Reviews by kuvien

I finally figured out what "odelay" is. Odelay is that feeling when you've written your will on the only piece of paper you could find, which happened to be a three-dollar bill, you try to do the hot-dog dance with a paper bag on your head, but all you can think about is having one last cigarette, but you don't how you're going to hold it when you've only got one finger and it's pointing at the noose hanging over the door, a hemp knot beckoning you to fallow fields where your bankrupt corpse will be laid, but then you're not sure if you can trust that promise when, with your last dying moment of consciousness, you hear a donkey braying outside your window.

Elliott is one of those artists who you often see referred to as a life-saver, as in his music helped people out so much that it helped them make sense of their pain and alienation, etc etc, and perhaps put them on a healthier life path. I don't get that. Elliott is an excellent songwriter, however, with so much pathos and honesty packed into every track, so I guess I can see how some people have looked to him as their savior. It's weird, though.

Such a mystical meandering of mysterious music from the late 60s, from a band that would morph into something (equally splendid, btw) that would sound nothing like this. This is a conjuration of psychedelic musical spirits caught in the organ and the dreamy guitar. The drumming and the laughter--at times quite tribal in feel. Like a religious ceremony. And then they turn around and sing silly songs about gnomes, gingerbread men, and aging mice named Gerald. Splendid!

This is why you get a prenup, gents!

A lot of music nerds shit on this band because they think ELP is pretentious, just showing off for hours and boring their listeners to tears. But that's just showing off. That's not pretension. They're all about setting a mood; it's about building a sonic environment in which one can play and explore. The people at the concert seem to dig what ELP is doing.

I've listened to this album more times than I can remember. I'm not a jazz aficionado, and I don't think I ever will be. The genre is just too big, and I know so little about it. I know what sounds good to me, and this is one of my favorites. Although I prefer straight jazz fusion, the funky elements on this album carry an infectious happiness I cannot deny. I guess my tastes run more toward the mainstream. I dunno. All I know is this album gets everyone moving, no matter how much melanin may or may not be in your epidermis.

Warm yet sparse atmosphere with beautiful guitar picking and evocative yet simple vocals. Looks like the needle of death can get to folk singers, too.

I imagine one doesn't get into the Crimson King's court without an audition in which the moorings of your mind are thoroughly examined. Do you question war, religion; do you have equal love for pastoral flutes and jazz-rock? Have you committed William Faulkner's Nobel prize acceptance speech to memory?* Welcome. I hear bits of this album strung far and wide across prog rock's 70s heyday, from its smooth, streamlined full-bodied sound to its minimalist experimental textures.

*(an excerpt) "Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? ... It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last dingdong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking."

Embarrassingly bad.

Everything I hate about this godforsaken hobby that I have unfortunately gotten myself into.

There’s so much mystique surrounding this album. This is the only Bowie work where I’m caught up in the non-music considerations associated with it: he knew he had cancer, he kept it a secret from the public, and he made this album while in considerable pain and suffering, the title track and “Lazarus” being clear meditations not only on death but on the imminent end to his artistic voice. This is my Kennedy assassination album. My mom tells me that everyone from her generation knows exactly where they were the moment they heard about the murder. The events of my life at the death of David Bowie are etched into my memory.

The night before I heard the news, I was playing D&D with my friends. I was playing a flamboyant bard based on Bowie’s illimitable stage role-playing ability. Some of my friends weren’t too familiar with Bowie’s different stage looks, so I got my phone out, googled him, and was showing his photos around the table. And then I just gushed on and on about what wonderful an artist—not just singer but artist—Bowie is. It didn’t take long for eyes to glaze over. Oh well. The next morning I was at the store and got a message from my friend telling me Bowie had died. I just stopped stunned in the aisle. And can you believe it: “Space Oddity” was playing on the store’s system. My wife, who shops there often, told me the song was part of that month’s rotation, so it wasn’t like the manager threw on some Bowie in tribute. It was just a coincidence, but it was one with powerful meaning for me. I was playing a Bowie character, had just been praising him, now to find out he’s dead, with one of his songs playing in a random place.

Later that evening, my friend brought over a bottle of whiskey, and we drank it while listening to our favorite Bowie songs. He actually has more songs about death / transcendence than one might realize. Anyway, about this album: it’s got it all. Bowie doesn’t stick to one style but uses his swan song to do what he’s always done—stretch his wings and not be content with one thing. He mixes jazz and even electronic into the tracks. By the way, if you’re into vinyl, the LP packaging is lovely, including a beautiful booklet with some fine art and photography.

I think this album is great, and I actually like it more than any of their previous albums. Maybe I like sell-out sounds? After all, I think American Idiot is Green Day's best album. There's so much I love about the atmosphere of Green, and "Orange Crush" is as good as R.E.M. gets.

I'm sure plenty of Zappa fans out there will disagree with my assessment of the man as a musician, but to me, his music always strikes me as meta-music. Like, he can't switch off. He can't just make a song for normal enjoyment and consumption. There's always a sense of him standing just outside a group of musicians and saying, "hey guys we're musicians. We make music. That's what we do. That's what we're doing. We're making music. We're musicians, and we make music." Instead of just making music. I mean, he does make music, of course, but it's always conscious of it *being* music, which is why he plays in so many styles and is always experimenting. It's all a kind of puzzle to him. I've listened to a lot of his music--a lot--and I've seen Baby Snakes and other nonsense. He's not a rock star. He's not enjoying himself. He's like a marionette master, manipulating his fans and micro-managing his band. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just why Zappa stands apart from every other artist in my collection. He is an outsider. He's too smart for his own good. I guess that's the hallmark of every good satirist.

Literally one of the worst albums ever made.

Straight-up, no-frills rock n roll, featuring the confident "Born on the Bayou" opener and the rollicking, wonderful "Proud Mary" as the penultimate track. Don't talk; just listen, and feel the music down in your guts.

Meandering music that knows exactly where it's going. A contradiction, but it works. You can smell the swamp...and the gumbo. Come on over. There's plenty for everyone. Grab a spoon and dig in. I cannot help but feel that Dr. John was, at his core, a happy person.

This album is the chronicle of excessive appetites of youth, desiring to experience everything, visit every place, and taste every person. The sun is shining, so smile like Iggy.

They say this is a transitional album for the band, and I can definitely hear it. You’ve got these brighter and rockier songs, like “Million Dollar Bash” (which isn’t really that good), mitigating against the more powerful tracks like “A Sailor’s Life” (Child Ballad?). For me, this is the centerpiece of the album. It’s a sprawling psychedelic track that starts off quite minimally, building its evocations as it swells in its progression, detailing the dangerous realities of a sailor’s life. Melodramatic songs like this don’t seem to sit well with modern sensibilities, however. Having said that, dying for love and all that is a trope as old as the hills. This album is more than just a soothing female voice over mellow tunes—there’s some meat here.

I would've given this 2 stars, but I knocked a star off for it being a double album. Bore me with a single album, not a double, you cunts!

I get a sense of bewilderment and sense of place-less-ness from these songs, and not just because of the album title, though that helps, since it's also the name of and theme of one of the songs. A sense of searching but being lost, seeking but not finding (the girl) purpose. Spinning in circles, going nowhere, a bit confused, wandering and lonely. I love how Young explains in the liner notes that sometimes a song with an ostensible story is actually just about sex. Notkoff's squealing violin on "Running Dry" is so damn haunting and beautiful, regret in music form. And "Cowgirl in the Sand" is one of the greatest, most epic album closers of all time. Young isn't the first or the last to sing of "the woman in you", as if woman is possessed by some feminine anima that makes them behave in a way that makes men fear. And that male frustration vents itself in those guitar solos.