Reviews by lukazimir_

4/5. There’s something slightly eerie about the album cover of this one to me. I think it’s the slight blur of the shot making it ever so slightly uncanny.

As for the album itself, this is some really good MBP. Brings in some electric guitar which gives it that sense of edge that you get from similar artists like “Novos Baianos” while also including some funk and samba elements too. Lots of great instrumental grooves and jams on this thing whether that be the opener “Ponta De Lanca Africano” or “Cavaleiro Do Cavalo Imaculado.” One of the better new discoveries for me on the generator so far for sure.

4/5. Being their debut, “Talking Heads 77” is not as fully formed as its follow-up albums, but it’s still very good, packed with a ton of songs that have a nervous edge to them. A key example being the records biggest song “Psycho Killer” with that iconic opening bass-line and off-kilter post punk groove which mix perfectly with David Byrnes sing-speak vocal performance where he inhabits a character who seems to be very on edge. But I also love the more laid back groove of opener “Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town” and the tense “don’t worry about the government.” I do tend to prefer the Brian Eno produced trilogy of talking heads albums as well as their live album “stop making sense” but this is still a very fun listen and a great proof of concept of what the talking heads could do when they were still up and comers.

2/5. Nevermind the Bollocks is an extremely important album that helped to shape a lot of the punk music that would come in the following decade, especially in England. However, both the album and the band behind it suck. If it wasn’t for the sheer influence of the thing I’d be tempted to give it a 1. They were a manufactured band where several of the members were picked because they “looked punk.” And in retrospect it’s obvious they didn’t actually believe in anything they sang about considering how much Johnny Rotten loved sucking off the royal family and flirting with right wing talking points. And this tracks, because they didn’t write their own lyrics anyway. And even excluding everything that would only really come to light in retrospect, the music just isn’t particularly good, nor is it as edgy as it thinks it is. Comparing it to its contemporaries that released around the same time, it doesn’t have the hooks of the Ramones debut, nor the actual political edge of the Clash’s debut. Bad album.

5/5. It’s interesting, I usually hate 80’s pop production, and Princes Purple Rain is an 80’s ass album, yet this is a rare case where it really works for me. That is largely because Prince is an insanely good songwriter and performer and this album showcases him at the peak of his powers. Whether that be the banger opener “Let’s go Crazy” or the almost disco-ish “Baby I’m a star.” And of course there’s the closer and title track which is straight up one of the best songs of its decade, that guitar solo still goes insanely hard. An album of pop perfection. As for the movie that this album soundtracks, I have never seen it so I don’t have a take there.

Also as a fun fact, this album is largely responsible for the creation of the “Parental Advisory” sticker. The story goes that Tipper Gore heard her young daughter listening to “Darling Nikki” and flipped out after hearing the lyrics about masturbating to a magazine, so she set up a lobbying group which led to the creation of that sticker you see on explicit albums.

3/5. One of those albums that is a groove machine, especially on my personal highlight “Taaw.” The drums and bright horns give it a very joyful feel and the vocals are pleasant as well. That being said even in its short runtime it does start to get a bit samey so the four tracks here all slightly blend together in my mind. Not a new all-time favorite of mine but still a pleasant listen for a quiet morning.

3/5. The album largely credited with bringing rap music to the mainstream with massive hits like “Tricky” or “Walk This Way” which features the rock band Aerosmith and is an interpolation of their song of the same name. Its influence on the spread of rap music and the aesthetics that the genre would use going forward are undeniable, however my feelings on this album are the same as with their self titled debut. You can tell it was a revolution at its time, but a lot of what came after runs entire marathons around Run DMC in terms of rapping ability, production, variety, flow, etc. And due to that fact going back to a Run DMC album it always feels very basic and plain. Which is not the albums fault, it’s more so the fault of time and how rap music would rapidly evolve over the coming decades.

Even if revisiting Run DMC doesn’t lead to my favorite listening experiences, they still are a foundational group who laid a lot of groundwork for rap music and helped bring it to a mainstream audience, and that much can never be taken from them, so Raising Hell is absolutely an important album that’s worth hearing at least once.

3/5. One of the first things I thought with this album is “this kinda reminds me of the band Chicago” which was apparently on the right track since the producer of this record went on to produce some of their stuff.

Blood, Sweat and Tears is a solid enough jazz-rock record, though oddly enough for me the highlight is not the instrumentation, it’s the vocals which I feel work really well here, there’s a grit to them that works great with the stories being told in the lyrics. The instrumentals are functional and obviously well-played but also sometimes feel very non-distinct, I don’t think I’d be able to pick them out from a crowd of other jazz-rock groups. But still a solid listen.

3/5. This album marks the beginning of what I’d call the doors “Blues era” which encompasses Morrison Hotel and LA Woman. There’s still some elements of psych-rock laced in, but it is much more built around blues riffs. And the album starts off very strong with the 1-2 punch of “Roadhouse Blues” and “Waiting for the Sun.” But from there I do feel Morrison Hotel is a somewhat mixed bag, though not without its high points. However when it comes to the Doors I do always gravitate more toward their first three records

4/5. Tubular bells is most famous for its first few minutes which became the theme for the 1973 film “The Exorcist.” However that is only a small portion of this nearly 50 minute long instrumental prog epic (though it is split into two halves.) It’s definitely not something you’d put on for some casual listening, but it’s one of those records that really feels like a journey, it goes places. One of my favorite moments is around the 10:00-13:00 minute mark in the first half where the song gets much quieter with a tiny guitar line that slowly develops until another line harmonizes with it. And there’s a ton of moments like that throughout. Great listen.

1.5/5. Any fascination I have with this album lies entirely with the story of Syd Barrett himself and less with the album. His story is a fascinating and extremely depressing one. A legend of psychedelia who was a founding member of Pink Floyd, but was ousted from the band due to heavy drug use and a severely declining mental state. Instead of getting Syd help, his managers opted to take him into the studio for some solo material, which over two years of difficult recording resulted in this album.

So is it a piece of genius outsider art that delves into the mind of one of psych-rocks most troubled pioneers? My answer is no. It’s listening to a man having a mental breakdown over what are essentially demo-quality recordings. The opener “Terrapin” is handily the best on the album, but it rapidly plummets from that point until the final few tracks which are basically just outtakes. I found “if it’s in you” so annoying vocally that I looked it up specifically, and now knowing the condition that Barrett was in while recording that song is just depressing.

As I said at the start, there is the tiniest bit of interest with this album due to the history of Syd Barrett, but musically it is bad and occasionally very annoying.

4/5. The first in a trilogy of classic Yes albums, this is just some great prog music. Not quite as wild, experimental or adventurous as “Fragile” or “Close to the Edge” but still very captivating for its full runtime. You get some lengthy prog epics with tracks like “Starship Trooper” or “Yours is No disgrace” but also a handful of more digestible, shorter tracks like the live acoustic cut “The Clap.” And of course the playing is great all throughout.

2.5/5. Some basic ass Glam-Metal/Hard Rock. An album that the 5/10 score was made for. There’s some decent riffs here and there but everything else is so basic and by-the-numbers musically speaking. Lyrically, the album is mostly pretty bad, like a thirteen year olds idea of “badass” and the vocals are fine but not noteworthy. The albums whole vibe can really be summarized by its closer “Good Head” which is a song about how people just wanna get some good head.

4/5. Fela Kuti’s life story and music is a rabbit hole that I would reccomend any music lover goes down, so much bizarre and fascinating stuff there. This album sees him use his signature afrobeat sound to satirize the Nigerian military, something that the military did not respond kindly to as they burned his “compound” to the ground and severely beat both him and his mother.

Aside from the story of the album, it also just sounds great. The opener and title track is a danceable banger, and same goes for “Mr follow follow.” I especially love the vocal chants on the former where a lot of the satire comes in with lines like “go on kill” and “go on die.” One of many essential listens in Fela Kuti’s discography and an essential jazz/afrobeat album in general.

2.5/5. An album that I would describe as a “One Trick Pony.” Simple new-wave grooves with some sax and horns added on top. It starts out strong with the opener “Favourite Shirts” and “Lemon Firebrigade” but then the rest of the album never deviates from the same basic song-structure and patterns leading to the whole thing feeling super samey to the extent where it felt much longer than it actually was.

3/5. Like many people I only really knew Franz Ferdinand for their big hit “Take Me Out.” A song which while fun to play on guitar has never been among my favorite 2000’s indie hits. And my opinion on the album as a whole actually ended up pretty similar. It’s a solid time all around especially on tracks like “The Dark of the Matinée” and “This Fire” but it doesn’t rank among the best 2000’s indie-rock records, at least in my opinion.

3.5/5. Is this an early example of pop-punk? It has the propulsive energy of 70’s punk but replaces the political anger with pop-ready hooks, and it’s not angular/weird enough to be post-punk.

That thought aside, I actually quite enjoyed my time with this Undertones album, lots of great hooks and guitar bits throughout on tracks like “Wrong Way”, “Jump Boys” or “True Confessions.” I wouldn’t place it among the best 70’s punk records, but for what it is it’s a good time.

3/5. “Aaron Dessner of the National co-produced and co-wrote Taylor Swift albums” is still such a strange thing to have happened in music. Though the funnier half of this partnership was Taylor Swift appearing on a the National album.

I hold the music-snob opinion that this album and its predecessor (also released in 2020) “Folklore” are Swifts two best records, though Evermore is the weaker of the two. She fits over the folkier soundscape quite well, and it sees her at her strongest as a storyteller. Which is why it’s a shame that she abandoned everything that made these albums work and has gone on to make several albums like “The Tortured Poets Department” and “The Life of a Showgirl” where there is no appeal outside of the Mythos of Taylor Swift as a person. But at least this album is a solid time, if a slightly mixed bag.

4.5/5. The weakest album in the Nick Drake catalogue, though that’s only because it’s up against some really tough competition (Pink Moon and Five Leaves Left are both 5/5’s for me), which is to say it’s still an amazing record. Bryter Layter sees Nick Drake at his largest scale with horns, orchestration and even backup vocalists on “Poor Boy.” This increase in scale gives the album a very distinct feel from his other records which keep it more stripped-back. If I had to pick a favorite track I’d probably go with “One of these things first” which has a great acoustic guitar part and a strong performance from Nick. Nick Drake was one of the best to ever do it in folk music and Bryter Layter is no exception to that rule, a definite must-listen album in my mind.

5/5. In my estimation, Blonde on Blonde is Dylan’s second best album (only barely behind “Bringing it All Back Home.”) It sees him really perfect the transition to folk-rock that he committed to on Highway 61 Revisited, creating a double album that’s one banger after another, one of the few double albums that doesn’t feel bloated.

Plus you get all sides of Dylan here, “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” is one of his more humorous tracks, “Pledging My Time” gives you his classic ear-shattering harmonica, “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” is a massive 11 minute epic”, etc. The stretch from “Visions of Johanna” to “Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat” though is maybe the single best stretch of songs in Dylan’s entire career, five all-time great songs in a row. Also near the end of the album there’s “Fourth Time Around” which sees Dylan poking fun at the Beatles by emulating the riff/delivery of “Norwegian Wood.”

But yeah, Blonde on Blonde is an album that showcases everything that made Dylan great and “the voice of a generation” with nearly an hour and fifteen minutes of classic song after classic song.

3/5. An unfortunate reality for me is that no-matter how hard I’ve tried to “get” it, I’ve never particularly loved Reggae as a genre. So musically this album does not hit much for me, which again is entirely a me thing. However lyrically this record is great, Marley was a man unafraid to explore harsh political realities and this album is full of that anger/dread.