Reviews by mibbiesaye

I have to admit I'm taking a perverse pleasure in how much the 80s choices on this list baffle so many of the reviewers. This album was really popular when it came out and defined that 80s pop sound as much as any other. It wasn't a follower. If you read the UK music press at the time you wouldn't be surprised to see this on the list. The book is very obviously the product of that UK music journo culture and that culture loved this album. It's archly intellectual while being pop enough for Radio 1. That was catnip for UK music journalists. Green was guaranteed to say a lot more in interviews than "we're only doing it for the music". The press loved his progression from post punk Avant spikiness to indie pop to New York produced chart pop. They felt like they'd smuggled one of their own into the mainstream.

Good grief they have a song called Shooting Hoops. Trying so hard to be cool and laid back I have my suspicions they throw a strop backstage if their cheese and ham sandwiches aren't cut into triangles.

The US tracklisting looks better. Feels a bit uneven having the two monster singles crammed together at the end of side one.

I'm sorting of amazed at the virulence of some of these 1 star reviews. I always assume that Roadrunner is just utterly irresistible and that Pablo Picasso is guaranteed to put a smile on your face. And overall the album is simple beautiful rock and roll with an admittedly unique and off kilter sensibility writing the songs.

Anyway my incredibly modest claim to fame is that I once performed Rhys Chatham's An Angel Moves To Fast To See alongside Ernie Brooks the bass player on this. There was me, him, a drummer and um... 99 other guitar players. Me and ol' Ern didn't get a chance to get close. The original recording of that guitar symphony (not featuring me) would put the cat amongst the pigeons on this thing.

They definitely went on to make a couple of records better than this one but I still like it. It's more of an overall vibe than a collection of distinctly great songs.

The reviews for this are educational to someone like me who studiously ignored nu metal. These guys appear to be the uncool band on the scene to many. I still can't tell the difference. I don't feel the need to immerse myself in the genre to 'get it'. It is kind of bland and repetitive but not in a way that upsets me. Maybe if I cared about numetal it would.

When I was a student a Zappa loving goth told me people are either Zappa people or Beefheart people. I'm definitely a Beefheart person by some margin. I quite like the sound of this one and there are some great tracks like I'm Not Satisfied and Trouble Every Day but its occasional Zappa patented arch tone can be a stone cold drag. Let's listen to The Fugs instead next time.

In her line of work my wife has worked against a fair few awful people and she says Bad people can't help but tell you they are Bad. They find a way to tell you they are Bad.

I didn't like it back then either. Anodyne.

Probably fun live if you're in the right mood but utterly redundant to me as an album experience. I kept wishing I was listening to the Ramones or Motorhead or one of their more innovative late 90s post-hardcore contemporaries.

I always feel like there is a superiority and low level cruelty to Zappa's satire that I can't get with.

Although I quite like the warm fug sound of the album I think despite his reputation as rock music's SERIOUS COMPOSER there are real limitations to his way with a top line. He seems to have two approaches. One is the doowop/oldie tune pastiche and the other is a psychedelic melody structure that sounds pretty similar each time he uses it. I got pretty bored with it by the end of the album.

There is some filler on this album but the heights more than make up for it. I like how it so utterly belongs in its time. It's a special group that can make ironic snark with hidden soul work so well.

An album with a song called Second Hand Woman turns out as bad as I imagined. A lot of those guys from the 60s/early 70s tried to update themselves in the 80s. They got new haircuts, fashionable clothes and spent a load of money on the latest gear and made some awful unlistenable records.

1980 - Prince, Bowie and Kate Bush all put out albums out that year that could be on the list instead, and that's just off the top of my head.

Cheese overdose

I quite like the messier jazzier quiet bits. I would have taken a whole album of that instead of their need to blast in with workaday big riffs. Overall it feels like over polished post hardcore.

Prince has a grand measly total of 3 albums on this list. The exact same as fucking Aerosmith. Ridiculous.

It was a beautiful spring day when I trotted home aged 15 from the local Woolworths with my brand new copy of Low-Life by New Order. I was very excited to hear the music because I had loved their performance from Maida Vale Studios on BBC2 last year and watched my VHS copy of it many many times. I found the tracing paper adorned cover enticing and sophisticated. Overall it fitted well as part of my teenage self transformation from dweeby metal kid into eclectic cool kid with a grown-up genre free outlook on music and culture. I had changed my room recently mixing Motorhead posters with posters of The Cure and The Cramps. I had even taken responsibility for my first ever pot plant of my own perched on a bookshelf.

The sun burst through my upstairs window dappling the room in a warm Spring glow. I was taking my first listen while marvelling at the unique artwork while giving my new responsibility a much needed drink. A too enthusiastically given drink as it turned out because the saucer the plant pot sat in soon started to spill a waterfall from my bookshelf splatting straight down onto my treasured new record bobbling and ruining the lovely tracing paper. A useful lesson in how a certain amount of dweebyness will never leave us.

I'm listening to the same copy forty years later and tracing the bubbles on the tracing paper lightly with my fingers.

Solid 90s weirdy hiphop. Sounds a bit Prince Paul by way of the Gravediggaz.

What are you doing to me random album generator? In the past week I've had two records, this and Crowded House, that I used to argue about with a now deceased pal. I didn't like either, especially Crowded House, while he loved both, especially Crowded House. Melancholic listens both because I miss those arguments. Of course time and the context has dulled my ire and I've enjoyed both, especially Frank Black ;)

I find it best to treat the song American Pie as optional in all circumstances. In this case it was marked as a bonus track, so I feel fully justified.

An absolute all time favourite. There aren't too many other albums that have so demanded my attention to every word.

I smiled at the Wikipedia article's claim that this represents a more modern sound. In 1988 these arrangements already sounded dated based as they were off of Len's own arrangements on his trusty cheap child's synth. But that's one of the things I love about the album. The sound is Leonard Cohen's bloody minded artistry and commitment to the record he wanted to make. I think it fits the songs, the lyrics and his voice at this time perfectly. I've heard covers of most of these songs and none better the original.

Everybody Knows feels ominously more appropriate with every passing social media post.