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Reviews by kuvien

QuadropheniaThe Who

6/10

Without getting into the actual plot of the music or the film, these are my general impressions of just the music (without narrative). When you feel the world is against you, when the idea of social conformity frightens you, when no one (including yourself) knows the real you, when none of the street fights you've brawled in or halls you've danced in can provide any answers to the burning questions of your youth, this album is for you. This is youthful rebellion standing up and declaring that all the virtue of the world is contained in youth. I especially enjoy the sound bytes from TV and other pop culture, giving me a slice of life experience. A water motif runs throughout this opera, which makes the wordplay of "rain" and "reign" on the album's ultimate track all the better.

“Weird Al” Yankovic“Weird Al” Yankovic

2/10

His original songs and *style* parodies (like "Genius in France" or "Albuquerque") are excellent of course, but his full albums are trash because every single parody of an actual song is fucking trash.

First UtteranceComus

10/10

Oh...the magical year that is 1971! This album pulls no punches. It’s unapologetically pagan, especially in its exploration of rape. I can see how it might be unsettling for the modern listener, but just read a little mythology and see how common the theme of ravishment is. And I use the word “ravish” advisedly. I’ve listened to this many times, and each time I listen, I focus on a different aspect of it, from the overall impression of the world that I perceived--a world larger than life--to the feeling that everything in a pagan forest is simultaneously both brighter and darker--the contrasts are more stark, the colors more vivid. Everything about it is more. This is probably the best pagan (music) fanfic ever made. For film, it's obviously "The Wicker Man". Some pagans play the Christians at their own game: "yes yes, you go to receive your martyr's crown, and we use your blood to rejuvenate the soil, so what are you whining about?" I warn you to pay the Herald no mind, and if you heed not my warning, well, then, you get what's coming to you.

Cold FactRodriguez

10/10

He was birthed by the inner city. The dirty streets are his dam, the prostitute back alleys his mother. The symbolism of the album cover is no mistake: he's in his womb, and he's above the city. But the womb is one of his own making, the womb of his untouchable heart. He's wrapped himself in it like armor, protecting himself from...everything, and more importantly, from everyone. He sings of social problems, but they don't seem to affect him directly. He's outside looking in. He's in his calm bubble. He sings of what could be personal problems, but he doesn't really have any, since he eschews personal relationships.

Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?of Montreal

10/10

Barnes is talented, there’s no doubt about that. Even a talented dude sometimes needs a muse to excel beyond even his own abilities, and that’s just what he does on this album. Barnes has a lot of decent albums, but nothing that really grabs me the way this and The Sunlandic Twins do. Nina is certainly the best thing that ever happened to him and his creative spark. Too bad things didn’t work out between them, but it’s not surprising considering what an insufferable narcissist Barnes is. There are some brutal cut-downs on this album, but it’s all so goooood. There’s so much hubris on display here that it would be sickening if it weren’t wrapped up so perfectly in a pop candy wrapper and delivered so convincingly by Georgie Fruit. More things than gender are bent on this record.

Latin MassOs Mundi

8/10

Liturgical abuses...liturgical abuses everywhere! They even had a drum kit in the chapel. *shudder*