Reviews by korb

A vibrant and at times jubilant sounding album, with subject matter that is almost entirely anything but. The production and the energy of the album lives right on the outer edge of the uncanny valley of pop, that draws you in with its quirk and curiosity.

OK, so you have to appreciate this album, because it contains 'Take on Me', which you either enjoy ironically or you loved because of the music video.

Beyond that, it's a boy and his synthesizer, and if that's all it is then I'd rather be listening to Wesley Willis.

I can't help but think of Ludwig Wittgenstain's quote that "the limits of my language means the limits of my world", when I hear an album like this. It's an amazing thing, when something entirely new enters into the world, because before it there were just some unstructured inklings waiting to be connected. Then after it, there is a blueprint and a new path for anyone that wants to follow and build on it.

This album is elegantly simple and spectacularly raw. The fusion of reggae/dub and punk, with an Avant Garde and art-house affect is sublime. I'd point to 'Newtown', with its punchy guitars, high-hat and tom laden drums, matchbox and dropped silverware utility percussion, and the moaning and vibrato vocals, as a perfect example of what I'm talking about.

While it is uncomfortable for me to point out the importance of this also being an all-female band, because I wish we lived in a world where that wasn't something extraordinary at all, I am glad that these women were who they were, had the environments they had, and gave this music to the world. In turn, they gave the language for many in the world to move past the limits they didn't fully comprehend a way past yet.

This feels like an artist in transition, whose footing in both folk and psychedelia is somewhat unsure as they find their new place. I feel like 'Ferris Wheel' shows what a really good balance would sound like, which also carries with it aspects of what I enjoyed from Nick Drake's work. On the whole though, I wasn't all that into 'Sunshine Superman'.

The title track, 'Title Music (Shalimar)', is great! When I heard that I was stoked for the album to come. From there, it was a pretty even split though. Tracks like 'Countess' Caper', 'Naag Devta', and 'Baby Let's Dance Together' kept the same vibe going, while the rest either made me want to rip my headphones off or just kind of bored me. Perhaps if most of the tracks didn't sound like a one-track dub off of an old television speaker, there would've been more to enjoy.

In any case, I'm really happy to see more international representation on the list and I'll definitely be adding 'Title Music' to my playlist.

I'll stick with Radiohead, thanks.

Note to self - add this band to my "venture capital presentation backtrax" playlist. While engaging at times, and definitely a sound that has been revisited by many bands since, it all just falls into the background until you barely realize you're listening to music at all.

How a band can sustain playing and performing full tilt like this, is beyond me. I call the genre coke punk because I always assumed they were working under the influence of one coke or the other.

The explosive energy of the group is heightened by the album's brilliant production, which makes the guitars sound like their being played with razor blades and that the drums are sitting in the room right next to me. The constant force of the songs makes the already pithy 12 songs in 28 minutes, breeze right by.

Tracy Chapman is a powerful voice, both melodically and lyrically. This album vividly depicts a desperate slice of life with a passion and a clarity that you can't easily ignore or shake.

This is an especially wild album to listen through, with the hindsight of 40 years of hip-hop and rap progression in mind.

It goes without saying that this album was revolutionary for its role in popularizing a sound and bringing at least a couple different genres into the mainstream. What I find especially interesting is how refined this album is compared to so much of the hip-hop and rap music since.

I dig that many of the samples are supplemented with live instrumental accompaniments. When I see other hip-hop/rap performances on Tiny Desk, or I hear tracks produced by folks like Pharrel, I hear the influences of this album running through.

The performances are tight and playful. I can appreciate tracks that are hard to keep up with because the artist is performing at a blistering speed, but I have no patience for all of the slurring and mumbling that has become especially popular in genres like trap.

What really stands out is that the whole group, throughout the entire album refers to women as "ladies" and "girls" instead of derogatory terms. One of the members of the crew even has verses in 'It's Nasty' about how content he is in a monogamous relationship. I'm not trying to say that all music needs to be clean and pristine, but I do think there is a value to finding a better middle ground and I appreciate artists like Tribe Called Quest and Tobe Nwigwe that are deliberate about it.

The album maintains this standard even while telling the story of a darker and harder reality in tracks like 'It's a Shame', 'The Message' and 'Message II'.

The very thing that makes this album compelling is also what makes this album one that I'll likely never put on heavy rotation. Its unapologetic intensity is both captivating and exhausting. The elements of hip-hop appeal to your rhythm and soul, while the precisely selected and timed lyrics charge your mind, and the industrial musical palette grind across all of the grains refusing to let your senses relax. That is, until the track 'Music And Politics', which is a jazzy and vibrant guitar jam paired with a self-effacing analysis spoken over the top. The album remains intense, but on a different level, for that one track. Then back to the program.

The album overall is as avant-garde as it is gritty and real. Comparisons to Gil Scott-Heron, Public Enemy, Arrested Development, and industrial aspects of groups Nine Inch Nails, Ministry and White Zombie are all apt, but also only represent pieces of the picture.

I could only get about halfway into 'Master of Puppets' before I literally could not handle it anymore. My physical reaction to the cognitive dissonance was just too intense. I can see how this idea would've piqued music executive interests enough to back it, but the end result is as awkward as an arranged marriage. I really wish I had never heard this album.

While I appreciate it for what it is, I don't much care for it myself, and by the time I get about 5 songs in, I'm itching to turn it off.

What I can appreciate is the format they popularized and cleared a space (however niche) for. To the extent that groups like the Decemberists have space for their rich storytelling, and bands like Titus Andronicus (on 'The Monitor' specifically) drunkenly slur over their roiling tunes, I can appreciate the place that the Pogues occupy on this list.

There is an urgency, a conscience, a soulfulness, and a solemnity to this album that I find enthralling and encouraging.

Black Lives Matter!

... and the fact that there has to be a movement and a slogan and marches and lives lost to get people to understand that fact is absurd. And yet, despite the struggle and the forces at play against this foundational truth, there are those that find beautiful ways to make that phrase ring in the ears and minds of many. That hopefulness and creativity in the face of struggle, is an inspiration and a reminder to others that we can all be the good we want to see in the world.

Unlike the other punk bands of the mid-seventies, whose stripped-down aesthetic was born as a counter-expression to the self-indulgent trappings of prog-rock, the Ramones strike me as a group that just wanted to make the simplest and most straight forward musical expression they could. Whatever their motives, the album is beautifully concise in every way possible, and I think that gives it an appeal and an authenticity that has made it as influential as it has become. You can hear this album, feel this album when it's cranked, and then you can hop on your instrument of choice and start cranking out the same straight forward sounds. And if these four goofy looking dudes could make it happen, then so can you!

Nope.

I suspect this album is here mostly because of 'Summertime Blues', so I'm not so sure this was an album that I had to hear, as much as a song.

In general, I dig the distorted blues rock vibe with gravelly vocals. Unfortunately, it's really hard to get over the poor audio quality; it's like they just put a mic in the middle of their garage and hit the record button. As such, I can't really get into the album all that much.

This album is technically marvelous and musically vibrant. Any given track features only a handful of performers, and yet each sound like a group the scale of an orchestra was involved. I really appreciate that the instrumentals were left to stand on their own.

I just can't connect with it. I don't like the pace of the tracks, I don't enjoy the blend of synthesized and real instruments, and I don't like the claustrophobic effect of reverb on everything.

For some reason I've struggled to describe the album or what I think about it. It's excitingly novel in a lot of ways but also chaotic and seemingly unconcerned with its moderately shabby presentation.

What's clear is this is an album where the lyrics and the topics they cover are meant to take front stage. The album is lyrically sharp and poignant at points ('Some Mother's Son') and tongue-in-cheek at others ('Yes sir, No Sir', 'Platic Man'), which makes it hard to figure out how to take other tracks ('Drivin').

For their part, the arrangements are floating along merrily, but they feel so far in the background that it's hard to focus on them long enough (over the singers) to gather a clear impression. Tracks like 'Mindless Child of Motherhood' and 'The Man He Weeps Tonight', give some of the clearest pictures of the groups' cohesion and power.

It is a powerful and ironically complex and it's one that I'm definitely going to be coming back to again and again.