Reviews by londonhawkredux

NOT happy I've had to listen to Randy Newman twice now.

Beautiful. Almost too beautiful. I'm not sure I could listen to it everyday, but it's certainly a remarkable collection of simple "man with guitar" songs.

Rated starts at -1 for making me listen to that god awful opener again. No. JUST NO. Beyond that, some vaguely acceptable urban funky beats thrown down (Step it Up probably the best effort here), but the appeal remains elusive to me.

As a child born in the 80s in the UK, I obviously don't get the cultural, historic context of the Dead. It's clearly pleasing enough in that country / rock / "whoops, I've overdone the LSD again" genre - but perhaps this is one of the most "you don't know man, you weren't there" bands ever.

I'd love to be young again and be able to last 15 minutes.

Nostalgia is a powerful thing. Whilst reading the other reviews, I wondered "is it going to be as good as I remember it being". And yes, I get the "boring lift-music" criticism. But this is a beautiful, beautiful thing to be treasured.

Kinda bleepy-bloopy no? Possibly the soundtrack to a film starring ......... Wesley Snipes maybe. Yeah, strange inclusion

Exactly what I'm here for. An artist I've never heard of with a genre I'm not familiar with. And man, does this put the "groove" into............. erm, "groovy".

An artist with an uncompromising vision and beliefs translating that into musical form. 4 stars - bonus mark for a track called "Bongo Bong". Yes, I have the humour of a 6 year old - and?

Oh, it won the Mercury Music Prize, almost certainly shit then. Can honestly say that I "listened" to it yesterday and it barely registered at all. In fact, I have had to go back and listen to the main tracks called out in the reviews to have something to say.

Definitely some Underworld vibes and certainly of a time when Britain hadn't gone to total shit. Dark sweaty basement club DJ throws "Aisha" on, yep, can imagine it went down well.

Not as shit as I thought it might be, largely forgettable.

Never as good as the original stuff from The Byrds is it? Pleasant enough folky-country rock, that - to be clear - I enjoyed but - equally - would not have been sad at missing out on entirely.

The most 3 star album I've given 3 stars to

Hmmmm. Odd choice really. Whilst pretty different to anything else around at the time, did it unleash a movement off the back of it? Do bands regularly name-check this as the reason they make music?

A clear example of the older R&B tradition with the more modern electric rock vibes. Is there any other band where the vocalist is essentially an after-thought to the production line of guitarists?

Anyway, I've already listened to way too much "white blokes play R&B" and this barely registered.

Can only imagine how much better this album would be with plenty of drugs and liberal nubile hippy chicks available.

Sadly I am too much of a square to ever truly appreciate this album

A name I "know" without really knowing what they sound like, or being able to name any tracks.

But this firmly sits within the "riot grrrrrl" genre doesn't it. It's all angry and spiky and fast and shows that girls can rock with the best of them. Fantastic energy.

As funky as it is hip-hoppy. As other reviews have noted, it would be a very different world where this uplifting vibe was the dominant force for that particular genre. But, once again, this project has helped deliver by shining a light on an artist / genre that had completely passed me by and would have been unlikely to appear on my radar.

What an album. Probably in my Top 5 REM albums who are in my top 5 artists ever. Became aware of them around "Out of Time" and absolutely devoured everything I possibly could. Sure, it's kinda pop (pop-adjacent?) which the purists seem to dislike, but WHAT AN ALBUM

My older brother introduced me to this album when I was, I guess 13 / 14. I didn't really understand it, but I knew that it was different and exciting - from the insane track lengths to the vivid album sleeve.

I guess "Schizoid Man" is probably the most well know but I had to play "Return of the Fire Witch" twice because it's just soooooo good. The flute, the drums.................... *insert heart emoji*

*weary sigh* As much as I love this project, sometimes the list feels like hard work. It says it all that the Spotify track count for this album is around 500k-1m for everything and then TWO HUNDRED MILLION for Sunny Afternoon. And Sunny Afternoon is a load of tedious old bollocks

Defaults 3 stars.

OK, that's enough Elvis Costello lads. Wait - he has 6 albums on here and The Hives have NONE. What the..................

"Tiny Dancer" and some other songs. Obviously Reg is a total ledge but beyond the lead track, there's not much here beyond the standard Elton template. Which is fine.