Reviews by jlazerus

Jack White's talent is taking the simplest riffs and exploring all the possibilities of them. Here he works more on song structure and studio execution than the White Stripes' more blatant guitar-based anthemic crunchiness. This is a little bit more wordy than the White Stripes or even the Raconteurs, more thoughtful, and a little more obtuse for me. There's a strange flow to it, though, not BAD per se, just a bit stream-of-consciousness. Feels like we Jack White is going down a different road musically at the end of the album than where we started. It's not disappointing, but it is a goodbye to the earlier simpler grittier garagier (garage-ier?) work into the more backwoods idioms that he ventures into later. Can't wait to see how he changes in another 10 years.

This is extremely okay. Brutally and immensely unoffensive. A brilliant, timeless, and absolutely astonishing variety of middle-of-the-road pop. Wants to be milquetoast without ever getting there. Jokes aside, if you're in the mood for some good-time mid-sixties pop-rock, go put this on. Stepping Stone is the edgiest thing here, but this isn't about being edgy. Some creepy moments (Girl on the 4th Row, Melody for an Unknown Girl) that didn't age well, hysterical nonetheess. They weren't going for that, but it's entertaining all the same. The perfect example of a "sound" that some cool new West Coast bands are going for (looking at you, Buttertones). Rock and Roll without all the drugs and sex.

Lovely. Such a strong voice, it seems like studio recordings just don't capture her power. Very accessible, firmly grounded in popular formats - I swear I can hear samba, some calypso, jazz, and everyone will recognize Mbube - The Lion Sleeps Tonight, but the roots version. One More Dance is one of the absolute most bizarre recordings I've ever heard, I think.

Nearly flawless! An intriguing and important cultural milestone. Beautiful tunes perfectly executed, sort of like Rumors from a technical point of view. Eclectic. Socially conscious pop music is pretty rare, even more rare is socially conscious music that universally acclaimed and beloved.

I don't know what happened to music after this. It just got dumber and lower quality. Thank god for this high bar though.

When I drive now it is no longer a pleasant experience. It's a stressful exercise in accepting the fact that you can't control other people, judging only hurts yourself, and anger management all while navigating an increasingly dangerous and out of control world.

Putting this on helped soothe the pain as I drove to the store and back. Trip hop is cool, I listen to it a lot, especially instrumental stuff. This is great. Almost broke my earbuds, there's SO MUCH BASS. (A compliment, not a complaint). Not the best but there are some choice cuts - I could live with Five Man Army for a long long time. Owes a lot to some post-punk R & D guys like Adrian Sherwood and Jah Wobble.

Vocals rely a little bit on a resemblance to Neil Young. Some novel rhythmic passages and the drums are up in the mix which I like. In fact the production of this album is interesting throughout. It takes risks. There is a definite early to mid 2000s alternative rock sound that this fits in with. Like Arcade Fire, maybe Interpol, etc I mean it’s not unpleasant , just a wispy psychedelia that I won’t remember well tomorrow.

Floydian spaciness in Approaching Pavonis Mons by Balloon

So much music is both comprised of and decorated with vagaries, subtleties, and ambiguity. There's a lot of cognitive load trying to parse meaning, to unwind a metaphor, to extract contextual clues - like riding the train to someplace you've never been. {That's an analogy not a metaphor} While sometimes interesting and entertaining (appeals to taste notwithstanding), the effort can be exhausting, especially when traveling to a frontier where you must have your wits about you at all times, aware, ready for surprises of all kinds, friendly or otherwise.

Sometimes it's really nice to avoid all that and just get blasted with a straightforward message in a forceful way. Back it up with technical mastery and you've hit a sweet spot. Anthrax doesn't hit that spot for everyone all the time, myself included. But today, nailed it. No complaints.

Nope. Didn't listen. Won't ever listen.

It's really disturbing to me that EVEN AFTER Kanye West exposed himself as a conspiratorial anti-semitic dipshit, he goes on a tour and releases new stuff and remains popular. I hate it. Can't figure it out. I think he learned about how to con his loyal followers from the former president.

Just wrote about mental illness and how maybe Captain Beefheart was toying with that line between madness and genius (myth by the way, but hey, popular music, right?). Kanye West has the more sociopathic version of this, where he feels okay exploiting his fans. "Yeah, look how CRAZY I AM!! {That'll be $250, please.}" This dude has a lot of problems, always has, and I'm kind of sick of using brain cycles thinking about it.

I feel like they could have rehearsed more, but there are interesting ideas here and there. Flavors stuff that would come down the road 10 years later, especially in American New Wave and post-punk like Talking Heads, Pere Ubu, or Devo.

When this was released it was probably quite a bit more challenging than it is today (almost 60 years later!!!). Mostly typical 1960s blues-inspired meanderings, like every other psychedelic era band, but with less attention to hooks and more Dadaism.

Wondering whether Cap'n Beefheart suffered from some mental illness, and I don't say that in a joking or judgemental way, but I sincerely wonder if everything was going okay. I hear a little anguish in the vocals, and I could be mistaking Beefheart's method of self-expression for true pain. So maybe in the end, the Blues was sincere. This music walks on the ol' line between madness and art. Captain Beefheart is just over the line a little bit, at times on this album and ABSOLUTELY on the upcoming Trout Mask Replica. And that makes stuff like this even more interesting. Is it good? hmmm

This is a pure masterpiece. Shows off their technical ambitions, their genre-straddling songwriting prowess, all with a positive approach.

Putting the monster that is "Brighton Rock" as the first song is a BOLD MOVE, and it pays off. Sets the tone (almost) for the rest of the Queen catalog with the vocal range and the ridiculous guitar fireworks and the blister-inducing drums. The epic lyric poem! What is even happening!

You never get the feeling that anyone in Queen is a junkie with a deathwish. Everyone is the best at their instrument, just a crazy once-in-a-lifetime band. They started hitting their stride on this album.

Over rated.

I remember why I don't like the Stones all that much. They always sounded a little out of tune and like they were phoning it in (except for Charlie Watts, of course). Weirdly ironic to criticize your middle class peers while engaging in the very behavior you're criticizing. Oh wait, I forgot,you're writing about "characters." Sorry.

I KNOW I'm SUPPOSED to LOVE the Stones as anti-establishment heroes, but they were always pretty representative of the establishment in Rock, weren't they? Minus one star for Critical Acclaim®.

Maybe some other time. Not my jam, sorry. Weirdly popular in the UK - why? Average to below average alt-pop. And, yep, I get it, you're gay. DNF.

Oof getting behind in my reviews! Just a couple notes about this interesting album:

1. Obviously influential, maybe not just Ravi Shankar but the whole Indian Classical genre, and obviously in Britain.

2. Culturally more important than musically, maybe?

3. Difficult to pay attention to continuously, but enjoyable in the background.

4. Get your mind somewhere else for a change, this kind of music is really healthy for the brain if nothing else because it is different from what you're used to. You don't have to like it, but do yourself a favor, and as he says, listen with an open mind and you will be rewarded.
5. Virtuosic. I wish I had more time to just let it wash over me(maybe I'll listen to it again today, since I don't have to listen to Kanye West).

Listened to the first of the four (five) LPs that comprise this, I think. The Apple Music version did not include the instrumentals at the beginning, but you can find those on a different release if you want to be a completist.

Glad to be exposed to this. What Pop was before the rock era, this is definitely a work of art. You can't find fault with Ella Fitzgerald, or the band. Perfect execution and this was the peak of Jazz as a popular music form. A type of literature, music school is still teaching this for sure even though it is really no longer in the pop idiom. Which is a bit disappointing considering the level of talent here. Again, glad to get it on the list. Was meditating on the question of "How would you feel if today was your last" and I was definitely glad I heard this before I died.

Good to see this on the list, I think eventually I will play the rest.

Great debut album. It's just rock and roll, don't over-think it. A good bit of fun. You can really hear their influences, almost a little too much, but because I like those influences I won't count it against them ;). Cool sound, lots of bass, great drumming as well. There are some interesting innovations on here. I enjoyed this album quite a bit, fun uptempo blasts - probably not "Britpop" if it wasn't released at that time. Slightly better than three stars. If this were a 100 scale, and:
⭐️ = 0-20,
⭐️⭐️ = 21-40,
⭐️⭐️⭐️ = 41-60,
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ = 61-80, and
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ = 81-100
this album is definitely in the top third for me, especially after the last week or so.

Marvin Gaye has a remarkable singing voice. Let’s Get It On is pretty catchy and everything on the album is well executed. But! This music exists for one reason and one reason only, and I think we all know what that reason is. Outside of a very specific context- or possibly a slow dance - it doesn’t appeal to my taste. Great work though just not my bag. A little too slow and romantic.

Soothing and hypnotic. Pt. 4 has a lovely mid-seventies European futurism, at the time the most high-tech sound imaginable which even today sounds somewhat otherworldly. Cool recording. Has an "organic" feel to it even though completely electronic, even the bird sounds are synthesizer and studio effect. Astonishing to me that he recorded this in his apartment.

I love everything about this band. Sort of a weird B-52s vibe but a little... nastier? Funny, interesting, different, upbeat, fun, contemplative, cerebral, poetic, odd, indecipherable, fascinating, Arty, percussive - has a good beat, you can dance to it. High quality musicianship, you can tell they've played together for a long time, very cohesive and tight, expressive, good dynamics and support for the voices. This is a good band. Oh, yeah, also Björk 🤩 (pronounced "byerk").

It's okay. Hugely popular and hugely disappointing for a ZZ Top fan back in 1983. One of the few bands though that was able to incorporate post-punk/new-wave into their mix a little. ZZ Top have some funk and soul baked in that helps this rise above the doldrums of the era. Also, TV Dinners is awesome, you guys just don't get it.

Too slow, too much production, too much not enough. Lacks any intensity. Pretty soulless. Damn, the whole thing is like the worst Lynyrd Skynyrd, but more robotic. The singer is good enough (I guess, can't really hear that well). Outside of Bittersweet Symphony, this just drags. It's so long. I tried, but the slide guitar/slow tempo/acoustic campfire strumming just feels contrived out here. Come On is okay. Rounding down one star for bad behavior and breaking up 3 times. I would love to hear something by these guys without all the echo and tambourine