Reviews by jlazerus

JUUUUST a bit outside!

This was a missed opportunity. Feels like the symphony was pasted on. This idea just didn’t work.

I hope you like violins and old fashioned time signatures

Thought this was going to be some garbage hair metal. But after reading about it, turns out it's more of a proto-hair metal album. Interesting from that point of view. Also interesting that they're from Finland. Much more of a tossed off power-pop thing. Musically, just okay. Really can't figure out what they're trying to do, maybe a T-Rex sort of thing? Has shades of Adam and the Ants also.

I can now say that I've heard this. Enjoyed "How You Get the Girl," "Bad Blood," and "Clean."

Weirdly exciting album, positive, and nuanced.

fIREHOSE finds a nice cozy place in this, kind of, post-punk Western music. Very little blistering heat and speed from previous incarnations (calling it that to include The Minutemen), this album is an exploration into more melodic territory. But they maintain the amazing musical textures they always had, while making more cohesive and accessible songs.

Mike Watt is one of the greats, and George Hurley is a massively underrated drummer. And then we have Ed fROMOHIO Crawford seems to have found his confidence after three records. The band is tight.

Get yourself some indie cred and put this in your weekly rotation.

Masterpiece!

The album you REALLY have to hear before you die is Petra Haden’s note for note a cappella version of The Who Sell Out.

Hardcore Halen-head harbors hatred, however, heaviness here healed his heated heart! Hackneyed hits hurt, however.

Urrgghhh, do I have to? (Imagine that being said in the voice of a twelve year old girl who is told they will clean their room before they go out with their friends. AND you HAVE to be back by 9:00 no matter what or I'll take your phone away, again.)

I liked this better than Ray of Light by Madonna. Interesting to read about all the Swedish bros who put this together. They got their bag, as the saying goes. Too bad about Britney though. Maybe be kind to someone today, everyone is either coming out of a storm, in a storm, or going into a storm.

This is Megadeth's best album. Which isn't to say it's a very good album. Vocals can make or break a band and Mustaine's voice is like Lemmy's little brother without the character and even less range, spitting out lyrics with too many syllables and relying too heavily on metal tropes.

The music is pretty not bad on this one though. Nice dual guitar attack, rapid-fire blast beats and some impressive melodic arpeggiated runs on the bass by the perennially underrated Dave Ellefson.

And a nice change of pace in the eighties from the shitty hair metal that was dominating (not actual metal, but whatever).

Interesting voice. reminded me of the popular folky stuff from the mid- to late-sixties, like The Mamas & The Papas, Kingston Trio, etc. But less catchy/poppy. Some very cringey stuff on here, hard for me to continue at times. Thinking about the lyrics in "I Never Asked to Be Your Mountain," I mean, YOU LEFT your child, WTF you so sad about.

I'm not getting how he really feels, it's masked behind some fairly insipid poetry.

The thing you love most about the Bee Gees is their unique broad ranging harmonies, or the high falsetto, the extravagant vocals. And there's not that much of that on this album. It's mostly trrying to be the Beatles, with a little Kinks and Stones sprinkled around for spice. Then there are a couple orchestral passages that make it into a movie soundtrack. Which, depending on your mood, might be a good thing. I thought it disrupted the work. A little long, monotonous, and not much to keep the interest in the longer sections of sad songs. I don't want to use the word "boring," but I did just get Born To Run, Out of Step and Reign In Blood.

MAYBE if I was a 16 year old girl in 1969 I would play this more than once. It's ambitious, and admirable for the amount of effort that must have gone into this. And there are some nice melodies here and there. But not enough focus on what makes the Bee Gees so great.

I mean, they REALLY committed to the bit, didn't they? Strangely, their brand of extreme transgressive metal was not an outlier. Vaunted to this day.

The definition of punk for me. Fast and loud as hell, Minor Threat (like all the best punks) knew when to end the song. And they give you something to think about.

BONUS: made in the early eighties, before "punk" became just a style of music anyone could emulate.

I remember seeing Minor Threat around this time. Really impressive live. It was astonishing to see them actually play this stuff. They took it seriously, the audience on the whole did not. And the band seemed tired of it. A lot of local posers came to shows merely to beat up people, and in Salt Lake City, Minor Threat's straightedge philosophy resonated. Not for the right reasons, though. Like the band themselves, after this show, I was ready to leave punk rock behind.

So, here is a masterpiece. The album that made Springsteen a Superstar forever. No question. No bad songs, tight and energetic as hell. A little grandiose, but that's the style I suppose.

Genius. Sad, but genius. Good art can sometimes be difficult. Really heartfelt singer-songwriter stuff that comes at a time when that's been out of fashion for a good 30+ years. Sad, though

This was great. Funky as hell. Hip Hop without all the nastiness. Africa!!!

Crucify, Silent All These Years, Leather, the title track all are deeply felt. Not my favorite style, but the contemporary praise for this album is deserved, I think, after listening to it with more mature ears.

Ray Charles showing off his vocal skills here. Still a little overproduced, over-orchestrated. Let the man cook!!! He is at his most comfortable on the straight 12-bar blues. More of that, more R & B.

Surprising to see how high the rating is for this on here. Like a cold glass of water on a hot day, really refreshing.

Sounds exactly like everything else that this sounds like. Overdramatic, cliched and derivative.
Poorly executed 1982 New wave but 8 years too late.

Anarchic, as critics have described them. This branch of music has Faust as one of its leaves. Apparently this album represents the band at its greenest point, after which it dies and falls silently to the ground.