarkable disintegration of your physical being. If you heard this album before your imminent demise, well at least there's that.

But like so many others, I wish Anthony Keidis was a better singer and they could think of something besides drugs, sex, and California to write about. There's nothing pulling me in on this.

The Stones are best when doing their own thing and not trying to sound like someone else. Here, you have essentially two songs where they sound like themselves, and we all know which two those are.

Advice: Mick, you're MICK FOOKIN' JAGGER you don't have to try to sound like Bobby Dylan or Muddy Waters. If I wanted to hear those guys I would go listen to them. Keef, wake up, tune up, find a lane. Again, when you do your thing, it's genius. Charlie Watts, just keep doing what you're doing - this album needs more drums. Bill Wyman good luck in your future endeavors, no notes. Nicky Hopkins, good job, calm down a wee bit please. Thanks.

St. Jimmy is the best pop punk song since The Buzzcocks "Ever Fallen In Love." Fight me.
Big anthemic songs. Flawless execution, hard guitars, Green Day made a big rock album in an era when that just wasn't happening. A great sounding recording. A favorite and still meaningful. Somewhat sad and cynical - is all hope gone in modern America? How do we feel about it?

A lush epic in which Queen homes in on the sound they became famous for. Massive, complex, and thought provoking compositions bolstered by a sonic tapestry built around Brian May's beautifully engineered guitar architecture (guitarchitecture?) and Freddie Mercury's mercurial vocals ;). Roger Taylor and John Deacon not only support this whole stratified monstrosity (which is continually threatening to cave in due to the sheer weight), they solidify and amplify the orchestration. This album gets more impressive every time I hear it. What an extremely good and interesting band Queen was.

The template for the rest of their catalog, but with that little EXTRA SOMETHING that superstar artists have before they hit it big. A little... hunger? Passion? Hate to use that word, but there it is. Before Glenn Frey acquired an unhealthy appetite for his own songs, and possibly coke.

Starts with one of the most iconic guitar chords in rock since A Hard Day's Night. Listened with 'beginner's mind' and really enjoyed almost every track except the forced-sounding ballad "Most of Us Are Sad." Earlybird was especially surprising, the band is having fun and it sounds like it, kind of a post-hippie campfire singalong. I like this banjo-driven profundity more than I should.

Have been a hater for the longest time, but I've gained a new appreciation for Eagles after hearing this (I think for the first time). 1972 definitely came HARD with the country, between this and Neil Young's Harvest, these successes led to that mid-seventies MOR AOR stuff like Bread and America.

Yay drugs!
Summertime Blues is okay.

All the things a lot of listeners abjectly hate about Rush, I love. Too many notes? Check! Geddy Lee's voice? Check! Bombastic overreaching themes? Check! "It's prog oh my!" or "It's nothing like the beautiful precious prog of the 70's oh my!" CHECK AND MATE!

To the haters: let people enjoy things. Maybe it's not your taste, maybe the Rush fans you've met are weird, maybe you have a belief system about Rock® that Rush doesn't quite fit into. Let it go and move on to the next thing. Rush play with their hearts. Yes, it's really technical, which can be a turn-off for a lot of people. You don't listen to classical or jazz either then, probably. Who cares. Let it go. Let us have our fun!

This was (kind of) the last album in Rush's golden era starting with 2112. It has the most popular hooky material they ever did, without a weak spot across the entire disc. "Vital Signs" is the harbinger of what was to come, a turning point for band and fans alike, as the music moved away from the spacey prog-like shenanigans they feasted on for so long toward more personal, simpler compositions. Very straightforward lyrically, unlike much of the earlier catalog, replete with metaphors and sci-fi as it was (not that we don't have metaphors here, but their meaning are very clear this time around). There's no long-form time-signature changing vulgar display of chops like "La Villa Strangiato" here. Cool moment in the sun for a band who really created their own path, and did so without hurting anyone or themselves along the way.

This album won a Grammy for Album of the year, which goes to show how irrelevant the Grammys are and how absolutely awful the state of pop music was. I remain astonished by the way critics fall over themselves to laud stuff like:

Better come back down to Mars
Girl, quit chasing cars
What happens when the dough gets low
Bitch, you ain't that fine, no way, no way, no way
Better come back down to Mars
Girl, quit chasing cars
What happens when the dough gets low
Bitch, you ain't that fine, no way, no way, no way

[Outro: Big Boi]
Crazy bitch
Crazy bitch
Crazy bitch
Crazy bitch
Crazy bitch
Crazy bitch
Crazy bitch
(Bitch) Crazy bitch
(Stupid-ass bitch) Crazy bitch
(Old punk-ass bitch) Crazy bitch
(Old dumb-ass bitch) Crazy bitch

Nice.

"Hey Ya!" is a fun song, but it's not as praiseworthy as many made this out to be. Mostly weak rap tropes and computer-generated, dirty R & B. The little 'chp chp chp' sounds and fake handclaps (I know, they make them sound even more artificial than they need to be for interest) are just on the cringey side of annoying.

Still looking for the "conscious" rap here, maybe self-conscious, because it certainly is that. Like you're Gil-Scott Heron? Overrated hype train with no redeeming value except for the single. Way too long, took me three days to finish it and I felt like I needed a shower afterwards.

1 star for SpeakerBox, 1 star for the OH SO SUBTLE Love Below.