Reviews by john

Sounds great for 1970, paving that way for a sound that would morph into yacht rock. In my mind, Van Morrison starts one end of yacht rock, and Steely Dan bookends the other end a decade later.

“Moondance” is really that good, a totally unique composition sung dramatically by a just as unique voice. As for the rest? Meh. If you like Van Morrison for his very specific sounding vocals, I’m sure you love this album. It’s all very samey. But that sameness works against it for people like me, wanting something more.

“Caravan” is good but damn it takes its time getting to the good part with that post chorus walk-down melody.

Everything else just passes right by. Not bad, but not my jam. I respect it but don’t seek it out. Soft 3/5 I’m very indifferent to this one

I’ll be damned, the public reviews aren’t wrong, I CAN hear some David Bowie passing through these songs. Whether it’s the entirety of “Weekend Wars” or the shouty delivery one minute into “4th Dimensional Transition”, he’s here! Crazy. What’s more impressive is that these two are able to emulate one of Bowie’s greatest traits: being a mouthpiece for the youth and how it feels to be young.

We all know about “Kids”, a song so pretty that it’s culturally synonymous with an entire generation of folks that grew up listening to it. “Time To Pretend” and “Electric Feel” are similar! Especially that Justice remix of the latter, which heightened Oracular Spectacular’s status on music blogs to something mystical.

Having 20 more years of MGMT’s discography for comparison, it’s striking how much “Of Moons Birds and Monsters” sounds like a cut from their Little Dark Age project, or even Loss Of Life from just a few years ago.

The music and all the visual accompaniments fit together so well to create this vibrant, colorful, whimsical, youthful package. MGMT carved out their own space between pop and something more alternative, where they’ve been a mainstay in the decades since. This record has aged beautifully compared to so many others from its time. Strong 4/5

I think I'll take "Whispering Pines" as a favorite for its very different, introspective vocal delivery. I can't say I've ever heard the appeal in "Up On Cripple Creek". "Rockin Chair" was pretty solid too.

A lot of this stuff kinda sounds like a worse Tom Petty with some dated lyrics and interesting adaptation of swamp rock and Appalachian americana. None of it was particularly good, but I can see how it was a new sound to hit the masses in the late 60's. The got a little too bloody breaking down the various rock subgenre walls.

2/5

I appreciate Muse for what they are and don’t ask them to be Radiohead or anything else. This album has a distinct, dramatic sound that I’m totally ok with. I don’t need dynamic subtlety or lyrical depth from them. Theyre anthemic, overt, and sometimes cinematic, combining rock and electronics just fine. That combo was perfect on the opening "Take A Bow". One of my favorites, Zedd, has long cited Muse as a major influence of his. I really hear it on this opener. Colorful synth arps, suspenseful chord progression, dramatic voicing and deliveries. This is great!

"Starlight" steeps into something much more ready for radio with that piano refrain and accessible lyrics. While I dodn't agree with a lot of comparisons to Radiohead or Coldplay, I can hear the similarities for brief moments on this song.

"Soldier's Poem" sounds eerily like if Musical Miracle did a take on Elvis' "Can't Help Falling In Love". So take that as you may.

I really enjoyed the marching drums on "Invincible". It kinda felt like an anthem from the Green Day American Idiot era. Vaguely referential of war music, very grandiose, a huge guitar solo.

There are times where, the older I get, the more I'm coming to respect a commitment to a specific sound in music. It signals a confidence in the artists vision. When it's done well, I can toss aside a need for nuance and heady musical decisions. This album stands on it's own very well. No need to dig into it further than that. 4/5!

Very much not a record you need to listen to before you die. There’s some funny moments and clever deliveries buried under a bunch of dated sounds, references, and lyrics. But nothing else to report of here.

“Underwater Rimes” was a pretty cool little story. I wish there was more goofy, harmless ideas instead of corny sexualizations of women like “Freaks Of The Industry”.

It sounds like the album cover 2/5

I am totally charmed by ESL Europeans who want to make coolguy music, whether it’s these Norwegian dudes or any Eastern European dj from the eurodance era. Couple that with the fact that this album doesn’t exist in a universe where musical nuance is a thing and you just have to put down your critical arms and give in to the hilarity. Saying this album is maximal implies that there’s some sense of minimalism these guys are aware of - and I don’t think that’s the case. Even the mastering of this project is so compressed and LOUD.

“Rock Against Ass” is surely enjoyable to anyone younger than
late millennial age, as they are a group that grew up with enough ESL MC’s to find the “DJ Crazy Times” parody endearing. About halfway through the album at “Zillion Dollar Sadist” you have the hilarious realization that literally every hook, be it vocal or instrumental, is so quantized and based on counting to 4.

By far the best (aka the funniest) song is “Are You Ready For Some Darkness”. The broken English and heavy accents are most prevalent and the lyrics are laughable with each new stanza.

Not sure if this was meant to be funny when it was included in this list but it’s sooooo funny 3/5

I can definitely not just hear, but FEEL the power of his voice. He’s emotive and exuberant. I think it was brilliant to also make sure there was some echo/reverb effects accompanying the voice (I’m not sure if that’s an after effect or just a result of where this was recorded). In a way, the reverb makes it all seem very other-worldly, or heavenly if you’re open to it. The near-halftime breaking of the rhythm pattern to end song one was a perfect touch.

Song 2 “Halka Halka Saroor” threw some melodic arrangements at me that my westernized ears were super intrigued to hear. I lack the knowledge to speak on it beyond saying the progression of the melody and the harmonies of the instruments weren’t anything I was used to, and I really liked it.

“Yaad-E-Nabi Gulshan Mehka” had the most euro-sounding progression to it, which was nice but not a song of note outside of that fact.

My pick from this album might be “Haq Ali Ali Haq”, it felt the most tense and dynamic in its melody and its vocal delivery.

Slight 4/5. While it gets a bit repetitive, the voice is undeniable and most of it is so joyous

I am 840 albums in, and a part of me is genuinely hatching the idea that the electronic music selections are a means to an end for some sort of musical psyop this list is trying to achieve. This album is equal parts bad, but also good, but sometimes dated, but sometimes ahead of its time? Whatever it is, there's no doubting that this is another viciously obscure electronic music pick that flies in the face of dozens of seminal, important electronic albums from the 90's specifically, and from every decade after too. All of this in mind, I think I like this after all???

The slide guitar on "Build A Fire" almost made this thing worth it. Such a fun addition into an otherwise repetitive record. Same with the ululating on "No More Tears". The more I think about it, the more The White Room is full of fascinating moments stuck in the middle of an odd, maybe ahead of it's time project. "Make It Rain" also has some hints of what would become the gated trance vocal effect. Speaking of which, "The Last Train To Trancentral" actually sounds like one of the first trains to the station, carving out that thumpy 4 to the floor kick, a bass that sits in the same register as a Reese Bass, and some appropriately airy chords floating in the back.

Then there's some clunky, ancient-sounding choices like whatever the synth/key stab is on "3 AM Eternal". This whole track is an early 90's mess with it's MC work and heavy-handed crowd noise. "What Time Is Love has some dreadful lyrics and synths all over it as well, but I'm a bit more forgiving for the acidic 303 arp it rips towards the end. Psytrance can point to this song as though it was the first in it's genre's avatar state.

The more I listen, the more I like this beautiful mess. Apparently there was a lot going on with the intent of the album and band wanting to make some ironic statements about trends and commercialism. I don't think that shines through this record at face value, but there is some subtle absurdity going on here. Upon reading all the wikipedia pages related to this album and band, I can confirm that there was much more going on under the hood than just "lets make a dance album."

I am as confused about my feeling on this album as I am about this band and their history as a whole. Firm 3/5 but my brain feels like ✋︎ ♋︎❍︎ ♓︎■︎ ♋︎ ⬧︎⧫︎♋︎⧫︎♏︎ □︎♐︎ ❍︎♋︎🙰□︎❒︎ ♍︎□︎■︎♐︎◆︎⬧︎♓︎□︎■︎ right now

It's a marathon not a sprint. The back half is wayyyy better than the first half. You can feel it's immense length in how spacious and slow it is from the start of "Brick in the Wall Pt 1". Getting to Part 2 feels like the first time this record really wakes up, for lack of a better term.

I know and respect the uniquely personal place this album is written from, and it's generally done really well. But on occasion, it suffers from Drake/Taylor Swift syndrome. It's dilemma is so unique to the isolated megastar that I really have to do some mental hustling to meet The Wall where it's at. Again, some good songwriting and execution, I especially love how it uses silence to heighten the mood. But sometimes it's challenging to not grow impatient.

Additionally, the singing on the first half of this record is markedly worse. "One Of My Turns" and the verse of "Hey You" are a little flat.

Now "Is There Anybody Out There", that's a track. Sticky acoustic guitar melody that fades in from the silence and then back out in a reasonable amount of time. This kicks off the best run on the record. "Nobody Home" continued the momentum right after. The symphonic accompaniment behind that piano is like water in a desert. The dramatics of "Bring The Boys Back Home" into "Comfortably Numb". It's hard to have your best material be so clearly on the back end of a record this long, I'm impressed.

I'm exhausted. There's a myriad of cool things happening conceptually and compositionally, but it's a bit hard to meet this one at eye level. Respectful 3/5

Yet another peculiar addition for electronic music on here. Some of this material is a non-starter, and other bits of it are quite cool, like the looped vocal line in "Shellback". Then there's multiple tracks of nothingburgers, then there's "Rough And Quick" outta nowhere.

Then there's some dub on "I Stole Your Car" which would be normal and expected except it's not really done all that well? The production is actually neat enough, lots of little sounds and bloops to add some texture, but the parts don't fit together. Then the first two minutes of "Belladona morph into this pristine ambient passage. This track is actually really worth your time! Agh! I can't make sense of it!

This album exists in a superposition where it's both everywhere and techincally impressive, but also nowhere and unmemorable.
2/5, a better and still similar listen is "MJ Cole presents Madrugada". I’d love to hear what Robert Dimery’s methodology was for picking electronic music albums. It’s so out of touch and seemingly random

Falls under the Eno school of thinking when it comes to defying genres and tropes of its time. A bit fantastical, a bit surreal, a bit goofy.

I have the patience and time at work to sit through this one, and it rewarded me enough to be pleased after an hour. I think the first noteable point was about 4 minutes into part 1, the bells/chimes that come gliding over the top are very pretty. A few passages later, around 13:30, the hymnal melody over the piano was a really nice moment of reprieve too. Wasn’t as big of a fan of the guitars that followed immediately after. But then at 21 minutes when he’s running the main melody through every instrument, he gets to the glockenspiel and the magic is restored. That’s the moment where it all came together for me. A sticky melody thats driven into the mind through iteration. And a nice acoustic outro to boot.

Part 2 doesn’t do as much for me, it’s very much something out of Zeppelin’s IV for the first while, then evolves into a bit of a typical rock ballad. But if you give it time, the very hilarious guttural grunting comes in halfway through the song. It’s a Star Wars type of language before Star Wars was even a thing!

Oldfields single is even more folkloric in nature, like something out of a Celtic countryside. All wrapped up by the very silly “Sailors Hornpipe” which is a … story? Theater of the mind? Who's to say. It’s vivid and memorable.

Soft 4/5. It’s very bravely itself and probably completely unaware of its bravery. As the guy says at the end, buggered if I know

Super unique in the context of this list therefore totally deserving of its spot. The rolling, repetitive, layered guitar playing will stick with me. As well as the fusion of west African music with a little blues and creole flare.

“Soko Yhinka” is the best example of the listening experience imo, it’s got a sticky little call and response vocal section.

This guy has two albums on the list but they’re both fairly different in nature and sound. And maybe I brought it up last time but there’s a whole rabbit hole to go down in terms of the amount of non-English albums on this list that aren’t purely foreign (English speaking collaborators or fusing a foreign genre with a traditionally American/uk genre). Is it ultimately a good thing for listener exposure, is it disrespectful or tokenistic to favor english-crossover projects?

I respect this one a good bit, firm 3/5

This might be the most egregious electronic music album pick of them all. This might be a favorite of a very specific subgroup of a subgroup of a bygone demographic of listeners who have hopefully aged out of the circumstances that made them think this was the peak of dance music. Euro-centric shallow spiritualism mixed with harsh, on-the-nose production. It’s an Orbital album, but bad, with the mystic qualities of a Shpongle album, but bad. Shpongle, by the way, is made to sound like tactful geniuses of experimental electronic spiritual music in the face of this project. How corny do you have to be to make Shpongle seem subtle and “tasteful”.

“Evil Is Even” shows one minute of promise but then seems content to not do anything else at all for the rest of its runtime, almost rending its status as a noteable track null.

90’s electronic music albums that use similar sounds but are way more worth your time:
LP - Antiloop
Anything by The Prodigy
Furious Angels - Rob Dougan
The Gathering - Infected Mushroom
Anything by Aphex Twin
Aforementioned Orbital.

1/5, the music is what it is but it’s the idea of including this album in such a list is what draws my ire. Album art is way cooler than any of its musical substance

A little more natural, grounded sounding Eagles. Not as many hefty electric guitar solos or suspenseful ballads, just simplistic country and rock sounds sharpened into pop structures.

That being said, this thing doesn’t retain its edge for long. Maybe this was during a time when the eagles were growing tired of their more acoustic, country sound, but some of this seems intentionally lethargic. “Most Of Us Are Sad” and “Train Leaves Here This Morning” being the prime suspects.

“Early Bird” had an awesome stylistic changeup. The banjo, the song subject, the unique vocals - needed some more of that. It feels like an actually convicted track bunched between a lot of songs that meddle around a bit too much.

3/5 “Desperado” would’ve saved this, but that was on the album that follows this one.

The crime here isn’t the amount of flute usage, it’s the first two song subjects. You can sing whatever you want over prog rock songs that are this explorative and whimsical, and you choose that to open up the album? Man.

Getting over the uneasy lyrical content of the first two songs, there’s some solid instrumentation throughout. “Cheap Day Return” is a short little track that hammers home the fact that this will be folksy in nature, not unlike Zeppelin IV.

Another thing I can appreciate about this record is how it doesn’t get lost in the explorative sauce as much as many ‘prog’ rock records do, if you could really even call it that (I’m looking at you, Yes). Jethro Tull will actually hold onto a melody and time signature if they find it to be in service of the song over all.

“Wond’ring Aloud” was very pretty, those light little pianos and strings dancing around behind the guitar and vocals were a nice touch. It stoped as quickly as it started, I wanted a resolution or at least another stanza of the same acoustic guitar passage.

While side 2 gets surreal and explorative right away with those choral vocals behind the dueling flutes on “My God”, I’m not too sure it’s worth calling this thing some stroke of genius, dense, concise concept album.

Do I want to be stuck in an endless loop of focusing on bunches of white dudes noodling around ok instruments 50 years ago? No, but this list corners me into doing so. At least this bunch had some ideas and execution. Soft 4/5, I won’t be back with this one very often, but I respect it enough

She so enigmatic in both her writing and her performances very captivating. PJ Harvey has cultivates such a clear path from soul to voice.

A couple of Thom Yorke features on here, and they aren’t the best of the bunch honestly. I just feel like Harvey is at her best when she’s explosive and vulnerable and visceral in her performances, like sole of the vocal runs on “The Whores Hustle and the Hustles Whore”.

An album thats the proper amount of challenging and rewarding all the way through. I have a lot of respect and not much else to say. Just go listen. 4/5

A uniquely 90’s record that tries to make the most of the seemingly bleak world it was born out of.

“Ponderosa” was the first track that caught my attention, it’s probably the brightest and most melodic of the bunch.

“Black Steel” is a great protest/struggle song that took a sharp punk turn for its chorus. Is this a Public Enemy cover? That would make a lot of sense.

Another aspect about this album is how overtly intimate it is. Sometimes, it’s done well, like on “Suffocated Love”. A sing about how two people at their wits end view love, how one uses intimacy as a means to an end, and the other hopes marriage will lift them out of their struggles for good. Then there’s tracks like “Abbaon Fat Tracks” which just have some lines that are so out of left field that they end up being distracting.

The last song I liked was “You Dont”, mostly for its instrumental.

Let’s give this a firm 3/5. It lives a bit in the shadow of Massive Attack / Portishead, but still holds a specific, unique space

A very peculiar album in that it kinda just does whatever it wants with its exploration of genres. Most of it revolves around pop, but there’s some covers in here, some very dramatic 80’s ballads, and even some more intimate/mellow songs like “San Jose” which is just bossa nova outta no where.

The “War” cover is the best of the bunch, a very updated take on the classic that still retains the heart of its original. The “Born To Run” cover didn’t do as much for me, I kinda just wanted to listen to the original afterwards.

Some tight compositions and solid musicianship thats all just missing an X factor imo. Respectful 3/5

Really impressive first half of the album that faded into more predictability over the second half. Still a very fun listen. I’m sure there are Dolly Parton vocal comparisons all over the reviews.

Some standouts are “Boulder To Birmingham” for its great chorus, and “For No One” was nice too.

Firm 3/5, a little more variation towards the back half of the record would boost this to the moon

I think I’ve said this about the other Jesus And Mary Chain album, but I get the appeal. I hear the good. It’s a nice mixture of 80’s pop sounds, early shoegaze, and a some gothic aesthetics. I’m not gonna bother listening again, but there’s a time and place for these guys.

My favorite song was “Cherry Came Too”. Soft 3/5