Reviews by kuvien

One of my favorite things to do while listening to EL&P is to go find two diametrically-opposed reviews of them and laugh at how polarizing a band can be to the listening public. This album is like a peasant woman dressed up to go to a fancy ball, and when she gets there, the noble ladies ask her, "Who made this astonishing dress?" She admits she did, and they are incredulous. Back at home later that night, she holds he dress up in the moonlight and admires its craftsmanship. "I don't see what's wrong with it," she muses to herself.

The sister album to Handel's "Messiah".

Newsom expertly weaves imagery like brocade, bringing anecdote, metaphor, allegory, and literary allusion into her beautiful harp music, couching all her charming storytelling in a most excellent, educated diction that cannot help but delight the enlightened listener as she renders the mundane magical. If other music is homeless-by-choice people picking off crows in the barn for their supper, this music is a family in a warm house sitting down to a dinner of lamb.

This is a weird one. Is it technically a live album or technically a studio album? It's both. Kinda. They wanted to do a live album because that's where Waits thrived. Got him in that rare jazz mood where he can rattle off the coolest one-liners you'll ever hear. But the venues around town were "toilets" in the 70s, so they decided to just invite some people into the studio for two nights to do a live show--but they recorded it using studio equipment in a studio environment. So some people criticize this recording for being fake. Bohemian coffeehouse cool oozes from this album, Waits standing there with a drink in one hand, a cigarette in the other, as he swaggers and stumbles around the microphone, doing what he does best: lowering the temperature of the room with the coolest anecdotes around. Some real laugh-out-loud moments sprinkled here.

Is this consumer-obsessed society we've built on the blood of soldiers worth it? The fear at the center of all our frenzied consumption hangs like a pall over our white-washed suburban lives, and we stagnate in our gardens as the walls of our empire fall around our ears.

John Grant is an excellent songwriter, creating heartfelt, engaging tunes like what you'll hear on this near-perfect album. Even when he's corny, like on "Sigourney Weaver", it's clear he's being so on purpose. It's charming!

By the way, what is it with gay people and wanting to go to Mars?

Fuck it. This is my favorite White Stripes album precisely because it doesn't sound like White Blood Cells or Elephant. I just prefer this sound, songs that aren't non-stop guitar-jamming drum-slamming.

How often does it take a band 11 albums to reach their best work? It’s quite a feat. Well, I guess that’s what heartbreak and drama do: they make for good creative output. This album is an emotional roller-coaster, the heights of the romantic joy being commensurate with the depths of rejection’s and uncertainty’s despair. The album is also perfectly titled, alluding not only to insecurity but to the idea that everyone is talking behind everyone else’s back.

Despite his beloved reputation, Bruce Springsteen sucks.

Something even the kids will like!

The murder of Al Green is horrific and inappropriate.

I always feel like King Crimson are masters at story-building. Not telling. Building. Each part of each song is a meticulous structure deliberately constructed, creating a sonic story. Also, and this may just be me, but parts of this album, like "The Talking Drum", sound like post-rock before post-rock was a recognized genre, and in these interludes it feels like Crimson is building a prelude to the story that comes in the more standard progressive rock moments of the album.

Our favorite little swan takes to flight and abandons the dancefloor, much to the dismay of all the clubgoers, but alights at last upon a steeple, and in her sudden and unexpected flight she brings along a chorus of voices, inspired by her own natural instrument and ready to experiment with her. Take your time. Breathe. Concentrate. Or not. It doesn't matter. The song actually sings itself, and you can consciously add to it or let yourself be unconsciously swept along. Why not try both?

Not sure what I can say other than parrot the buzzwords that flock around this album like persistent birds: genius, smooth, exquisite. That's enough. Every track is brilliant, of course, but my favorites are "Blame It on the Sun" and "I Believe". With this album, I finally got my friends to stop sleeping on Stevie and, at least in part, appreciate his groove, funk, and genius.

A damn tedious waste of an hour.

The admonition not to go near the water is sadly even more powerful a damnation today than it was in 1971. Look how much we’ve learned and how little anyone gives a shit! That dude on the album cover is us. Surf’s up, and it’s plastic wrappers and bottles from a sea of garbage.

Just Welch and Rawlings, co-writing and wielding their guitars on a quiet collection of excellent, stripped-down American folk tunes with some deep, intelligent lyrics rich in metaphor. And Welch's voice... just timeless and iconic. It's everything you want American music to sound like. Her woven lyric imagery is superb, detailing the American experience in every moment, from the time of Lincoln through the time of Elvis all the way up to the moment of pondering a broken heart over a whisky and water.

Put on the lipstick and eye shadow. Hold your guitar for me, right out there in front of you.

Like everything with this band, this album has a lot of history, and that history is pretty rocky. The band wasn’t looking to make a copy of their wildly famous *Rumours*, and Buckingham had very different ideas for this recording, even going to far as to be a bit on the experimental side. The title track, by the way, is unassailable. Pretty much the best thing the band ever did.

When they found Frankie Carbone in the meat truck, it took them three days to thaw him out before they could do an autopsy.