Reviews by jlazerus

At their best Depeche Mode are an overly serious version of Kraftwerk with a monotonous cabaret singer. At their worst a soulless New Romantic band of goth posers. PICK A LANE Depressed Mood! I will give the list a pass on one Depeche Mode album, but why two? At least I got them out ogf the way early. This has been a very below-average week. Hopefully next week isn't all Tom Waits and Rod Stewart 🫣 .

This is heavy proto-grunge, negatively focused on the whole, challenging, noisy, and weird. What was happening in Massachusetts in the late 80s? This is what "indie" used to be. Much less of an attempt to be popular through hooky songwriting tropes. More from the heart and about as underground as you want to be without disappearing completely. I don't dislike this era, sort of underground American post-post-punk - I don't know. Definitely not for everyone. A bit in that Minutemen/Hüsker Dü/Meat Puppets vein. A lot more dismal and introspective though.

Couldn't get through it. Maybe some other ti,e. He's a good enough singer, and I'm sure this is a good example of the genre. I couldn't do it. Grateful for having a streaming subscription so I don't have to buy or try to borrow stuff like this.

Some of the worst music I've heard of the albums I've listened to so far. Really not good. I never "got" the Beach Boys, and this just makes me dislike them more.

Some interesting grooves. Story songs, but without much subtlety. I do feel transported into a world I'm unfamiliar with, I enjoyed that. Not Just Money, Super Rich Kids, and Crack Rock carry this whole thing for me. A lot to recommend but it doesn't make me feel anything. I like the minimalism and chill tempos. I would need more time with this. Seems like Frank Ocean (if that IS your real name!) is not that into making music and this was something he shedded like a snake skin from his lifestyle. It's ok.

Like the best bands, the best albums are of a piece.

The last of the great rock-era U2 albums, before they "reinvented" themselves - as what, many of us fans STILL do not know. I guess just "not this anymore." Yet this album (and the little portion of their career it represents) was a career plateau that they never really got back to.

They hold up a mirror to America, more as their own introspection than as a preachy diatribe. There is a respect and disappointment in the romanticism. And it's not all about America, either. Running to Stand Still, Streets Have No Name, most of these are about everywhere. Like a daydream, images fade in and out, some more lucid than others.

The themes and lyrical content give the whole thing its emotional underpinning. U2 as musicians have hit their stride, confident in the style that they invented for themselves and unapologetically galloping from one rendering of it to the next. Instrumentally, U2 have a tension between the piercing staccato of guitar and the down-to-earth smoothness of the bass. This tension is not so much antagonistic as it is a framework or scaffolding. The drums/bass/guitar push against each other and work together to support whatever chaos is happening on top of and around them. Kind of a cool trick that works really well for them in that the singer isn't doing pop tropes all the time. He requires an instrumental pulpit that the band are happy to provide. Neither can exist without the other. This structure sounds great on an album with outsized and ambitious anthemic thrust.

It does fail for some listeners who aren't up for that level of commitment, maybe. U2 have attempted to take on difficult and far-reaching themes, inside and outside of themselves. It can be a lot. I always really loved that about them, though. They are committed to each other, the fans, the music, and what they are trying to say. When it works, like it does here, it can be a religious experience.

Intense. Not what I expected. A lot of variety musically. Really powerful, at times prescient considering Jeff Buckley's short life - for example on "So Real" he sings
"...I couldn't awake
from the nightmare
that sucked me in
and pulled me under
Pulled me under
oh that was so real..."

Inoffensive but otherwise meh. Owes a lot to Prince and Michael Jackson (no relation). Black Cat is a cool song, others are mostly unoriginal and weakly executed.

I saw the Dead Kennedys at this weird little gymnasium in SLC. Got smashed up against the stage for most of the show while my friends were either in a mosh pit or floating around the outside. I was wearing my favorite metallic orange skinny tie and a shitty thrift store suit. Someone tries to choke me or hang me by grabbing my tie, I couldn't see them and I decided I could escape by whipping my head around like a dog that doesn't want to e on a leash, all the while screaming Chemical Warfare into the mic the Jello pushed in the faces of us all getting smashed into the stage. The tie itself was finally unleashed but I didn't really care, that was he best night of my young life up to that point.

My friends had similar tales.

Hands down my favorite punk album ever and I think most of these themes still resonate. My deadhead friends couldn't listen to 5 minutes of this without yelling at me to turn it off, but that was their loss.

Really like Guitar-Radiohead a little more than Experimental-Ambient-Radiohead, and this peak Guitar-Radiohead. SO EMOTIONAL though, fakeplastictrees kills me every time. High and Dry is a great pop song on an album is chock full of great songs, I don't care if Thomm doesn't like it. Not an easy or casual listen, but as deep as anything the band ever did. Not for everyone. It was always odd to me how popular this band was, hoping someone can explain it to me some day.

Pop R & B isn't my usual taste in music but the further into this album I got, the more I enjoyed it. Especially like the socially conscious songs and the variety of influences (dancehall, rap). Always cool to get a feminist perspective. Really like the cover of "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You."

Five stars because fu the Fall are awesome. It's different and you just don't get it. This is their most accessible album, and it's not all that accessible. I wonder if someone challenged Mark E. Smith (who is a god by the way) to come up with a pop album?

Might change me name to Shadrach Glamrick.

Kind of strangely good hard rock at the end of the hair-metal era. Peak Stephen Tyler, I'm not a huge fan, but tons of respect for the voice. Smarter than average but with some cheesiness (which is not the worst thing in the world - a sense of humor is always welcome). Enjoyable overall. For me the big winner is the whole second side of the album, notably Hoodoo Voodoo/Medicine Man, which was a Brad Whitford (!) song. Go figure. Janie's Got a Gun is a good song, regardless of what you think of Aerosmith. Good, well thought-out album. Good to see rock stars come back from the dark side instead of immolating themselves for a change.

Give it up for The Attractions ladies and gentlemen! The rhythm section and drum 'breakdown' on Lipstick Vogue literally making me cry. It's not Punk Rock, it's another level of Elvis Costello that didn't show up on "My Aim is True." More complex. More inscrutable. Deeper. Heavier. Angrier.
"Big Tears
mean nothing {scowling}
When you're lyin' in
your coffin"
Jesus! Easy, Elvis!
Then they just toss off "Radio, Radio" like it's a Sunday afternoon jam with friends. Fantastic.

Takes a while to get into, but once you do, it's a pretty fulfilling musical experience.

Sometimes music can just be something to listen to, not worry too much about, enjoy the sound, the rhythms, the little melodies, the chord changes. Just listening with no effort expected on the listener's part. Light entertainment for your amusement.

There's a macho approach to rock 'n' roll that The White Stripes didn't exactly avoid in previous albums, but on this they somehow became Led Zeppelin all of a sudden. Almost overconfident without the self-effacing charm of previous albums. Still brilliant in a lot of ways: clever lyrically, solid grooves that maintain the DIY trope, and some 5-star guitar playing - Jack White's guitar sound speaks to me, and some of the solos on here are wildly expressive. Drugs make an appearance, though? What's up with that?

Another juvenile fit-thrower from the 90s, like Marilyn Manson and later Eminem. DNF

This was very interesting, as a Rock album after Radiohead supposedly ended the album era. There's a late 60's folk/psych feel here that is charming and sincere. Lots of musical variety and some intrguing surprises here and there without being overly ambitious, making this an enjoyable listen.The album feels very live - as if I were listening to the band in the pub wherever these dudes are from, everyone is having a great time. Really fun.

I have to put this to bed for myself. Been wracking my brain trying to figure out, really, what I think about this album (and Radiohead in general, as I still owe a review of Kid A). But I think I finally got it.

The band are paradoxical. Yorke goes out of his way to confuse us both lyrically and professionally - in interviews, his stage presence or lack thereof, etc. Abjectly refusing to take the Prog baton, while doing exactly that. Being the "Biggest Band in the World™" while at the same time the most introverted band to ever exist (putting the lie to "introversion" as real concept at all, but these personality tropes help marketers so let's all just keep on pushing the stereotypes). Being upper-crust English Gentlemen from Oxford yet having a vicious hatred for the establishment.

Being the living human embodiment of these paradoxes would push one to the edge of a certain socially acceptable madness. The listener is expected to ignore all of it and take a quick dip in this strange pool. I'm not judging this as bad. In fact, one of the reasons Radiohead succeeds is that they are somehow able to make catchy well-composed, almost accessible music out of this confused, often depressing and enraging state of mind. It's an impermanent state, but one that will float in and out of consciousness without warning. And one that leaves only on it's own accord, even if asked politely.

This is Radiohead for me. They absolutely went to a place pop music (HA!) never really went. If we believe Yorke and Co this was not contrived but spontaneous. Another paradox, in that if tyoou think about it, no music is either truly spontaneous or truly contrived, it's not a black and white thing.

I was becoming annoyed by interpretations of the lyrics and their confusing, abstract nature: WHAT DOES THIS MEAN! Add to it the idea, for me, that some of these interpretations do NOT correspond at all with what the words in the poems actually ARE. Just as an example, let's talk about Airbag (first song on the album and puts itself out there as a representative). I've read articles whose purpose was to shed light on the poetry (it's poetry, in the ancient sense, but without the storytelling) claiming this song is about a car crash. And outside of the literal interpretation, about "transport", and maybe even the dangers of modern society, cars, whatever. But if you look at the lyrics, what are they really saying? Born again. Almost died. Airbag saved my life. What actually saved your life, man? How did you almost die? Was Thomas telling the story of a car accident that he was in? Maybe.. these guys are a paradox. Maybe all of his angst has to do with people like me misinterpreting what he's trying to say. (I've read that infact some of Thom Yorke's angst comes from exactly this.) Is "Airbag" a complaint about technology, or an acknowledgement? The fine German car caused a problem (car crash), but the Airbag prevented a different problem (death), so maybe the technology that can kill you can actually save you? What is repeatedly discussed is being born again, and the chorus about an interstellar burst and how I am back to save the universe. Yes, Thom Yorke was in an accident, yes, he has spoken about it and the relationship to this song. So you can certainly take it very literally - the feeling of escaping a near death experience adn emerging from it with a renewed sense of joie de vivre. But HAVE YOU HEARD THIS SONG. There is no joy, only fear.

So it's poetry and soundtracks. The poetry isn't really all that great. The singer sounds almost as if he doesn't want you to understand the words, they are there as a vehicle for his voice to intertwine with the guitar - vocals as musical instrument. WHich is great. People love that. It has just been difficult to unravel the various paradoxes with Radiohead, or understand when they are possibly NOT being paradoxical at all. I came to this music later in my life. If I heard this first when I was 17, you couldn't tear it out of my cold dead hands. But I deeply respect it, tall the guys in this bad are fantastic musicians and Thom Yorke is without question one of the best vocalists of this generation (arguably any generation), and an entertaining frontman as well. But every time I hear Radiohead, a small bit of my enjoyment is clouded by the cynicism that they themselves frame everything with. It becomes tedious. I feel pressure to like them more than I do. When that pressure gets to be too much to take, I put on OK Computer and drift away to a different place ;)

It's an art piece!

You will enjoy this a lot more if you take a naive approach and reject the notion that every band or album has to belong to some genre. For example, Wikipedia puts the song "Psycho Killer" alone into no less than 6, from art punk (wat?) to no wave (sure, okay). Just relax and allow Talking Heads '77 to reveal it's true nature.

Talking Heads laissez-faire approach to music frees them as songwriters to rummage around in your psyche and find whatever weirdness they can turn up. Like when you go to a new town, everything familiar is a little different. Songs about the mundane that reveal other concepts about ourselves without force or irony.

Groundbreaking yet catchy, odd but confident. Some of David Byrne's most entertaining and interesting vocals on all of the Talking Heads records are here. A really important album for the future of the metagenre known as alternative rock and a home run on their first at-bat.
I was complaining
I was down in the dumps
I feel so strong now 'cause you pulled me up