Reviews by jlazerus

Nile Rodgers, Bernard Edwards, and Tony Thompson can play whatever they want and it will always be the best funk you have ever heard. A couple of the ballads are a little bland, but outside of that, this is a true gem and a really satisfying listen.

Coincidence one day after the Q-tip album? I THINK not!

Positive hip-hop! Consistently funky beats throughout. Humorous and entertaining, youthful almost to a fault, but thoughtful as well. "I Left My Wallet in El Segundo" and "Ham and Eggs" have a lighthearted flow that's missing from a lot of other hip hop. Having fun is allowed here, but they still speak from their souls. Some of the grooves went on a wee bit too long, but even for that and the length of this album, it was an entertaining ride.

The slow tempo of these songs are, I'm sure, old Leonard Cohen's sincere self-expression. I haven't heard anything else he's done, so I don't know if his other work is like this. It's all stripped down to the most minimal instrumentation, simple progressions, simple poetic meter, in your face vocal production, and the aforementioned tempos.

Kind of refreshing in a way after listening to so much experimental stuff. I had this thought just this morning: very little music is acoustic now, very little is just people playing a non-electronic instruments, or singing without any digital manipulation. So I am enjoying this possibly for that reason alone, (fully aware that this album contains some electronic instruments). Electronics or the production trickery is not the main focus. For example, Q-Tip's "Renaissance," which I thoroughly enjoyed, is composed almost entirely of samples that are further twisted into a new sound somewhat distant from their original source. Whereas here Leonard Cohen invokes church organs, choruses, piano, a string quartet, and his own voice in a strikingly grounding way.

I found the songs with a religious theme were most interesting. Unlike Tom Waits, he's not playing a character, seems like he's speaking (literally, he doesn't sing much on this) from the soul. Different and unique, I like it a lot more than I thought I would. Play this during the daylight hours though, that's all I'm going to say.

Eclectic and entertaining. Especially liked sthe more innovative sounding stuff like "Manwomanboogie" ... OH SHIT!!! That's a CAN sample!!!
It's Krautrock week and I am PRESENT! I love that there is a CAN sample on here, had no idea. Good job Q-Tip. There's a little trilogy of slightly twisted prog style in the mifddle of the albumthat I was really impressed by the sheer "newness" of the sound (for lack of a better word) with "We Fight/We Love", "Manwomanboogie", and "Move / Renaissance Rap." Wordy but not obnoxious or excessively violent or confrontational. Interesting album.

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I'm not listening to this dude. Not gonna give him the $ 0.0002 or whatever streaming royalty you get. Kanye West sucks in so many ways all of us should do everything we can to reduce whatever influence this idiot mouthbreather has left.

Difficult to decipher, but I have rounded up some clues. I will need to listen several more times before even beginning to deduce who the killer is, but here's what I have so far:

1 - The term "Mushroom" has multiple meanings. Especially important to recognize that Damo Suzuki is a Japanese native person singing English words in front of a West German band. "When I saw a mushroom head I was born and I was dead" could refer to The Bomb OR a psychedelic experience. That the succeeding song pulls out of this one and literally explodes on the first note could also imply something more base level. Mushroomhead. hmm...
2 - Paperhouse lulls the listener into thinking this might be a rock album. It is not. That is a mental trick designed to pull you out of your usual reality in a nicer way than just dropping Aumgn on you.
3 - The rhythm section of Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebiz (later sampled by Q-Tip on ManWomanBoogie, I still can't get over that fact) both had parents who were essentially dispatched by the Nazis. This generation of German people is rarely talked about in these parts. Why do you think they're making so much noise? In some ways it appears this music might be a reflection of their inner lives, or at least in my imagining. Chaotic. Harsh. Frightening. UNRELENTING. WWII must have absolutely sucked.
4 - Unlike any other CAN, or any other Krautrock for that matter!
5 - WHY did they get a new singer? From wikipedia: "Mooney quit the band and returned to America soon after the recording of Monster Movie, having been told by a psychiatrist that getting away from the chaotic music of Can would be better for his mental health." IF THAT WERE TRUE, are we not encouraged to get away from the chaotic music of CAN? Why only Mooney? Just asking questions, not saying that CAN is an aborted CIA MKUltra spinoff project to weaponize rock music against the hippies. I am 100% NOT saying that. Do your own research.
6 - Damo Suzuki (friend of the great Mark E. Smith, RIP) did this month, just as my findings have come out and I now have no way to corroborate them. This is very suspicious.
7 - If you play "Aumgn" backwards, it says "Bring me a towel. I killed Luap" over and over.

IN CONCLUSION: some say that this avant-garde masterpiece is not an experiment in merging rock aesthetics with musique concrete, or a stab at musical dadaism and surrealism, or spontaneous outbursts of sound simply for their own sake to further explore the ideologies of post-modernists like Stockhausen. No, they claim it is something more sinister, that perhaps CAN were mere puppets of the military-industrial establishment, bent on undermining the emerging free-thought and youth movements (among so many other postwar philosophies that were starting to dawn) by turning music against itself, in an effort to lead it towards it's own destruction. I don't say this, but some do.

I was going to go on another useless diatribe about my problem with Critically Acclaimed® albums, but instead I will leave the following one word review of Crooked Rain Crooked Rain:

Whatever.

Glad I got this from the generator. I have heard of them but haven't listened to them at all closely. This kind of sneaks up on you from being a chavvy cross between The White Stripes and Franz Ferdinand, but toward the end of the album it seems to find its own voice. Listening to the whole thing beginning to end is sort of like riding along with these fellas as they experience a night out, stuff can go right(\"I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor\") and then things can go wrong (\"From the Ritz to the Rubble\"). Separating this from other post 9/11 post-punk revivalists (like Franz Ferdinand in fact)are that they make these compelling little stories, and the lofi affectations that have a ton of burning young-man energy. Actual songs that don'task me to invest too much effort (I'm looking at you Arcade Fire). Fun tunes, fun album, a great listen from beginning to end! At 41 minutes (the perfect album length) it's a throwback to when the Album was a \"unit of art\" to quote someone who I forgot.

I love this band so much it's kind of embarrassing.
This album cover LOL! It is "dad rock" that maintains some edge even today. I really like everything on here, it's a guilty pleasure. I dig their loose approach, it adds flavor to what could otherwise be unremarkable blues rock. "Lookin out my Back Door" is homey and quirky and I love it. I loved this even when I thought I hated country music, wghich this (kind of) is. Great band, killer songwriting, topical without being dated, at times fun and other times somewhat dark. A little humor goes a long way.

This is a really solid post-bop (?) jazz album with Jimmy Smith's instantly recognizable organ. Lots of saxamaphone (Stanley Turrentine) for those who like that sort of thing. Doesn't stretch the genre or do anything too fancy, and sometimes that's exactly what you want from a jazz album. The great Kenny Burrell pops by for anice bit on the guitar. Love Jimmy Smith's blues comp. Cool that this is mostly a three-piece.

Really digging “Cobra Bora” it’s got some attitude. Likable uptempo electronic dance music. I much prefer instrumentals in this genre, and this albumis no escption. I think the weakest songs on this have vocals and they feel a bit labored: less funky or sincere. Like the artist is try to wedge a vocal track into his groove because he's "supposed to?" Likable nonetheless. The back end of this album is a little heavier, which I also like in this kind of music. Mostly a party, though!

Densore, Krieger, and Manzarek with some weird spoken word dude on vocals. Pretty obscure, surprised to see this on the list considering how underground this band was. Wonder what ever happened to them. Seems like they just stopped releasing stuff after a while.

One note: I never realized (or forgot) how incredible Robby Krieger. Really amazing, in all seriousness.

The song "Celebrity Skin" is catchy and thoughtful enough, so satisfying in a way. Also familiar, being the big hit and title track on the disc.

I'm going to break down what I don't like about this and I'll try to keep personality issues out of it. Although I find it to be in extremely bad taste to attempt to force your drummer to quit. Really really bad form. Just have a meeting: "Listen, after doing two albums with you both of which were really succesful and Critically Acclaimed™, we just want to go in a different musical direction and we don't think you're going to want to hang, I'm sorry." Hole was of course just a Courtney Love project, but you don't have to be an asshole. Read the wikipedia article about how Love and the producer conspired to record this with studio guy Dean Castronovo. Even more unethical is not pulling the original grrrl drummer off the credits, keeping Hole's (almost) all girl grunge band aesthetic intact but still able to pull this over-produced attempt at a commercially appealing rock album. This attempt at a grunge-pop mashup (originally perfected by Nirvana) feels extremely disingenuous. Also whatever attempt at the "Califorinia sound™" {citation needed} would be the antithesis to that punk/grunge aesthetic that they were faking before.

Nothing about the band Hole feels genuine. From their going to Minnesota (!) to recruit Kristen Pfaff, guitarist Eric Erlander's girlfriend who overdosed at 27, 4 months after Courtney Love's husband, to the above mentioned drummer shell game, to the bizarre choice of Production and musical direction. The best songs here are co-written with Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins, which is telling. As a whole it is really not as great as you're being led to believe. So many other grrls did this better, from PJ to The Breeders to L7. Courtney love's singing ruins it for me. It's not good. I love the heavier genres like punk, grunge, an metal, but this is a cash grab or something and it sounds like it to me.

I apologize in advance for this being a review of my own feelings about the album rather than about the album itself. Pretty much par for the course for my reviews, now that I think about it.

There are five-star albums, and then there are albums like this, which hold a special place in my heart. I somehow bought this when I was 11 years old. Songs like "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road", "All the Young Girls Love Alice", and "The Ballad of Danny Bailey (1909–34)" didn't make much sense to me back then. But I would put this on, open the album, and dissolve into a completely different world. When I heard this again just now, I was transported in my head back to my bedroom as a kid, lost in music, not really caring about the meaning.

The music transcends words. This is how great art always affects me. I WANT to tell you about it. I want you to understand its value emotionally, sensorially, musically, and in a thousand other ways that change my experience—some of which have English words, most don't. But the ability to communicate art's a priori nature lies exclusively in the experience of it. Which is both frustrating and fantastic. I will probably end up saying this again, and I wanted to mention it when I wrote about "Band on the Run" (another album that lives in the same place as this): analyzing art robs it of the deep joy that comes from experiencing it.

Check out the original album on vinyl if possible: every song has the lyrics and an illustration; it's an amazing package. Some part of the album experience is the package, the manipulation of the disc on your stereo, moving the needle JUST SO onto the groove at the beginning before the actual music starts... ah, good times!

"Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" is fascinating, humorous, sad, multi-dimensional, deep and broad, engaging, weird, fun, cool, bold and meek, familiar and mysterious all at the same time. And for reasons I just can't put into words, it really means a lot to me.

One of the first albums I ever bought with MY OWN MONEY! By far the best post-Beatles McCartney album in my opinion. Catchy as hell, amusing, touches of the loveliness we've all come to know. The song arc is excellent. One of the best of all time and a big personal favorite. Brings me back to my childhood I would grab one of my dozen or so albums, put it on the record player and sit down in my beanbag chair with the album cover in hand and just get transported to a completely different world :P

When this came out it fell into a category of music I called "Eurodisco," which my local "Alternative" station played so much of I actually wrote them a letter telling them if they didn't STOP DOING THAT I would be forces to take my business elsewhere and I MEAN IT! Wll, of course they didn't, I did and neither of us missed each other for a tenth of a second.

I hear this now as a frequent listener of electronic music and it has a... quaintness. It's kind of weak, still, and relies too heavily on dance styles that wouldn't be native to the Isles (mostly Acid House). Influential, not very underground, it lacks depth, and I found it to be kind of boring. But like I said, in my younger days when I would have been the audience for this, I absolutely abhorred this kind of music. Given that, it wasn't unpleasant or challenging and definitely has some fun moments. Also cool to see some EDM finally on this list!

Elvis, before getting chewed up by the mainstream American entertainment industry, had an astonishing sound. The Sun Records rockabilly cuts are historic for a reason and there are some fine examples here. Scotty Moore, Bill Black, and DJ Fontana are present on most of the songs. After this Elvis got manufactured by Colonel Tom Parker and apparently sold his soul, but at least some of the early stuff like this is here to remind us all what a big deal this dude was at the time. What a voice. Okay song selection, but I think Tutti Frutti was swing and a miss, while Blue Suede Shoes is inevitably the more well known version but lacks Carl Perkins' edge. Absolutely an album you should here before you die. Really enjoyable for me as a big rockabilly fan.

Interesting production and a nice variety of styles make this more entertaining than I thought it would be. Some of the more gangster material is a huge bringdown for after what seemed like it would be an entertaining and generally thoughtful album by an interesting vocal presence.

There are some flashes of brilliance, of course. The outro on Bold as Love is especially amazing. Mitch Mitchell is in FINE FORM on this one, too. Hendrix always leaves me wanting a little more. Always kind of too loose. Great album overall.