Reviews by kuvien

This is one of those albums that is so good it stuns me into silence, and it's a struggle to think of anything to write. How can I do it justice with my commentary? Well, here goes. Mass destruction, mass death, and mass brainwashing are the order of the day. Mix mechanized slavery and the Bomb into this, and you have a recipe for mass drug use to numb ourselves from the bleak reality of this dystopia we're all living in. I mean, what's worth living for anymore? That's the societal commentary here. But you know what? That music! So beautiful and calming. Let it sweep your paranoia and sadness away.

"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?" --William Faulkner, 1950

If this is a concept album, it’s pretty loose. Or at least it seems that way to me. That’s not a detraction, by the way. It’s just the style of the album...there are moments where the psychedelic overtone of the music pulls the art out of its narrative and just does its own thing. It’s like a writer using fancy speech tags instead of just using “said”. A stylistic choice.

This epic album is a long mumbling fumbling trip. It's weird, though, hearing a Japanese lead singer of a German band singing in English. Take a long walk, drive, or bike ride of exploration with this one, and do it at the changing of something--like a sunrise or a sunset. Or the first day of spring, or the last day of summer. Find out what your future days are going to be like. You won't be disappointed.

When you’re coming down, in the middle of the night, when all is quiet and the candles have burned low, turn this record on, step out on your balcony, smoke a cigarette, look at the stars, and know that life is beautiful and everything will be all right. Glowing, magical anchor’s away!

The first three tracks get me drunk without alcohol ever passing my lips. After the mad dance, I have to sit down to catch my breath, and a beautiful, heartbroken fairytale is waiting for me, telling me about life's hopes destroyed by alcoholism. OK. I've caught my breath. Back on my feet! Not much inspires me to dance-oh.

This is, of course, one of those albums where you wonder if spilling any more ink is even worth the time it takes to do so. Whatever. Might as well add my thoughts. Clearly this is an album of extreme mood swings, and the sound of the music demonstrates that, swinging from unbridled rock energy ("Rock and Roll") to acoustic delicacy ("The Battle of Evermore"), from idealism to destruction. "Stairway" reconciles the two as the album's centerpiece. But I love the fragility of the last two songs: yes, fragility. Obviously "Going to California" sounds fragile, and it is, but "When the Levee Breaks", though it doesn't sound at all fragile, is about...the levee breaking. We hear the roaring wind, the driving rain, and the crashing waves, but at the heart of it all is the levee breaking and the destruction that brings. Better flee to California. I hear there's a girl out there who's never been born. Run away towards something that doesn't exist.

one of the worst albums of all time

Does anyone else feel that the vocals sometimes resemble a rockabilly style? Or is it just my broken ears? Anyway, if I were king of the world, my first law would be the banning of all personal motorized vehicles.

The Dark Horse emerges at last on this album with “Something”, the first ever non-Lennon/McCartney Beatles’ single. When it went #1 in America, Lennon’s estimation of it being the best song on the album was clearly justified. After all, it was Lennon’s idea to finally give Harrison a single release, to help give his bandmate courage and confidence in songwriting. The greatness of Harrison thus further emerges with this song and with “Here Comes the Sun”.

As everyone knows, this is the Beatles’ final album, as it was released before but recorded after Let It Be and the imminent breakup of the band is painted all over the music. The Fab Four didn’t enjoy working together anymore, and their ability to make music together suffered. They knew they were breaking up, and they wanted to leave as the greatest band in history. Are they? In America, Abbey Road is their biggest selling album, but is it their best? Twelve of the 17 tracks first surfaced during the “Get Back” sessions, and thus some songs got days of attention, whereas others received very little focus. Some songs are just fragments, highlighting two things: the band’s fatigue and Lennon’s divided attention (Yoko and heroin). What happens in the end, therefore, is the throwing of all these fragments into a medley, one last, great run before the band breaks up, one final “hurrah!”

As far as I know, abortion was legal in 2001. This album therefore didn't have to exist.

Trash.

You know that certain kind of crazy person who convinces you he's not crazy (despite his former erratic behavior), you believe him because he seems so convincing, but then he ends up being crazy anyway? Well, that's this album. It's schizophrenic at its core, not knowing what it is--or rather, intensely knowing what it is in a precise moment, but then forgetting when it moves into a new moment, thus knowing itself once again anew. So many fractured pieces coming together, coalescing in a unified musical statement at the end of Side A, convincing the listener, in the quiet moments of flipping over the vinyl, that all is well. This deception continues in the calm, pastoral phrasings of the beginning of Side B, only to shock you out of your complacency with a punch of the piano keys, howling at the moon, and growling in gibberish. This insanity returns with a full-on mad carousel ride.

God save this and that, whatever rhymes. So begins the tongue-in-cheek themes surrounding the village green, tying together a very loose concept of sketching out characters from Anywhere, UK, including the more unsavory village types, like the hoodlum and the prozzie. It’s all a kind of false walk down Memory Lane. You know, the place where Walter used to stroll? Anyway, a fine place to escape to when things get rough or hectic.

Wildly inappropriate cover art.

https://media.tenor.com/sHWFG0eUKcQAAAAd/jonah-jameson-crap.gif

Another unassailable classic by the soul genius. Topical themes of racism and injustice, yet still ringing true today, right along with themes of goodness, love, and beauty. I love how well-rounded Stevie is as a songwriter, not afraid to explore themes that might be unpopular on all sides of the fence. Effortlessly smooth.

I hate this band.

I try not to let meta biographical considerations influence my judgment of music, but every time I hear this, I just shake my head in awe: the dude was hungry, sleep-deprived, and playing on a out-of-tune practice piano with badly-working pedals. And it was almost midnight when the concert got started. The way Jarrett is able to take all that and just go with it and manipulate the piano in the middle register is just amazing. And those little moans and wails throughout, adding just the right touch of soul to it all. It all melts away into such a sublime beauty that could be the soundtrack to monarch butterflies migrating. Look up! Look around you!

I just want to put on a flannel shirt and sit on the front porch of a cabin in the wooded foothills of some frosty morning. This album is just so effortlessly beautiful, like the mountains.

Apparently this album was played a lot at college parties. Since I missed that whole scene, I am able to enjoy this album. This is, however, one of the most front-loaded albums I've ever heard. As a bonus, I love how they got Joanna Newsom to play the mom in the video of "Kids". That song is such an earworm that everything after it on the album, though good, suffers by comparison.