Reviews by kuvien

The lyrics are all over the place, exemplified by the first (and probably most famous) track on this album. It's kind of a jumbled mess, but in a charming way--but not the powerful snapshots of Dylan's genius brain like on "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall". For me, the most powerful statement on this album isn't the call to follow the Tambourine Man but rather Dylan's scathing criticism of the materialistic, war-mongering, hypocritical society he saw all around him expressed on "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)". This is where his lyricism shines, the intense, monotone vocal delivery matching the grim imagery. Is anything sacred anymore? Nothing was back then. What about now?

A masterpiece on so many levels I cannot really enumerate all the ways. Sometimes an artist will make an album that is special, in a class of its own, and head and shoulders above anything else their peers were doing. This is such an album. The fires of inspiration really cooked Stevie in the brewing of this critical and fan darling of a gem. There’s a lot more going on here than just bright, fun singalong songs. He deals with some pretty dark themes, exploring despair with the same energy he extols hope, and there’s quite a spicy mix of funk thrown into the soul.

This is my favorite Pogues album, but that’s a safe bet anyway. I mean come on! This album has everything The Pogues are: drinking, death, a proclivity to engage in fisticuffs, swearing, and drinking. Oh did I say “drinking” twice? Well, that sounds about right. By the way, this might just be the best named album of all time. The only gripe I have about this album is that I greatly prefer Woody Guthrie’s “Jesus Christ” to The Pogues’ “Jesse James”. The final track is gutting, and since you've already had your whiskey by the time you get to the end of the album, your ears are just about ready to hear the tragic tale of "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda". Your heart's just about ready for the lazy horns expressing the dull pain of a mangled soldier.

"Skin on skin, let the love begin... women!" Wow, this album is worse than I remembered. Aged like milk.

Again, I’m not an expert in jazz, and especially not in anything outside the fusion subgenre, but Monk is always a pleasant listen. Smooth and cool without being smooth or cool jazz. Rollins, Chambers, and Roach feature here, and they’re exquisite, just the kind of guys a weird and demanding band leader like Monk needs to play his challenging compositions.

This one feels like a clear, definite journey. Quite forward moving, at different rates of acceleration. The craft you’re in dives from the clear sky and plunges into the sea, where you turn on the floodlights and lay bare the mysteries of the deep. The ascent from the sea is not merely a return to the atmosphere but beyond into naked space.

I could write an essay about each and every Elliott Smith song. There’s just so much to unpack, so many metaphors, so many sad yet clever turns of phrase, so many poignant observations. So what about this album? Well, this one has two particular holds on my affection: “Pictures of Me” is the first Elliott Smith song I ever heard, and “Say Yes” might just be the most beautiful song I’ve ever heard. He’s damaged bad at best.

Al Green’s pure vision of love always inspires me. He’s just so damn wholesome, never running around playing, but seeking the natural end of love: to give himself completely to one woman for life. I love the touches of his sweet, sexy falsetto. Also this album has one of the best covers of any song ever: Green’s rendition of the Gibb brothers’ “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?” I believe him when he sings.

This is vile, so of course many of you degenerates will laud this.

I’m sorry. I just can’t find it in my heart to give Zep any of the shit they often receive from the haters. I love their albums, and I love what they did with their “borrowed” material. I guess I just let the music be my master. The band has so much raw sexual energy that as a man I just can’t resist them. The opening of “Kashmir” gets me every time, like something big is coming and I better get ready!

Yeah, progressing right along the autobahns of the world of Tron, where all the cars run on solar energy and drive themselves. But I’m actually more interested in what’s going on off the road, beyond the ditches and in the vast, dark forests of metal leaves that cut like razors.

Close ups. Big lipstick lips. Glitter. Come hither looks. Baby baby baby fa la la la la. As sexy rocking as crooning. Not much more to say about the boyish charm of this sexy album.

I love when folk has this weird, carnival feeling to it. There's something about the freakiness of a carnival that fascinates me, like this place where all the misfits congregate. It's a place for outsiders, but it's not a haven. It's just another place, like Pleasant Street. The psychedelic instrumentation is beautiful and mysterious, perfectly demonstrating what Buckley is singing, like how his lover just vanishes, as if the music itself has blown or carried her away. Almost every song is filled with feelings of trepidation and uncertainty about his romantic relationships. If I didn't know better, Buckley could've convinced me that love is lonely and fake.

I wonder if our alien progenitors will have mercy on ungraceful people like me when they return to check up on their colony, to see if we've learned the lessons of Funk, to observe the glides in our strides and the dips in our hips. I am sorely lacking in this department, but perhaps the funk-aliens will beam me up and teach me something of which this music is but a prelude.

These guys just have it. They’ve got what it takes to make catchy, quirky, fun art pop songs that are refreshing in their sarcasm and complexity.

For me, this is the glam rock album par excellence. Bowie, who started off as a folk singer, made the switch to rock and decided to create alter egos he could explore on stage. In later interviews, he said it was because he didn't know himself and was searching--fair enough! We all reap the benefit of his quest for self discovery. On stage, in the 1970s, Bowie was a very different person than he was off. He became a new person as he adopted each disguise. And Ziggy is perhaps his most famous disguise: a rock-star alien doomed in his quest to save the Earth, an alien complete with orange hair, fantastic makeup, and futuristic costumes. Ziggy Stardust is musical role-playing at its finest without being musical theater. The lyrics of the album create vivid images in the mind of the listener as the vocals shift from person to person within a song. The music is more subtle, though it is full of vocal and instrumental hooks that make every song memorable. Ziggy is mysterious but demands attention, he is simultaneously accessible and ambiguous, and in this creation, Bowie raises role-playing to an art form.

Innocence and faerie tales vs. reality and disillusion. This whole album is the diary of a young man’s coming of age, with all its attendant rebellion against the systems under which he was reared. This is all about the internal changes that come with the cold confrontations a young person must reckon with when becoming an adult. “FX” feels like some kind of calibration, a preparation for the quest that subsequently unfolds, a search to recapture the magic of youth. Serenity follows madness.

I feel like the music is building a shell around me to protect me from a fake, broken world and all its fake, broken people. Except that I’m inside the shell, and I am also of the world, crippled and searching in vain for Neverland.

As everyone already knows, this album it is based on time signatures unusual for jazz, lending a double meaning to the title. The music is cool, so you can take some time out of your day while you appreciate the weird timing of the jazz, a taste of rare meters not seen in Western music of the time. An interesting moment of experimentation.

“Radio Cure” is so fucking sad, and the fact that the song is trying to cheer someone up makes it even sadder because of its utter failure to do so. For some reason, this song reminds me of something Radiohead would do. It also reminds me, ironically, of a line of Shakespearean poetry:

“My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill.”

Basically, listening to music like this to help yourself feel better is a vicious circle. Don’t worry. The ambient outro will help you decompress (co-depress?).

I feel like this album is a very good example of manic depression, because some of the songs are really sad and other songs have this rollicking alt-country vibe that's faking like everything's okay.