Reviews by jlazerus

Put this on, head down to your local skatepark and watch the kids - 'cause you're way too old to be skating now, you WILL hurt yourself.

Solid legit pop-punk. Thrashy and smashy. Respectful of its SoCal punk roots. Good energy, fun, doesn't take itself too seriously. And isn't that what rock and roll is all about, my friends?

Frontman Dexter Holland has a PhD in molecular biology 🧬, owns a hot sauce company, AND wrote Self Esteem. My idol.

Sold 100,000 in the UK, so there's that, I guess.

It's anyone's guess what the ACTUAL GOAL of this music is. I mean, it's fun to go down to the studio and just make noise, and I like the drums/bass/guitar formula as much as the next person. But what are you bringing to this party? Especially in 1999, la fin de siecle. Post-Radiohead, Post-Nirvana, Post-Britpop, Post-Portishead.

The bookending songs, "Dirge" and "Neptune City" are the most interesting ones on the album, and I won't remember them tomorrow (I barely remember them now). Not really songs so much as a kind of background noise you might hear at the new latin-fusion restaurant in some mid-population city like Des Moines or Santa Clarita. Just okay, just enough edge to make it almost tip over into the badass side of the rock spectrum without really hurting anyone. Looks like a lot of effort went into this, but for what?

Prince at his horniest and weirdest. Still accessible, though, making this such an interesting trip of an album! 4+

Always loved Little Richard's stuff. Great to hear an entire album from him. Seminal and still has that energy he was famous for. Whe n your fans include Elvis and Paul McCartney, you're doing something right.

Sample selection. Drum-forward. Innovative combinations of sounds - a floating female choir weaves through chopped-up funk grooves atop a skeletal piano scaffold.

Experimental without being overly challenging, complex without being obnoxious, heavy at the right moments and leavened with classical in places, soul in others, or maybe that's some 70's Adult Contemporary hits... just really entertaining.

Cool as ƒ€©k. Flirted with a 5 on this but it's not really on the same level as Aladdin Sane or Tears for Fears. On the other hand, I gave Fatboy Slim a 5, so maybe it is. Close, anyway. Maybe I shouldn't have given Fatboy a 5, this is easily as good.

Painterly, and excruciatingly dark. Which makes the popularity of this album interesting to me.If you were a heavy band from Seattle you were getting a lot of marketing push, like so many other underground trends did before. Like Rock music itself did when it first happened.

Soundgarden are excellent musicians, I especially love Matt Cameron, and of course Cris Cornell is the best rock singer of the generation. But the album leaves a bad taste in my mouth when I'm done chewing on it. The dark themes, the offputting odd time signatures, detuning, and otherworldly sonic landscapes combine with the high level of musicianship and Cornell's vocal prowess to create an intensity that takes you to another place altogether. Not a superfun place though.

Like a lot of the other reviewers, I think your enjoyment of this is based on context. The less formulaic stuff sounds great while riding the exercise bike, for instance. But for me EDM with vocals can be grating if not done correctly though. And it is apparently really hard to do correctly. There's a jarring dissonance between the structured artificiality of the synth and a human voice. It feels like a cop-out every time I hear something like this with a female soul singer layered on top. It's like the artist has some idea about "dance music" and throws the vocals on. Gives it more soul? In theory this should be brilliant but there's a competition for attention, and eventually the lack of focus is annoying.

Quintessential album by one of the most recognizable artists in the genre. BB King does some very “pop” sounding interpretations of his favorites, and everyone sounds like they’re having a good time. Killer guitar solos from a unique stylist, and his voice is in peak form.

An album called "Apocalypse Dudes" ooh I don't know about this.

Not great. Doesn't come from a sincere place, all style and no substance. It's like they are consciously trying to make a mash-up of every heavy rock genre from glam to proto-punk (a term I violently disagree with, but that's for another time) to hair-metal. Well executed but puerile, with some very professional (too professional) playing. Anything resembling the sonic character of heavier genres like punk - the DIY aesthetic, a garage sound, etc. - are not present on this. Maybe that's the point.

The best thing here is the instrumental break on "Prince of the Rodeo" which is otherwise almost unlistenable.

Writing about the Beatles is like Dancing about Astronomy... wat?

Dig these lads. There's more historic value than anything else to "With the Beatles." Still magical, the early Beatles changed popular music like nothing before or since.

The recording I heard today on Apple Music has obviously been cleaned up for the digital age and is a little out of context, but after a few minutes the ears become accustomed to the sound. In fact, the cleaned up digital versions gave a freshness to the sound that you don't get when playing an old scratchy vinyl. On the other hand, these songs are somewhat famous for their exquisite production and engineering, which were designed for the technology of the time. Meaning that vinyl was the way god (George Martin) intended.

There are a lot of technical avenues I want to go down, like how there's spanish rhythms all over the place, how the vocal harmonies seem to always resolve perfectly, how Ringo brings much-needed energy to tunes like Roll Over Beethoven (and every other song on here for that matter, many of which would be real yawners without him, more on that next time I get a Beatles record), but it doesn't matter in the end. Why does everyone love the Beatles WITHOUT EXCEPTION? Just listen to it.

Bring on the Night. Walking on the Moon. Bed's Too Big Without You. Message in a Bottle for God's sake. All the other songs are praiseworthy as well. Stewart Copeland proving once again he is the best drummer in the rock era. Andy Summers' artful renderings. Sting in top form. Great album.

Every song is a dark epic. Brutally powerful and quite overwhelming, as is its intention. Lars Ulrich's drum sound was unique and genre-defining, Hetfield's vocals (though for me, somewhat monotonous) reflect the disturbed, unending torment, anguish, and anger that embody the victims in these songs: damned, despised, dismissed. Much od the al;bum could be described as over-complicated, but I get the sense the band is feeling its way through uncharted musical territory, and when they hit the sweet spot between excessive indulgence and grand artistic statement, it's pretty sweet. At the time, really experimental, and WAY more serious than a lot of Metal that had come before and in that, paving the way for more extreme genres.

I am not a good enough writer or thinker to say anything cogent about this masterpiece immediately after hearing it for the first time.

Notes:
- Bowie is in a bad mood
- Theorem: David Bowie can do no wrong (musically).
- Dimery wrote a couple books about Bowie, IIRC?
- Fan fiction/speculative: Bowie actually is an alien or possibly a returned jesus and we (earth-based humans/mortals) are tested with determining this to be true. We are given some clues, all of them in musical form. This album is the final one. Our literal last chance to save ourselves, but we must first decipher the music.

A sad and brilliant album with amazing musicians. Heavy and very very dark in places. Throughout, I get the impression that Bowie just really likes to sing. There are some subtleties in his voice here that are really interesting, and absolutely on par with much of his earlier work. NOT THE SAME, different, but on par. Enjoyed this a lot, lives up to the accoades for sure.

Bowie is still with us.

Hey everybody! 😎😎😎It's the feel-bad album of the summer!🌞🌞🌞🤩🤩🤩
It's an artistic statement like Type-O Negative doing Summer Breeze. It surprises me whenever ideas like this get the careful, even superb execution that they do. Maybe they just sat down and said: "Let's write an album that will be critically acclaimed™," and that was the only parameter.

It's really pretty bad. The concept is derivative if not ill-conceived. The playing is fine, but I feel like they're pushing my face into something I simply don't want (and never asked ) to look at. The singing, while true to whatever disturbed and unlikable character this is supposed to be, is obnoxious with no real redeeming quality.

I'm not sure where this type of music comes from, just exploring the darkest places. It's just that there's no hope, it never let's up. It's not even like metal, where you get actual visceral anger. It's just the soundtrack of people being assholes to themselves and each other. Pretty lame. The effort that went into making this surprises me, because what do you think about yourself or your audience when you do something like this? I guess it's just going hard on your complaints, really really hard. Narcissistic. It's (again, this turns up a lot in the Critically Acclaimed® albums) like bad high-school poetry.

Unrecognized jangle-pop masterpiece ;).

Really tight, they keep it simple and cool. Not the most profound music ever made but catchy and accessible. Great dynamics, lots of variety and little surprises embedded in familiar rock formulas that somehow feel innovative. Musicianship is the highest quality, really excellent playing. Again, not overly complex, not tedious or boring. Bears repeated listening for that reason. I like the recording quality. It's massive but intimate, full, crisp. A great record, like if there was a happier British REM.

"Fools Gold" rules!

"Kids today don't know what it's like to get their hands dirty."

- FatBoy Slim, on cratedigging

This one goes to 11. An absolute delight beginning to end. Like Satan's house band. Has that weird, garagey muffled-yet-echo-y sound of all the best underground music. Really great metal album. Thinking Van Halen probably secretly listened to this, especially Teacher's Pet. Which is a weirdly horny tune amidst all of threst of the hellscape. Good job!

Really thought it would sound dated, but in fact, better now than ever. Innovative - along with Zeppelin and Sabbath, created the genre. Cool, catchy, and unmatched performances - Ian Paice is exceptional on here, his playing is on another level. Great band, fun tunes, and if this is "Dad Rock," good! Now I know what my favorite genre is.

Some of the lyrics are straight up hilarious, to wit:
"Not on the bed, lay me on your sofa
Call before you come, I need to shave my chocha
You do or you don't or you will or won't ya?
Go downtown and eat it like a vulture"

EAT IT LIKE A VULTURE!!! hahaha
Otherwise, some cool beats. WAY too horny though.

Another god-damn double album. Apple music describes it as the "first double-album masterpiece of the rock 'n' roll era". We'll see. Starting to be concerned about time about 1/4th of the way through this beast of a list. Although last week was great, 2Pac excepted.

This is the hipster music origin story. "Bob Dylan" is a brand, not a dude. An acquired taste. If I was 17 in 1966, I would have been on the bandwagon. But I wasn't, so I'm not, although the influence is EVERYWHERE. I'm going to make a little list right now, off the top of my tiny head (also going to make this review into a Bob Dylan-type song later):
The Byrds,
Every god-forsaken California Sound (and by extension, Yacht-Rock) associated artist from the Doors (yes, the Doors were the progenitors) to The Eagles (Dylan made it okay for these fresh suburban post-hippies to ape a Country vibe) to Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell, etc etc etc ad nauseam,
Post-British Invasion - look at Pete Townsend's pretentiousness after 1966 - every rock musician smokes a bowl and thinks they're now TS Eliot,
Tom Fucking Waits and his ilk (e.g. Nick Cave),
David Bowie,
Bono,
Johnny Cash,
Patti Smith,
The Clash (wat?),
Springsteen and by extension Bon Jovi.
I could go on, but once again, TIME IS NOT ON MY SIDE. Then think about the artists THOSE artists influenced.

That being said, he is a wordsmith nonpareil. (<-- see what I did there?) Also his anti-authoritarian, anti-mainstream approach does expand his appeal to the more underground among us.

I have a philosophy about music that I want throw out here, and that is that there are two kinds of rock music. The first is Elvis based, the other is Dylan based. Every one, without fail, takes a spot on that spectrum somewhere.