Reviews by londonhawkredux

It's not "Behaviour", but still somehow brilliantly captures the era. Post "second summer of love", grunge is about to go mainstream but Neil & Chris continue with their synth based rueful observations of life.

Paper Planes is undoubtedly a banger. But there's also a lot of incoherent screeching here. I imagine it's "not for me" in any case, and I have no beef with it being on the list as I remember it being super popular and talked about, but won't be returning to it.

Kinda dull no?

Assumed this was just going to be very silly, play as fast as you can and grunt a bit, metal.

But so much more than that. Yes, it's still at the thrashier end, but there's proper tuneful songs with vocals here. Surprised and delighted. Didn't do quite enough to get the full 5, but very happy to have listened to it.

I've just checked and there's four (yes FOUR) Morrissey solo albums on this list. I'm not entirely certain there's a justification for 3 The Smiths albums, but without Marr, Morrissey is just a droning arse.

Not an artist or album I was familiar with. But very gentle and soulful. The opener "Revelator" is this best here.

2 bang average 1998 albums in a row eh. May as well go and see my comments on Madonna's "Ray of Light" tbh. "It's fine, there are other better albums this year bizarrely excluded"

Really? Greatest 1001 ever. Yes, on the one hand you have an absolute pop legend combining with one of the greatest producers of the era. Ray of Light itself is an absolute STORMER of a track that means this gets a minimum 3 stars. The other single I remember "Frozen" is pretty special too.

But the rest, the rest........................ I just don't see why you would include this when you could have picked, say, Mezzanine by Massive Attach, Elliot Smith's XO or, presumably, any number of other albums from around the world.

3 stars for "pop legend produces career reinvigorating absolute banger"

Sure, I can dig this. Abrasive, raw and, yes, in some ways, not very good. But there's something there that helps it rattle along. Probably not going to come back to it so often, but can now nod sagely and make reference to how influential they would prove to be.

A band I knew of because of the goofy name, but had never listened too. Some stunning harmonies straight off the bat, and, whilst the quality isn't quite there across the entire album, there are definitely some tracks here that will go into regular rotation.

Better than all the other white-guy 60s rock? Hard to say that it's more worthy than, say, K-pop or, oh, I don't know, the biggest selling Japanese artist ever. But very much enjoyed.

Around the time that I would have really started getting into music, showing an interest in the charts, watching TOTP etc. Found "Back to Life" pretty dull then, and it's still pretty dull now. There's nothing fundamentally bad here, laid-back beats and vocals, but doesn't do anything for me.

That was some tasty, if unexciting, crooning.

Makes me want to eat grits and spit tobacco. But as a tofu eating member of the European wokerati, this is not a good thing.

I can only imagine how good the threesome with some very liberal hippie chicks would have been to this album. On the other hand there's a LOT of "white guys play something influenced by blues" floating around this list and, in my humble, Cream are not the best at it.

Can definitely hear the first buds of punk spring in this. Gritty, spiky, angry but still with heart and meaning. Not spectacular for me, but if they're as influential as they say, then well worthy of inclusion on this list.

Middle of the road average late 90s US rock.

I remember first hearing "Marz" via the Midlake connection and instantly LOVING this. Sure, there was a lot of acoustic folk around at the time, but this, along with Midlake themselves and Fleet Foxes was elite. Probably a four, but it gets a bonus star for use of "Jc hates faggots" as a track title

It's Neil, of course sometimes the vocal is a bit "off". And he appears to be a very grumpy man. But it sounds beautiful, and that's what matters.

Loved it - Fela Kuti is one cool cat. No idea if he is the father of Afrobeat, but given how much I love other modern artists in that genre, I doff my cap to him if so. Fully expect another generic 70s white dude album tomorrow though :)

Surprised me how early the Bunnymen got going - I always thought of them as coming later in the decade. Personally love McCullochs vocals and Sargent's jangly guitar, but feels like they haven't quite hit their stride on this one. It's good, but probably wouldn't include it here.